From my experience the US workplace is much more hostile both ways. Either the employer will screw over the employees or the union will try screw the employer. At least in Germany it'a little more collaborative partially because of laws that give employees some say how the company is run.
It's not hostile, it's professional. I advocate for my interests, you advocate for your interests, and we negotiate to find out a compromise that works for both of us. During this process, I do not worry about your interests (that's your job), and you do not worry about mine. We trust each other to take responsibility for our own interests and proceed accordingly.
I can understand why this would seem hostile to someone who isn't acculturated to it, but I don't find it hostile at all. I find it _honest_. The other side isn't pretending to care about me, and they aren't making hamfisted attempts to look out for my interests in ways that I don't like but they think I do (or should).
I feel like this is just your experience. As a counter-anecdote I spent a bit of time in the Teamsters in the 90's and it got very hostile and extremely unprofessional. There was zero material communication with management and any influence on the part of the union as a $9/hr entry level employee was equally zero. The scab situation was super dicey as well, and while there was clearly no official support for 'extracurricular' enforcement, there was enough of a question about what would happen that you didn't really want to test it.
It doesn't seem like a lot of folks commenting here have direct experience with working in unions in the US. They have done great things in the past and I feel like they are a necessity in industries where individual employees regularly face decisions that affect the physical safety of others or themselves. However, in my experience and in the experience of family members (CWA/NEA), unions in practice fall far short of the promise they hold in theory. User
naravara has some pretty insightful comments elsewhere in this thread that i feel get to the meat of the matter and why there might be a disconnect on opinions between those in the US and those elsewhere.
All that said I do applaud the folks working at Kickstarter for trying this out. Maybe they will figure out a way to make a functional apparatus that ensures a positive work environment while minimizing the coddling of parasites and negative impact on Kickstarter's ability to execute, but it's going to be a struggle.
But also, that's what negotiation is. If the company didn't want to be occasionally held hostage, it should have included a "you can't hold us hostage" clause in its employees' work contracts, and also given them enough compensation to get them to agree with it.
But, super serious: If the union decides they will only accept a 50% raise, and the company _can't_ give it to them, what has happened several times before is that the company will cease operations of the facility that is unionized entirely, and move to a new geography where that union has no power.
Just as the union has the ability to hold the company hostage, management also has this ability. Theoretically, mass layoffs are not good for union members, and so they would not make such an obviously ridiculous demand.
However, you run in to major problems when for whatever reason the union does not think something is a ridiculous demand, when it is. Or, like I mentioned in my big comment somewhere else, if a union is representing multiple factories for one organization this can happen.
Say, hypothetically, the union for ABCTech represents ABCTech employees at two facilities, one in San Francisco and one in Seattle. Perhaps the union demands that, because the cost of living has risen so dramatically in SF, they require a 50% raise for all SF employees effective immediately. The company cannot afford this, and so they say no. The union says I don't care, fuck you, if you won't do this we won't work.
So ABCTech says well if we can't afford your contracts, we have to close up shop. They close the SF office. Every single employee there loses their job.
However, the union also represents ABCTech employees in Seattle. And now, ABCTech knows that the union is serious. They will make severe demands and not back down. This improves the unions bargaining power in the Seattle office, by sacrificing the SF office.
If you're the union, you're probably quite pleased with this state of affairs. If you're an employee of ABCTech in Seattle, doubly so. But maybe not so much if you were a (former) employee in SF
It's perfectly legal for a business to fire union employees. The US is an at-will country, and businesses are entitled to terminate employees for financial reasons.
Even public sector unions can't prevent terminations for financial reasons, though they negotiated no-fire clauses into their union contracts decades ago.
I think the negative type stuff makes the news, but I don't think that reflects the system over all.
US unions in my experience don't so much give people say in my experience, they just make for a sort of formalize a system into an adversarial type one with union and company.
For the most part I've enjoyed working for my employers and would rather manage that relationship on my own and not have someone else run it for me.
There are situations where folks might not feel that way too I'm sure.
