At one time they seemed to serve a purpose as they were formed to enable the common people to negotiate fair working conditions and wages. Somewhere along the way, they became an entity unto themselves.
Take Unifor for example. This group works much like the mafia in that they take worker’s money easily enough but provide nothing of substance when it comes to wage negotiation. Most of the money collected goes to promote ‘causes’ which do not benefit union members as a whole, but only select groups. In no way is this what a union was ever meant to do as it segregates members favoring some over others.
The wasted funds used in these endeavors could easily be diverted to investments that would allow sorely lacking strike pay should the need arise. No adequate funding allowing members on strike to actually remain long enough to force any kind of negotiations makes for a weak position and most companies are well aware of this. In the end, only the union wins as they still have their jobs and money.
Further to misuse of funds and especially in the case of Unifor, money, time, and energy are spent attempting to dictate membership’s political affiliations. The original excuse had something to do with attempts at favoring labor supporting parties but it grew to favoring union agendas. The campaign involved directing current and past members to vote in a predetermined direction and even crossed the legal boundaries of not providing a way of opting out of emails. Even former members who moved on to other employment or retired would receive these emails with no ability to remove themselves, contrary to Canadian law.
It seems they have simply become promotional agents of agendas not all people believe in and that only apply to select groups. In no way do they represent all their members and they certainly fail at providing any means of being able to negotiate. Simply put, they have become their own mafia style entity with it’s own purpose and agenda funded by unwitting members who have no choice in the matter. Can they at least remove former members from the propaganda train?