I would encourage anyone in tech that is interested in forming a union at their workplace to sign up for CWA's CODE (Campaign to Organize Digital Employees) training: https://code-cwa.org/
CWA is a big, traditional, national union (think phone company employees, health care workers, flight attendants) that has voted to set aside a portion of their dues to help organize us, their fellow workers in the tech sector, which I consider a truly beautiful act of solidarity. They are having some successes, which seem to be building.
Getting plugged in with the training and, almost as importantly, a CWA organizer, is a great first step if you know you'd like a union but don't know where to start.
That option isn't always available, at least in the US. Unless you live in a right-to-work state, you may be forced to join the union as a condition of employment.
If you don't like the people you're working with, you could quit.
You could also vote no on a unionization vote, or just not join. I'm sure your loyalty will get a special consideration when the next round of arbitrary layoffs (coupled with record-breaking profits) happens.
Per AA's 10-K, in 2024 87% of American Airlines employees were represented by a union[1]. So according to that source it sounds like the people who were fired were union members that didn't pay their dues.
They could surely have paid their dues and left the union and kept their jobs (or could have never joined the union to begin with).
So looks like you're right but there's also some weird language technicality for "closed shop" where it's really a "union shop".
Per the APFA contract[1] employees are forced to join the union within 60 days of assignment as a flight attendant. This is technically considered a union shop (not a closed shop) because it doesn't require people to be union members before being hired.
Under the Taft-Hartley Act a lot of states (and in some situations, court decisions) have made this illegal[2] via right-to-work laws but airlines are covered under the Railway Labor Act (45 U.S.C. § 152)[3] which allows it (upheld by the US Supreme Court in Railway Employes' Department v. Hanson, 351 U.S. 225)[4] .
So, I was wrong and the employees had no choice but continue to be union members and pay dues or be fired because of airline-specific labor law.
I don’t know about this case specifically, but airlines frequently have different labor laws. They’ll be the exception to all sorts of unqualified statements.
Or just someone in a different phase of their career than a union typically helps out.
Unions absolutely hold back young high performers from advancing rapidly and standing out from the crowd. I was part of a few in my younger years and quickly learned they were a detriment to my earnings due to them favoring seniority and status quo over everything else.
Once you hit a certain level and stop advancing quickly the equation tends to change, and you want to be the one protected from the young whipper snappers willing to outwork you.
It’s a selfish way of thinking perhaps, but jumping from union shops to non-union tripled my wages in the time I’d have made about 40% more the first few years of entering the workforce.
Not all unions need to be structured this way - but they tend to devolve into organizations whose primary focus is protecting the old guard over everything else.
At this point of my life a union would probably be a net win for me, but only because I’d be able to enter a job at a fairly high seniority/pay level. Then vote contracts that give my cohort more benefits than those starting out.
From a game theory standpoint a union would be for the greater good at the expense of the few. If you are part of the few at any given moment of time you’d be going against your interests joining a union shop.
I’ve always thought a “guild” structure would make far more sense in the tech world.
It seems entirely reasonable to pay dues for a benefit you receive. I don’t see why that’s such a big deal. You still don’t need to be involved in organising.
It’s entirely ok for the majority of workers to democratically decide that they shouldn’t have to fight for benefits that others get for free. Unions aren’t middlemen, they’re just the majority of workers in a workplace organising themselves.
CWA is a big, traditional, national union (think phone company employees, health care workers, flight attendants) that has voted to set aside a portion of their dues to help organize us, their fellow workers in the tech sector, which I consider a truly beautiful act of solidarity. They are having some successes, which seem to be building.
Getting plugged in with the training and, almost as importantly, a CWA organizer, is a great first step if you know you'd like a union but don't know where to start.