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An executive at my work confided in me that their fear of Unions is due to fearing they’ll lose their unchecked power

I work at a large old school company that is run by an appointed board, not publicly traded, and has an extreme fear of unionization. I never understood why they're so afraid of Unions. It is so over the top that it seems completely irrational. For example, years back they were afraid to install chat apps for employees, such as Teams or Slack, because they were concerned employees might use it to discuss unionizing. Around 5 years ago some employees started Toastmasters to help build stronger presentation skills, and it got popular, and executives shut it down for fear of people using it to Unionize. There was even a free lunch provided for a period of time years back to anyone who wanted to meet on planning to convert our teams to agile methodologies, and that got shut down for the same reason. The funniest part is that in the…


I work at a large old school company that is run by an appointed board, not publicly traded, and has an extreme fear of unionization. I never understood why they're so afraid of Unions. It is so over the top that it seems completely irrational.

For example, years back they were afraid to install chat apps for employees, such as Teams or Slack, because they were concerned employees might use it to discuss unionizing. Around 5 years ago some employees started Toastmasters to help build stronger presentation skills, and it got popular, and executives shut it down for fear of people using it to Unionize. There was even a free lunch provided for a period of time years back to anyone who wanted to meet on planning to convert our teams to agile methodologies, and that got shut down for the same reason.

The funniest part is that in the 15 years I've worked there I have never heard of a single person advocating for Unionization.

So, at lunch I ran into an executive I know who had left the company, and we sat down and were chatting, and I asked why the extreme fear of Unionization. He said it is because the board and upper management can essentially do whatever they want with the company right now. The owners and founders are long gone, so it's basically been a nepotistic group of employee cronies who sit in their roost up there for decades like a totalitarian oligarchy, just running the game to benefit and protect themselves and their friends. A Union would challenge that power and possibly expose their oligarchy, and break up their little regime. I asked if he is sure it wasn't a fear of the increased cost of higher wages, and he said no. He said it's not a fear of the cost of raising employee wages, because they can afford that, easily. He said it is a fear that Unionization would eventually expose the ridiculous amounts of money the board and executives all pay themselves while paying wages to a huge portion of the company that they know puts those employees well below the county and state poverty line.

Edit: he also said the executives work half as hard as the majority of employees, and have no logical reason to be paid so much, and that they know this, so they have to constantly try to make themselves appear to be more necessary and important than they are. That's why they're so afraid.

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