> There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term.
Since unions helped to end practices like child labor and what amounted to indentured service, I’m not sure you know what “tragic” or “long term” means.
If what you mean is more like “what have they done for us lately”, you should probably just say it and start that conversation instead
That's taking something that happened about a century ago and using it as an argument for the current situation.
If you're looking for something much closer to home, look at how in the past half century unionized corporations were forced to take over pensions, and how they're doing now because of this. Pensions are a financial product, which should be paid for by each employee - quite likely with supervision and safety net from the state. Putting it on the employer's tab turned out to be more or less giving away the future of the company. And that's pretty much 100% on the unions.
The alternative view is that, left to themselves, people don't save enough for retirement and, for better or worse, social security in the US really isn't enough for a comfortable retirement.
That said, there are a lot of reasons why traditional defined benefit pensions aren't a good match for a lot of jobs today. I have one (for a non-union job) but it's mostly a positive because I'm sure I never gave it a second thought early career when I was earning into it.
This is patronizing and broadly not true for a majority of people. This myth was created during the Great Depression to sell Social Security. Some people do not save for their retirement, but vastly most of us do. Should I be forced to pay for those who waste their money on entertainment and high living?
One of the reasons it's broadly not true in the US is that, between social security and medicare, people are provided for at some level upon retirement based in no small part on their own contributions. I paid into both those pools so I'm not sure why you think that money (along with other savings) constitutes being "forced to pay for those who waste their money on entertainment and high living."
Your first paragraph was pretty much true. Unions don't exist to be nice to the executives and shareholders. That's not their purpose. Their purpose is to act as a balance to the outsized power that corporate management and shareholders wield in the employee-employer-shareholder relationship. They only care about the "health" of the company to the extent that the company is healthy enough to provide good compensation and working conditions to employees. They're not there to add shareholder value. This is working by design.
You're getting hot backlash for framing this as tragic. Doubly so since you identify as "part of the worker class" but your entire post is simping for the executive and shareholder class who don't care about you and would lay you off without even thinking about it if it would increase the stock price.
Since unions helped to end practices like child labor and what amounted to indentured service, I’m not sure you know what “tragic” or “long term” means.
If what you mean is more like “what have they done for us lately”, you should probably just say it and start that conversation instead