Unions in the US

While only 12% of the entire workforce belong to unions, for public employees it is much higher, over 30%. Why such a difference? Could it be that unions are so successful in raising money to elect candidates who will meet excessive union demands? Is it that public unions have so many elected officials in their pockets that they can guarantee more to their members? Is it that more public unions can require union membership for employment? It's been my experience in the private sector that the suggestion of unionization comes about either when the company is truly so deaf to the needs of its employees that a unions seems to be the only answer, or the union is brought up and encouraged by the employees who do a poor job to begin with and want job security without having to perform well. I have personally experienced the latter.

In several industries, in several states, union membership is a pre-condition of employment. You can't be a teacher in CA (I think) without belonging to one of the two major teacher's unions. Regardless of how you feel about unions extracurricular PACs, you have to pony up the dues each month. It puts a lot of money in the union coffer, when the state requires union membertship.

Personally, I would not join a union and if it was a pre-condition of employment I would look for another location/state/company that did not force workers to join. Unions did have a place in our society before; but, most of them have outlived their usefulness and are simply parasites that produce nothing and do nothing but waste employees hard earned dollars.

I've never joined a union that I wasn't forced to. In my experience, which is all in the public sector, all public unions remove any performance based system of raises and rewards. They also do everything in their power to prevent crappy employees from being fired. They negotiate excessive "disciplinary steps" to be sure that no matter what an employee does, the employer is required to go through an ungodly number of steps that accomplish NOTHING as they involve verbal warnings, verbal counselings, written counselings, departmental written counselings, etc. Everything is a counseling and there's never any real threat unless you are that worried about talking to your boss or boss's boss. Basically, unions are great if you are lazy or incompetent and want job security and guaranteed raises. If you leech the system long enough you will be impossible to fire also since unions make seniority more important that job performance. If you're a hard worker, and someone who works hard to get raises and promotions, unions are terrible as they ensure you will get no more recognition or reward than any other employee unless you have seniority.