Unions are very powerful, but they also take stakes in the corporations. I'm pretty sure that union reps often sit on corporate boards.
Japan has a long culture of employee relations, but they also work their asses off. I don't think Japanese unions would cover slackers, which is a popular view of US unions.
He did get paid very well, got good overtime for those long hours, and safety came first. The benefits of a union.
It may be better to say “Unions cover workers whom management accuses of being slackers.” In my experience, the worst “slackers” are often in management (my view on this is from when I was in management myself).
The apprenticeship system is just as difficult and time-consuming as college (maybe more so).
The issues with unions often revolve around corruption, but there seems to be corruption in almost any human endeavor.
popular =/= accurate. But yes, the most criticized aspect of unions (at least from a liberal lens) comes from its ability to rally around every worker in the union, regardless of individual productivity.
But historically, unions in the US neeeded those protections because it's way too easy to fire a US employee for anything that's not illegal. Japan doesn't make termination any easier, it's just incoporated at the government level instead of corporate. To compensate, Japanese "slackers" just get good severance packages as an incentive to get out, or even move them as far out of the picture as possible.
That’s being given a job, where all you do, is stare out of a window, all day.
It’s the worst thing that can happen to a Japanese employee. A lot of Americans might consider it a “dream job.”
Anyone that has ever participated in a trade show at the Javits Center, has seen unions do serious damage to their own cause.
Plenty of stories of presenters being disallowed from plugging in their own equipment without a union employee there to assist and other things like that.
They put her purse onto the center of the cart, and escorted her to the booth. Then, they got upset she only tipped one guy $5.
I know these are "one-off" stories (and she probably gave attitude), but there's so many of these anecdotes, that it causes huge damage.
Your understanding of the world isn't workable when you think tens of thousands of people are acting as unhinged mass murderers and society just accepts it.