I think that there's an amazing lack of public education [well, not amazing if you've read some stuff about school systems] about unions and labor issues.
Unions are one of the only ways that employees can try to balance the huge information advantage larger employers have. I think of the bad rep they get as a deliberate disinformation campaign, rather than random ignorance on our part - I honestly do think there are people who make a lot of conscious decisions to not include that info in textbooks, articles, etc.
I also think a lot of small business owners or employees of small businesses (like, 1 or 2 bosses and 4-5 employees type small) don't really get how different the employee-employer dynamic gets when you have a huge business with dozens of bosses and hundreds or thousands of employees.
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Date: 16 Jan 2009 03:15 pm (UTC)Unions are one of the only ways that employees can try to balance the huge information advantage larger employers have. I think of the bad rep they get as a deliberate disinformation campaign, rather than random ignorance on our part - I honestly do think there are people who make a lot of conscious decisions to not include that info in textbooks, articles, etc.
I also think a lot of small business owners or employees of small businesses (like, 1 or 2 bosses and 4-5 employees type small) don't really get how different the employee-employer dynamic gets when you have a huge business with dozens of bosses and hundreds or thousands of employees.