>

As a Millennial, it's always frustrated me how so many of my generation just seem desperate to be in the system instead of ready and willing to suffer a bit in order to fix the system.
But I get it. So many of us walked out of college into a financial disaster we had nothing to do with, saddled with loads of student debt when we did everything we were supposed to do. I'm approaching 40 and I would say I really only found financial stability around 35. My parents had it at 20 doing nothing but housepainting and homebuilding. No college at all between them.
Still, I'd rather suffer a bit to fix the system, and I'm glad to see Gen Z getting that. I hope financial reality doesn't scare them "straight" like it did so many of my generation, though.
I certainly hope so. Moving to a union-represented company has increased my pay by 25%, and got me full medical benefits. I only pay $50 a month for my union dues. >

Union dues seem to be the biggest argument I hear from my family about why unions don't work. You're literally making more money than what the dues cost in just a couple of hours at best and you're getting more benefits from your job than before... and job protections.
But nooooo, unions are bad!! We don't need them in this era!! /s for good measure, but that's what I hear from the fam and they're being dead serious. >

A better one is "my union is corrupt/does nothing/waste of due money". Then when you ask if they've ever voted, attended a meeting, contacted their rep, it's an obvious "no". 
Like jeez, maybe if they attended a meeting they'd see what their dues are being spent on and what their union is doing. >

It works much the same as democracy. If you don't participate, you're giving up your primary means to influence how things are. >

It’s also important there’s a balance of power.  Too much lower to management is bad, and too much power on the Union side can lead to bad as well.  When there’s equal footing that’s when things work out best. >

Too much power on the union side? Just make a union for union members. >

That actually exist. I just found out myself the other day >

Unions led to the biggest growth of the working class in history.  Education doubled, and the right lost its grip on middle America. Enter the southern strategy, Reaganism, the Contract on America, the Bush dynasty and whatever the gargantuan fuck the historians will decide the word is for TFG and his orbiters. >

i think "gargantuan fuck" sums it up nicely. >

I just wish there was an easier way for service industry workers to unionize from corporate chains to the bar on the corner. >

The reason why unions are so important is in the cases of billions of dollars of capital negotiating as a single unit (corporations), while labor negotiates as individuals.  The labor/capital curves end up looking like the supply/demand curves of a monopoly.  Unions are one solution to this problem, the other being breaking up giant companies.  When mom and pop places hire people, they have to compete with all the other mom and pop places in their industry the same way workers compete against other workers.  Imagine if the gardening department and menswear department of Walmart had to compete against each other for retail workers.  Both wages would rise.
So unions hired by corporations are more likely to have fairer wages, and tiny businesses hiring individuals are also more likely to have fairer wages. >

Boomers were hugely pro-union...until they got out of the workforce and it was somebody else's job. >

Once your livelihood shifts from working wages to owning capital it's hard for people not to become more right wing.
Nowadays, less and less people are ever in a position  to own capital to passively earn income and will be a wage slaves forever.
So now people are not "becoming more conservative with age". >

Exactly this, but also I think the peachy harmlessness of capitalism is waning in its facade; people are seeing the darker side of it to much greater effect than through most of the post war 20th century.  The lack of ethics have become rampant and brazenly rubbed in people’s faces. >

This is great news because unionizing is the biggest uphill slog it's been in four decades. Labor laws and their enforcement have become more and more stacked against labor. Kids coming into the shitheap we call the modern economy are finally seeing the realities of the system. (Interestingly, unions only represented a little more than 30% of workers at their absolute peak.)