A union isn't an outside organisation that comes in to help you, a union is YOU and your colleagues coming together to empower each other as a collective.
A union is a collective of workers uniting to represent workers interests, and to negotiate with employers to improve their conditions. Unions work to create a mutually beneficial and more productive workplace. A happy worker is a more productive worker.
What Good is a Union?
Important Note:
Unions have hierarchies and are run by humans. Any human run hierarchy has the potential for corruption. Any employer can be corrupt, and so can any union, but there are more checks in place for unions, and the individual employees have more courses of action to handle corrupt unions.
The Benefits of a Union
Union employees almost always bring home more money than non-union employees.
Union employees have far more protections against bad management than non-union employees.
Union employees rights are enforced, even against larger corporations. Their concerns are amplified and management struggle to ignore them.
Notably, union employees are often more productive due to being more able to influence the product pipelines. Having a voice helps them remove redundant protocols, and avoid statistically ignored bottlenecks.
Unions are the reason we have many of the workers rights we enjoy today including:
Introducing the 9-5, 40 hour work week. Before unions, there was no limit on how long your employer could demand you to work. Unions today are working on limiting an employer's access to their employees outside of office hours.
Unions are the reason we have the amount of annual leave we have. Without them, we might not even have any.
Before 1875, in the UK, an employer could not be sued for breach of contract. Unions brought about responsibility on the part of the employer to stick to the contracts with the Employers and Workmen Act.
Unions played a pivotal role in lifting the restrictions on parental leave.
Unions help fight against workplace discrimination, providing an external way to report issues.
Unions played an important role in negotiating the current minimum wage rules.
Larger unions with proper organisational structures are able to negotiate minimum deals for the employees of an organisation, providing an appropriate minimum standard of benefits to employees who may lack the negotiating power or skills to negotiate such a deal for themselves.
Weekends. Sundays were always 'days of rest' for religious reasons, but unions gained us Saturdays off as a standard too.
Equal pay for women may still be a hot topic being fought for today, but the initial steps were made by the Women's Trade Union League secretary Clementina Black in 1888.
Following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, unions were able to fight for legislation banning employers locking the doors to prevent unauthorised breaks!
Speaking of breaks, all work breaks in America were won by unions, including your lunch break.
Overtime pay was won in a large part by unions.
The list goes on. Pensions, wrongful termination laws, whistleblower protection laws, Veteran’s Employment and Training Services (VETS), many sexual harassment laws... we have a lot to thank unions for, but a lot more work for them to do.
What is a Bad Union?
When the members of a union feel like the union is imposed on them, when the members feel unheard, you get a bad union.
Bad unions may demand unreasonable expectations of employers.
Bad union employees sometimes don't get let go to avoid the difficulty of getting rid of them.
Unions may make demands of you to defend rights and benefits you may not care for.
Do remember though, you're a part of the union. You and your colleagues can call votes to change what you need to. The tactics used by unions can also be used by you to make union management listen.
Conclusion
Bad unions can be bad for companies, and need to be kept in check. Regardless, the money you pay to a union will almost always be less than the union increases your pay check by, and your benefits will improve.
If you are offered a union, take it. If it's a bad union, your life won't improve much, but will still improve, or it'll improve an unreasonable amount. Either way, it is always worth joining a union.