I’m not anti union altogether, I think they have done incredible things in history. I also think they encourage terrible employees to be worse because they know they will be protected. They also disincentivize the top performers because they don’t get rewarded the same as non unionized workers. My life overall has been better by not being in a union.

I’ll use Boeing as an example because I and my spouse have worked there as pilot and engineer. Before they became an executive we lived in a LCOL area and outearned all the unionized engineers in Seattle for the equivalent grade, while living somewhere much cheaper. The 401k match was superior for non-unionized employees.

In the PNW all unionized employees are given mandated bonuses and raises on a fixed schedule, but because we didn’t reward underperformance, those of us who are high performing individuals received significantly larger bonuses (25-30% of earned income for the year). We were making over $750k combined before they were an executive.

Then there comes the whole firing poor performers and those violating policy. It’s still difficult when non-unionized, but practically impossible in the PNW. It’s not difficult to get away with wage theft through mischarging and negligence of budget management. It took 2 years to fire an employee who negligently mismanaged and lied about program hours to the tune of ~$8M when we had all the teams chats and emails to show.

My spouse and I have always been ranked in the top 10% on our rankings. I don’t agree with rewarding laziness and underperformance of the job, not that union members inherently fall into that category, but they protect and reward it. I would also have been less financially well off due to the union.