I’ve spent 30 years in the US, many of those in red states, and I’ve heard the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” canard way more often than I’ve heard anti-union rhetoric. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti- (private sector) union rhetoric.
Have you considered that maybe peoples’ reactions are based on bad experiences with unions? In particular, public sector unions. Even liberal areas are pretty anti-union, and with things like the DC and NYC Subways falling apart despite massive funding, who can blame them? With police unions protecting crooked cops and teachers unions protecting bad teachers, who can blame them?
(I think it’s also fair to say that the sheer rapaciousness of American public sector unions is the result of an anti-union war that has otherwise receded from the public consciousness. They fight everything tooth and nail, even reasonable reforms, because they’re the outnumbered survivors of anti-union movements.)
"I’ve spent 30 years in the US, many of those in red states, and I’ve heard the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” canard way more often than I’ve heard anti-union rhetoric. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti-(private sector) union rhetoric."
That's because union organizing campaigns are so rare. Usually, the organizers get fired. WalMart has closed entire stores that voted for a union.
Some anti-union resources for employers.[1][2][3]
[3] advertises a "95% win rate".
I heard anti-union rhetoric in college when people were wondering why it cost so much to set up A/V in a lecture hall. If you haven't heard any, I'm not sure whether to tell you that you've lived a sheltered life or you've so internalized the anti-union rhetoric (like your comment, right here!) that it doesn't register when you hear it.
Also, I'm very confused about your "liberal areas" comment. My impression as a regular NYC subway rider is that the subway doesn't have massive funding, and what little funding it has is being spent poorly because of decisions by politicians, not because any union has asked for anything or is getting paid too much. I've heard a lot of anger at service cuts, at our governor, at the recent fare enforcement crackdown. I've heard zero anger about the salaries paid to unionized employees.
(I have, in fairness, heard the fairly inside-baseball complaint that the unions are pushing back against extending one-person operation to more train lines, for fears of more job cuts. I don't know anyone who thinks that's the biggest problem facing the subway, and I think the vast majority of the ridership, even the politically-active ridership with opinions about the merits of unions, has very little idea that this debate even exists.)
I do agree that people in liberal areas are unhappy about police unions. I think that's its own, special thing (among other things, in NYC the Second Amendment applies more to cops and retired cops than it does to civilians), and I don't get the sense that people are unhappy about teachers' unions in the same way.
The NYT, a fairly left-leaning paper in a left-leaning city, wrote about how the union is causing cost explosion building the second avenue subway. As to the funding—New York’s MTA has a significantly larger budget than London’s very similar system. London, meanwhile, covers 100% of its operating costs from fares, while New York covers just half.
However London's underground system also has unions, so if the suggestion is that it's more efficient than New York, the implication is that it's unlikely to be the presence of a union causing the issues.
European unions in general actually work, for some reason unknown to me. I've never seen, in the modern era, a union in the US do anything but harm its members in general.
The rhetoric goes that the union is enforcing expensive outdated work to be kept to keeps their members employed. However I don’t buy that rhetoric. If that is the case, it is not the union’s fault, but the governments fault for hiring a corrupt contractor.
So if an employee steals from their employer, is it the employers fault for hiring them?
Unions always enforce expensive, outdated work. The taxi cab unions fought Uber and Lyft, a vastly superior taxi system, all to prop up an existing outdated system.
Uber and Lyft are vastly superior than the existing taxi system and better for everyone. It got rid of the medallian system that prevented many people from driving a cab and used technology to make it very convenient to find a ride at any time.
Good things won't last forever. The taxi cab unions are already fighting these companies back in many cities.
They kind of remind me of the record industry and file sharing in the 90s: fighting technology, so they can keep their outdated and expensive system in place.
Most unions are like this. As another example, they will fight automation and force companies to hire multiple, overpaid workers, for a job that can be done by a single person. This only holds companies back and puts them at a disadvantage.
1. That doesn't seem right to me? http://web.mta.info/news/pdf/MTA-2019-Prelim-Budget-July-Fin... says the MTA budget is $16.6B, of which $8.7B is to NYCT (subway + bus + Staten Island Railroad). http://content.tfl.gov.uk/transport-for-london-budget-2018-1... says the TfL budget is £9.8B (about $12.2B), of which the Underground alone has a budget of £2.5B (about $3.1B), buses are almost as much, and then there's the Overground and a few others. I don't think the distinction in budget is anywhere near 5 to 1.
2. My argument is not so much whether it has massive funding or not, my argument is that riders have the impression that it has insufficient funding - i.e., riders do not have the impression that the problem with the subway is union salaries and benefits. I'm (obviously) happy to get into transit geekery, but this discussion is about whether people have a positive or negative view of unions.
I mean I think most of us are much happier with the Second Avenue Subway existing at too high a cost than not existing, and I think we primarily blame government for dragging their feet, there's no evidence they were ready to build it at a normal cost but prudently pushing back on greedy unions.
Can you cite your sources? I don't think you're comparing like to like.
These costs also need to be normalized for ridership figures (NYC has higher ridership). And don't forget that most of the figures you're going to see for NYC are for the entire MTA, which runs a lot more than just the subway.
And it's important to distinguish the cost per ride vs the subsidy per ride. Fare revenue shouldn't count "against" a transit system.
I used to regularly see one MTA employee hosing down the platform while 3-4 others watched. I always assumed that that was the result of a union negotiation, since it was pretty consistent, but could be wrong.
Unions for employees paid by taxpayers are not comparable to unions in non taxpayer funded organizations.
There’s a serious problem with incentives in the taxpayer funded space due to every union member voting in political elections, whereas the non union public is not involved, resulting in the politicians and unions being able to strike deals and no one really representing taxpayers.
Given OP’s reference to anti-union ideology being “inculcated” I was thinking Of authoritative sources. When was the last time you heard an anti union screed from a politician? (Versus anti corporate screeds?)
The common phrase "Right to Work" is anti-union propaganda. Pro-union laws don't prohibit people from working but rather exist for the betterment of workers despite what "Right to Work" suggests.
I’ll never get the support of Dues Crazy union leadership, those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune. But the members love Trump. They look at our record economy, tax & reg cuts, military etc. WIN!
Trump is almost certainly anti-union himself given he has been an employer most of his life but his comment is not anti-union ideology. If it were he would not be careful about which segment of the union he's criticizing and he would not have positive things to say about their members.
I'm not disputing that at all, I'm just saying that that his statement doesn't demonstrate a pervasiveness of anti-union ideology. In fact it's showing some weariness of coming out too strongly against unions because of popular support for them. Such popular support wouldn't exist if anti-union ideology was widely accepted.
Have you considered that maybe peoples’ reactions are based on bad experiences with unions? In particular, public sector unions. Even liberal areas are pretty anti-union, and with things like the DC and NYC Subways falling apart despite massive funding, who can blame them? With police unions protecting crooked cops and teachers unions protecting bad teachers, who can blame them?
(I think it’s also fair to say that the sheer rapaciousness of American public sector unions is the result of an anti-union war that has otherwise receded from the public consciousness. They fight everything tooth and nail, even reasonable reforms, because they’re the outnumbered survivors of anti-union movements.)