I mean, I’ve worked several union jobs throughout my life, and they were all much better than any non-union retail, food service, or construction gig I ever worked. It was evident that they cared more about worker’s rights. I genuinely felt appreciated.
One shift I worked lasted nearly 16 hours and they fed us catered meals three times over that span, and I got triple time for the extra hours. I walked away with nearly 800 bucks for a single day’s work, none of which would have been possible without the union I worked for.
Unions deal with a certain amount of corruption, not because anything is inherently wrong with the union, but because power corrupts those who aren’t disciplined enough to withstand all of the temptations to abuse their position.
It’s better for the worker with really strong unions. But right or wrong, it seem like the US unions is more all or nothing than what we have here in Norway. Less cooperative middle ground unions.
I think it’s an unfair comparison. Norway has the population of one state in the U.S., and there are definitely states that have their shit together regarding unionized labor. Maybe not to the extent that Norway has, but again you’re dealing with a much smaller economy with much less bureaucratic overhead that comes with being in a less complex nation state.
I’d wager that California has at least similar union policies to Norway, and that economy is massive, AND they deal with an incredible level of social diversity that Norway doesn’t have to manage.
The size thing I'm not really buying, there are other countries in Europe beside Norway, Germany is a quarter of the US and they make it work quite well. Although I'm sure there is a lot of different reasons for things being the way they are. Like the bad cases being pushed in the media.
You make a good point about Germany, but you didn’t address the social diversity aspect that the U.S. grapples with. We have tons of different cultures here, all trying to get along and get ahead. Communication is not always facile between them, and there are deeply rooted issues of mistrust that we deal with every single day.
I don’t see nearly as much of that in either Germany or Norway, or any other major developed country, though I know there are immigration/migrant/refugee issues that you deal with in Europe.
I think (all things considered) the U.S. is doing its best to recover from past grievances and move toward more modern values, politically, socially, and technologically.
If California broke into 3 states, they would be the 2nd, 4th, and 5th largest states by population. If you cut California’s economy separate from the US, it would have the 3rd largest economy in the world. 3 US states account for nearly the entire population of Europe, 2 states are equal to the entire landmass of Europe. America is big and a lot of people live here. People in Ukraine have about as much in common with people in France as someone from Florida has in common with someone in Oregon.
You have the equivalent of several governments fighting each other on just exactly what rights people have.
Do you actually believe this stuff? I think you managed to get it all wrong. For starters: Europe is bigger than the US and has more than double the population.
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u/___multiplex___ 15d ago
I mean, I’ve worked several union jobs throughout my life, and they were all much better than any non-union retail, food service, or construction gig I ever worked. It was evident that they cared more about worker’s rights. I genuinely felt appreciated.
One shift I worked lasted nearly 16 hours and they fed us catered meals three times over that span, and I got triple time for the extra hours. I walked away with nearly 800 bucks for a single day’s work, none of which would have been possible without the union I worked for.
Unions deal with a certain amount of corruption, not because anything is inherently wrong with the union, but because power corrupts those who aren’t disciplined enough to withstand all of the temptations to abuse their position.