> The unions in NYC protect the union. They care about little else.
That's their fiat. They're supposed to be like that.
I'm really hoping that unions are learning a bit of humility from the last few years. We'll see.
Japan (and Germany, I hear), has unions that are stakeholders (and, often board members) of corporations. They seem to work quite well, and are very powerful.
Particularly in Germany, unions are quite literally unions of workers that band together, not menacing cartels. By law, companies must not interfere with workers organising themselves in a Betriebsrat, basically a company-internal union, which (as you mentioned) by mere forming becomes a stakeholder and needs to be involved in certain decisions.
This doesn’t automatically mean you have a mandatory tariff for everyone, just that there is an organisation in your workplace that you can turn to, which will have your interests in mind, without you having to be a member. They can protect you from overreaching managers, baseless accusations, or unwarranted layoffs. And of course, they usually negotiate on behalf of the entire staff, especially on HR topics.
While this isn’t always working perfectly, it’s still a big achievement in terms of equality and worker rights.
It’s unfortunate, I think, that the US has such an awful history in terms of unions. There are far more nuances than discussions on HN make it seem, and virtually nobody looses if employees have strong protections against their employers.
The unions in NYC protect the union. They care about little else.