Personally, it came from working for a massive union (government, not US) for many years. The downsides are real: hard to fire bad performers, your merits don't matter at all (the guy doing the bare minimum job description gets the same raises as you), wayyy too much focus on seniority (for promotions, vacation selection, etc), and overall just too many rules (for example, "unlimited vacation" works great with my current employer but would absolutely not work under a union.. sick days have to be tracked, PTO banks calculated down to the quarter hour, etc).
On the plus side, we paid like $15/month so I'm not sure why Amazon is trying to scare people with the "union dues" argument. And it was nice to have the option for "representation" in HR-like meetings.
There's definitely pluses and minuses, but (having worked on both sides) it's not for me.
On the plus side, we paid like $15/month so I'm not sure why Amazon is trying to scare people with the "union dues" argument. And it was nice to have the option for "representation" in HR-like meetings.
There's definitely pluses and minuses, but (having worked on both sides) it's not for me.