Have you ever belonged to a union?

[Jeeves]

Then people might as well stop voting - but that would be the problem, not the solution.

That's in the works. Between disillusionment and party abandonment, we're already down to about 65%, the UK isn't much higher and the Americans are closer to half , with voter suppression added in.

 

[paddoboy]

In the US, where most states have "right to work" laws, union membership is "optional"
- The applicant knows he won't be hired if he opts to join the union. The power of a union is in being united; piecemeal, it will wither, fragment and die.
- Without it, the bosses can pick you off one by one; claw back all the gains your fathers and grandmothers won.

Yes, in certain instances that also exists in Australia too.

 

[paddoboy]

If I was you paddoboy I'd give up on the hate Morrison BS and make yourself informed of what is happening in your states ALP, that's if you don't mind their 'rock spiders' getting hold of your kids and fiddling with them.

I don't hate Morrison...I am just disgusted that we have such a goon for a PM. I was once of the opinion that we could never do worse then Tony Abbott...I was wrong.
With regards to the NSW state branch, the cleaning out is certainly warranted and I believe is happening at this time at the bequest of Albanese.

 

[iceaura]

effectively captive populations of workers, nearly nonexistent safety and health regulations, limited mobility between jobs, lack of vocational training, exploitative policies intended to control workers (the 'company store'

These are all resurgent since Reagan. Maybe the "company store" has morphed, but not the vertical integration that set that trap.
The near-disappearance of union vocational training, in particular, serves as a sort of canary in the shaft. There are other ways of providing vocational training - but they are not cheap, they have their own priorities, and they haven't been picking up the load.

The exclusion of unions from health care was an early and deliberate tactic of the corporate union busters - back then health insurance was a profit generator for the company, and control of it was leverage on the employee. Not ambitious enough to research, but iirc that was another of GM's contributions to the digging of the pitfall.

Imho the most significant and unrecognized consequence of destroying unions has been not illegal immigration and resulting loss of border or community control, but loss of work time and scheduling control. Scheduling by AI for maximum "efficiency" in labor costs not only carries large net debits of various cumulative kinds to the corporation (long term damage to the bottom line), but plays havoc with human community and civilization. It's a major outsourcing of costs, and nobody is picking up the tab. (Unions enforced not only the limited-hours work day, but the concept of the "shift": the hours were contiguous, and the start time was fixed weeks or even months in advance).

 

[Bowser]

yes, but not very long. I've heard some good things and bad things.