Comment by ryanmercer
7 years ago
>You've only been treated fairly because of the substantial gains that unions have won for you in the past.
I'm treated fairly because it's the 21st century not 19th and early 20th century, when unions did most of their beneficial work. We have things like OSHA, fire marshals, etc. We have far more avenues of employment than in the 19th and early 20th centuries as well. And arguably more importantly, we have mobile broadcast platforms called cellphones that with a few taps of a screen can broadcast to a global audience to document conditions and immediately expose them.
Unions are dying, presumably because people don't want to be a part of them (can you blame them, there's countless documented instances of union corruption, in some instances with direct ties to organized crime ahem -> https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/ )
In 2016, there were 14.6 million members in the U.S., down from 17.7 million in 1983. The percentage of workers belonging to a union in the United States was 10.7%, compared to 20.1% in 1983.
> Unions are dying, presumably because people don't want to be a part of them
Couldn't this also be down to rules against union busting being relaxed and companies like Amazon taking full advantage thus making it difficult for people to join a union even if they wanted to?
Or could it be due to the fact people don't want to give a percentage of their paycheck to historically corrupt organizations so they can be told "you can't work this week, sorry, we're striking" when people need to put food on the table and service debt...
As far as the 'evil' Amazon mention, they pay double minimum wage here in Indiana as is, people online like to whine about how unfair Amazon is yet people here fight for jobs at Amazon.
People need to wake up and realize they have better working conditions than nearly every other human being from a past age. It's called work for a reason.