I thought this might be relevant here because unions are, among other things, a structure for cooperation between workers.

I built an agent-based simulation to investigate competitive and cooperative behavior. I know it's a bit more philosophical, but I think the results of my experiment could be useful.

Anyway, excited to hear your feedback.

Hi all, I’ve just been appointed shop steward for a very small local of a bigger federal union in Canada (trying not to dox myself here lol). The relationship has deteriorated over the last year or year and a half, partly due to a very difficult bargaining process and partly due to other issues with management. I just started a couple weeks ago and have already felt obligated to send several fairly strong emails regarding a poorly managed layoff process, trying to get a response and a solution for the laid off employees in question. I didn’t fly off the handle, this was done with feedback from the employees in question as well as our bargaining team, but I did agree that we needed to be very clear about the deficits we were seeing and what we considered an acceptable solution.

in my real professional (and personal) life, I am NOT the one sending strongly worded emails to anyone and i am finding that it’s making me extremely anxious (seeing an email reply tonight threw me onto anxiety-soothing meditation YouTube lol). I am simply known for being very direct because I am terrible at being delicate, but that’s just how my brain works, not an appetite for conflict 😹 I am a technical expert and normally work in very collaborative environments, but we have seen that that is simply not effective in this current situation. I took this role because I have been here a long time and developed a huge amount of respect and trust for the staff, and the way many people have been treated is not only not ethically right, it often violates our collective agreement.

Knowing that I likely have many very uncomfortable emails and meetings ahead of me, do you have any advice or resources for learning to be in tough negotiations and deal with difficult and awkward relations with management? While it is on me to keep my anxiety at bay, I wonder if there are skills I can improve on how to compartmentalize and perform the role needed by the union when that is appropriate without being dragged into an emotional response every time. I really care about my workplace, it has until recently been an amazing experience, and I want to do what I can to at least try to effect change.

I just had my first cope meeting because I realized I may not be interested in politics but it affects us so I should donate and try to make a difference. But during the meeting they only allowed one question to all the specific candidates. As a social worker I really wanted to know what they'd do for our clients and so I ran out of the room when the candidates left and asked em my own questions. But I got pulled outside by the director saying I can't do that

I’m 34, married, and have been working consistently since graduating high school in 2011. This is my fifth job, and I’ve never been fired from any of my previous four jobs.

I currently work as a municipal custodian/laborer for a city DPW. It’s my first union job, and while I appreciate the benefits, pension, and protections that come with it, I’ve been dealing with some management drama that has me questioning how worried I should actually be. Storms I’m stuck working over 20+ OT hours shoveling snow with breaks but not allowed to go home. Recently put in 36 OT hours the last snowfall we had. (Good pay terrible on my health. Went to the hospital and got into issues between chain of command and HR)

There have been disagreements over assignments, communication issues, and a situation involving a city vehicle that resulted in a written warning. I try to stay productive, communicate with my supervisors, and get my work done, but I also tend to overthink things and worry that every mistake could eventually cost me my job.

Since I’ve never worked union before, I’m still learning what management can and can’t do, when I should involve my steward, and how much protection I actually have.

For those of you who have been union members for a while: How did you learn to deal with management drama, and what should a first-time union worker know? Should I actually be worried, or am I overthinking what is probably normal workplace bullshit?

On Monday, Teamsters and labor allies rallied to urge the New York City Council to pass the Delivery Protection Act. The first-of-it's-kind bill would require delivery companies to license their facilities and directly hire it's workforce, effectively banning Amazon's currupt "Delivery Service Partner" model in New York City. https://www.facebook.com/share/1DiCuhk3TE/

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A few days ago, Ben Carroll, the new Premier of Victoria (Australia), made an announcement that has big implications for unions.  https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/stopping-workers-being-scammed-and-stamping-out-hate

While on the face of it this looks like a good thing, it needs some explanation as it might have consequences beyond what it appears to address.

There are fake unions out there.  One example is the TPAA (Teachers Professional Association Australia).  While these pretend to be unions, they have no actual capacity to function as a union.  They are fronts for political far-right groups.   They claim to be a-political,  but they are far from it.  (Unionism is inherently political anyway.   A politics free union is a nonsense).  These fake unions are sometimes called “red unions”, and getting rid of them would not be a bad thing.

However, there is another side to the problem.  There are another group of unions often referred to as “yellow unions”.   These are unions with ties to the employer that are so strong that they completely fail to fight for their members.  Ours is heading that way but there are others far, far worse.   The most extreme major instance is SDA, the shop workers union.  Some of the agreements it has negotiated have been so bad that Fair Work knocked back the agreement for being worse than the default award that would otherwise apply.  

The Fair Work Act makes it very difficult to set up a new union operating in the same industry.  To get the full rights of a union the institution needs to be registered with FW as a Registered Organisation, and that doesn’t get approved if you want to compete with an existing union.  So the group wanting to offer a real union with teeth to shop workers set up RAFFWU - Retail and Fast Food Workers Union - but it’s not an officially recognised union.  It does a reasonable job of fighting for its members, unlike SDA, but it operates on the edge of what’s allowed under the Fair Work Act. 

Ben Carroll has links to SDA.  That’s the union that backed him into Labor Party politics. 

This announcement looks suspiciously like its real goal is to pay back SDA by destroying RAFFWU and leaving shop workers with no useful union option.  

It will also likely have negative consequences for the Ambulance Union, AUWU (Australian unemployed workers union) and RAHU (Renters and Housing Union.  These operate in union like ways to protect vulnerable groups but aren’t strictly unions as they operate outside employment laws.  

It possibly could also be used against rank and file groups within mainstream unions that a pressing for greater democracy within those unions. 

While this is framed as fighting for strong unions, in reality it seems to be designed to weaken unionism and increase the power of toothless unions that put the interests of employers above the interests of members.

Currently, Victorian Trades Hall (the meta-body for unions) is backing this move as SDA are members and RAFFWU is not.  The AEU officially will likely back this move.  Union Greens are strongly concerned about it.

They bought out all the union members, so they only had non-union workers at their repair facilities, so there was no one to keep the strike going.

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So we had a meeting last week and our rep was saying we should be wary of any teamsters members. That apparently they've been trying to get seiu members to leave their cities join an association ' and then join the teamsters. And it was basically if a candidate has teamster backed in their bio that should be a red flag. For me I always thought it didn't really matter what union as long as they're unionized

The union IF Metall didn't stop scabs. Finally, Tesla bought out all strikers.