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At the conceptual level, unionising is simply a group of workers gathering into a group and saying we want to negotiate as a group. Usually this is done by workers to improve conditions and to have a better say when they’ve been being ignored or worse, poorly treated.

Union recognition is then the company accepting that the union exists and then agreeing to meet and engage with it.

Not accepting it, is usually a crappy corporate move in an attempt to not have workers collaborating together.

Lots of research shows that generally places where unions exist have better work conditions and perform better over the long term.

The US has lower union involvement than in many countries.

4 comments

The conceptual level breaks down in places where an open shop is illegal or disincentivized, which I suspect is the case in California where the Wikimedia Foundation is based. Europe usually has open shops, not closed shops, for example.

No, it doesn't. There is no such thing as an "open shop" in the US, even under right to freeload. Union membership is determined by job classification. If you are working in a unionized environment, and your job title is a union job title, you are in the union. You will be covered by the contract your union bargains with the employer. The only question, then, is whether you pay the dues to cover the costs of union membership. In a right to freeload state, you can choose not to pay the costs.

You both have it mostly backwards. The Taft-Hartley act mostly bans closed shops and allows states to pass “right to work” laws making payment of any agency fees to unions optional.

In no state are any employees compelled to formally join a union. In an American-style “closed shops” in a non-right-to-work state, if you don’t join the union the bargaining agreement can charge nonmembers an agency fee representing most of the dues they would pay as members. Not to mention pressure tactics to join.

Also especially in the trades in major markets unions control apprenticeship programs and hiring halls and make it virtually impossible for nonmembers to get union work, as well as gatekeeping access to apprenticeship programs in the first place.

Right to freeload laws work as I describe. Although no employees are forced to "join a union" in the sense of signing a piece of paper joining the union, in all cases they are union employees in practice. That is, the union collectively bargains their working conditions, the union supports them via grievance if the employer doesn't follow the contract, and so on. The right to freeload allows for such a person to get by without paying dues - that is, the cost of providing these collective bargaining and legal representation services.

It just struck me how dystopian the phrase "right to work" is. Like, you have the right to go down the coal mine for 16 hours a day and get lung cancer! No right to get paid, though...

“Right to work” is in the context of criminal wage theft laws, OSHA, EPA, Black Lung Benefits Act, Federal Employees Compensation Act, minimum wage (not that this affects mine workers), overtime, etc. Mine work in the USA is one of the most heavily regulated jobs there is and mine workers are very well paid. “No right to get paid” indeed. Mine workers don’t get paid when there is no mine work to do.

Workers must be doubly free.

"For the conversion of his money into capital, therefore, the owner of money must meet in the market with the free labourer, free in the double sense, that as a free man he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and that on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything necessary for the realisation of his labour-power. "

> Lots of research shows that generally places where unions exist have better work conditions and perform better over the long term.

Do you have any non-partisan sources for this? Genuinely curious. When you say perform better what do you mean specifically? And does better work conditions include better pay or just on-site conditions or something similar?

https://www.nber.org/digest/202508/unpacking-union-wage-prem...

They earn more and are more productive. Here is one Canadian study but I’m sure you can find more if you’re interested.

Thanks for sharing. I’ll take a look!

The non partisan source is the history of the industrial revolution itself.

I am not saying that you are doing this, but I tend to find that people who think we don't need unions anymore are engaging with the status quo in the same way as people who say we don't need vaccines anymore.

We have gone a long way since industrial revolution.

e.g.

Child labor now outlawed.

There is a minimum wage. (You can argue it is still way to low, but going from zero to some is a huge change)

Some OSHA rules mandate employer provide safety equipment.

> Child labor now outlawed.

For now. Many US states are currently trying to roll back these laws though, aren't they?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/22/child-labor-...

https://www.justiceatwork.com/how-are-child-labor-laws-chang...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-several-states-are-pus...

Teens want summer jobs again and you act like they’re sending 8 year olds back to the coal breakers.

It's not teens pushing for it

Literally demonstrating the point in dofm's second paragraph right here...

Thank you. Almost all of the US discourse around unions seems to involve accepting the literally cartoonish framing that the US corporate right managed to force into popular culture.

The fact that union culture in the USA is broken is not a problem with the idea of unions. It's a problem with the USA.

Honestly it's hard to blame folks. The US (and Canada, where I'm from) has seen a 40+ year concerted effort to destroy unions and the propaganda runs deep. There's been a long-running cultural project to depict unions as purely lazy, corrupt, and self-dealing. That same project also involved demonizing social safety nets ("welfare queen") and public projects more broadly using the exact same rhetoric: some people might cheat so we must tear these systems down. It's a language that directs the anger of the aggrieved away from those in power toward those who are powerless, and for nearly a half a century it's been wildly successful.

What you described is the result of the government acting as one big, but very conservative, union.

I think working conditions have changed enough since then to make a request for non-biased studies a reasonable one. Most debates about unions seem to boil down to “I just know” or anecdotes. I would expect unions to fund research to show that working conditions are better in union shops, but not include the fact that some unionized shops can’t compete in a market with non union shops and might go out of business. (But have great working conditions until the last day) And vice-versa for pro industry research. Unions are adversarial, and feel necessary to people that view employment or employers through that lens. It’s possible that we can still credit unions with the status quo, but 1they have nowhere near the adoption of vaccines to make the analogy a good one. I’d rather debate “which employers/industries” need unions than debate whether they are objectively good in all circumstances.

Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government). Where would we be without them?

Smart unions are supposed to take business conditions into account. If the business is losing money, the union would recognize that and pull back a bit, because it needs to be a symbiotic relationship to last, not a parasitic one. However, businesses are rarely willing to share honest financial numbers with their unions.

> Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government).

That’s not at all what a union is. Why else would federal workers need their own unions? The point of a union is collective bargaining power for labor. Federal workers have little to no bargaining power when budgets are set by Congress. Especially when they can’t strike.

I can't parse this comment in relation to the context.

> Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government). Where would we be without them?

Playing devil's advocate:

- Having government functionally like one big union make individual union obsolete.

> Where would we be without them?

Where will you be without them, you mean. The current trajectory of the US government is the opposite of strengthening the rights of labour.

> The non partisan source is the history of the industrial revolution itself.

I think that’s less of a factor of unions existing themselves and more so the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws. Though certainly unions were advocating for stronger labor laws (as they should have been).

> I am not saying that you are doing this, but I tend to find that people who think we don't need unions anymore are engaging with the status quo in the same way as people who say we don't need vaccines anymore.

I wouldn’t think that, because that doesn’t make sense. Vaccines are a clear public good. Unions can be but aren’t necessarily. Or should I bring up public unions like police unions?

I don’t have a strong position on unions. I don’t care too much one way or the other. Folks should be able to freely organize, business should be able to freely fire. But I think the OP’s claims need more substance. If you look at “performance” well none of the Mag 7 have unions, all have insanely high pay, and great benefits to boot. Would it be better under a union? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I have additionally gone down a bit of a rabbit hole on this bit:

> the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws

To a meaningful extent, especially in 19th century Britain, the concept of the general public is the product of labour organisation, not the source of it.

It's a pretty new concept — the idea that the public have any single collective solidarity or consensus, can be consulted, have the ability to read newspapers etc.

A non-trivial part of that comes from the empowerment of labour, from the creation of commercial schools and universal education (which emerges from the social contract that grew as a result of organised labour interacting with the state etc.

Unions were powerful in the education of adults, they created unified leisure time, they furthered the idea of trade schools, they created a path to politics for the underclass, etc.; I don't think there would have been a general public without labour organisation. Just a rarified wealthy upper class.

I reject the notion that the public is the same thing as a union in the manner you are describing.

Labor laws came about because before there were labor laws, the employees would form an angry mob to burn down the boss's house and shoot his cat, and the boss would flee before he was next.

This is the same reason the government protects unions.

none of the Mag 7 have unions

They all recognise unions and have unionised employees in countries where unions are the default, with the exception of Tesla.

Not really. At least not in the way that matters.

Maybe you could explain what matters and what doesn’t?

> I think that’s less of a factor of unions existing themselves and more so the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws. Though certainly unions were advocating for stronger labor laws (as they should have been).

> […]

> I wouldn’t think that, because that doesn’t make sense.

Then you don't really know history.

I know history better than you do, generally speaking.

You cherry-picked the wrong comment. Vaccines and vaccine adoption has nothing to do with unions nor are they even remotely comparable.

Is union recognition legally required to, say, organise a strike? Do workers who participate in a strike organised by a non-recognised union expose themselves to getting fired?

When strikes are legal is really complicated and depends on industry.

The thing to understand is that labor law in the US was created to "reduce labor strife." Unions existed before they were recognized as legal. What labor law tries to do is make an orderly process with the goal is no strikes and a mutually agreed-on contract.

The company recognizing the union is the first step towards a contract. Basically it's saying "I understand this organization represents these employees and I should negotiate with it."

This reminds me of the German approach to street marches. They are allowed, must be registered with the police, and the police will ensure there are several policemen around for each protestor just in case any of them "try anything". The police form a box around the protest, restricting it from going anywhere not approved and restricting people from seeing the signs; they also blare their sirens so that the chants can't be heard outside the box. The cost of all this is, of course, billed to the protest organiser.

So as you can see, they have incredible free speech! They allow just anyone to carry out a street march!

As someone living in Germany, what you're saying is not true. It is correct that protests have to be registered, that's the case for pretty much all developed countries. It is also correct that the organizers are responsible to cover costs. But the police doesn't restrict people from seeing signs, doesn't blare their sirens. They mostly stay on the side while handling the traffic, and intervene if the protest becomes chaotic. In the vast majority of protests they do literally nothing other than being present.

Compared to the US where multiple protesters have been killed on video by ICE this year Germany is a dream of free speech

That doesn't match what I saw.

Do you often go to protests in Germany? Or do you mean something you saw online?

There is no evidence of unions performing better for digital services at all. Unions do make sense when physical labor and danger is involved because the demands of leadership contradict realities of human physiology like getting tired, leading to injury or death.

> Unions do make sense when physical labor and danger is involved because the demands of leadership contradict realities of human physiology like getting tired, leading to injury or death.

You mean, like actors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAG-AFTRA

Or teachers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Education_Association

Or service employees? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Employees_Internationa...

> Unions do make sense when physical labor and danger is involved because the demands of leadership contradict realities of human physiology like getting tired, leading to injury or death.

Sure, the arguably most successful union in the history of the US, the Screen Actors Guild, is only useful because it kept all of those actors from being worked to death, and it has nothing to do with all of the millions of dollars that its members make yearly.

“No evidence” or “I haven’t looked for evidence”? Unions do more than just keeping people from dying in mining accidents — for example, I read this yesterday with what sure looks to be concrete benefits for the workers:

https://www.propublicaguild.org/updates/propublica-guild-rat...

This isn’t impressive. 13% over 4 years? In any case this can’t be evaluated without knowing what was initially offered pre union and what they initially asked for.

Can you show the research you did before declaring there is no evidence of better performance? For example, how does the ProPublica contract compare to the industry trend?

Luckily, desk workers can never get tired or experience physical or psychological stress, or be subjected to unreasonable demands from leadership; these are just laws of nature.