Comment by mschuster91
3 years ago
> History has shown that large unions are similarly prone to exploitation and corruption.
Mostly in the US, it seems. Unions in Europe are healthy and effective. The key difference IMO is the interest people show in democracy and holding delegates accountable.
Here is my experience with "public" unions. When I was working at a public research institute, employees were kind of forced to enter a union. It seemed ok because union's cut was paid by government. Government just wants to look cute to public eye and EU. That union were more or less useless and just collecting huge sums of money. Where does that money goes nobody dares to check. My wife also had to enter a Teacher's union and that is a much larger scam. IMO, Most public unions are parasites living on free government money.
It's also somwehat moot. Unions in the U.S. get their workers better pay and better benefits pretty much regardless of corruption and did so even at the peak of their influence and corruption.
I think it's reasonable to argue against corruption but if you're argument against almost any human institution is just that it is corrupt, then you are arguing against the majority of human institutions ever. Which simply isn't practical.
In the Netherlands they've also become corrupted. The big union leaders have become so used to sitting at the executive table that they've lost track of the people they represent. Of course there's exceptions but I feel that they listen to corporate concerns way too much.
But unfortunately the Netherlands is the country with the most Anglo-Saxon model that is still in the EU. So it was bound to happen.