Comment Iron Law of Bureacracy (Score 1) 467
In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself.
Unions can be a victim of the Iron law. The people who put their energy into furthering the goals of the union are almost always politically out-muscled and displaced by the people who preserve the union itself. So at the end, only those who preserve the union are left.
Imagine person A is lobbying for things that will actually make a difference for fellow workers. While Person A is lobbying, person B is figuring out how get the union to grow and get stronger. Person B is making political connections and becoming more powerful while person A is in the trenches fighting for the workers causes. Its no surprise that it is Person B that ends up rising to the top.
So at the end of the day, unions can be a double edged sword. They have the potential to make meaningful changes, but as they grow in size, there is a potential to begin focusing on doing things that keep the union in existence/power instead of doing what is best for the workers.