I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but hopefully someone can at least point me to the right place.
I work in a field that is unionized, though it is not currently required to be a member of the union (I want to keep this vague, because although my reddit is a throwaway, too many details could give away my info/location). Approximately 25% of the people who work for my employer are in the union.
Recently, a mixed group of coworkers (union and not) have been feeling like we were not properly being represented by our union, who is supposed to represent paying and nonpaying members alike. We have created a group of people requesting a raise from our higher-ups. We have done so by attending meetings with higher-ups and having people send letters to board members stating how our inadequate pay has negatively affected our work output.
Our union president has taken this as stepping on his toes, and instead of coming to us and saying something like “while he sees where we are coming from, let's do this together in a way that will make everyone happy” He threatened people with disciplinary actions, fines, and loss of employment.
When our actions were (moderately) successful, he took credit for all of it and claimed he had been working on this for months.
Now, we have dozens of members who are looking to leave the union due to his actions. Our employment contract is going into negotiations, and we won't have the union numbers to get us better working conditions and benefits. Some of the people who are not in the union are about to quit.
I don't know if anyone can provide some guidance on what to do with this. The people who are supposed to be responsible for ensuring the security of our employment are making us feel like we are no longer safe. If anyone can provide assistance or even just another subreddit where I can find some answers, I would be extremely appreciative.