> When I was working at the Mountain Home (TN) VA Hospital, the American
> Federation of Government Employees union was pestering me to join them.
> Besides offring additional insurance, they held no advantages for me
> over the government benefits  already had...and why there is a union for
> government employees is beyond me;..I never had issues with the pay or
> benefits I was receiving.  Thankfully, union mmbership was optional.

Some unions are just for things like (additional) insurance.  They really
don't operate like the "mandatory" ones.  They may also provide some
grievance contraptions for those who believe they do have issues with pay
or benefits, but I wonder how effective those are in that type of union.

> Don't get me wrong, unions had their place and time.  But what
> advantages they offer now are seeminingly miniscule.

> There's even an IT union.  I laughed when I heard that.

Several years ago, one of our governors was getting a lot of support from
the unions.  They got in good enough that the administration allowed them
to try to unionize the employees... those that were not law enforcement or
teachers, which were already in unions.

Some classifications got to choose unions that were at least somewhat
related to the work they did, while others -- including IT -- were given
the opportunity to choose to join the United Auto Workers (???).  There
were some other off-the-wall choices like that.

IMHO, unions like the UAW wanted a piece of the pie because their workforce of
actual auto workers was going down.  The unions also wanted a piece of the
state employee retirement fund.  I think maybe the administration thought
it might be a good idea so they could get out of providing insurance -- the
unions would take that over.

It was an all-or-nothing employee vote.  We voted unionizing of state
employees down, so none of the unions in question got involved with state
government and it never came up again.

Mike

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