Yes, I work in a union that is about to go on strike. It's the worst workplaces I've ever been in. Management is crap, as is the pay. They purposefully schedule you 39 hours to avoid giving you benefits. There's a lot of unpaid labour if you don't finish your tasks.

One of my friends had a dispute with a manager who was out to fire him. He had a union rep arbitrate the situation and part of that was sitting down all three of them in a room to discuss the matter like adults. After a lengthy conversation, my friend was asked to leave. What the rep and manager didn't realize was that my friend had left his bag in the room with a recorder. He came back into the room 15 minutes later to retrieve his bag. He listened to the recording, and found that the union rep was helping the manager to get around certain rules to fire him.

So on top of all of that, a lot of the representatives don't care about the workers. The organization is pretty shitty too. The part timers are hard to reach, and the full timers are scared of being associated with the union out of fear. But the union reps don't even TRY to reach out. I didn't know who my union reps were until I asked, and they ended up being employees who succeed up to management.

And the union does take money from us, but it's in their best interest to fight for us to get more, since they get a cut. I've read studies that generally employees experience an increase in pay.

Also all of the full timers are so poor that they WILL scab. I can hardly blame them too, but dollars to donuts they'll call the young part timers for protesting and standing up so they can also get better pay and scheduling.

I work part time at Loblaws.

That said, one of my first jobs was in a government union job and it was amazing. Starting pay for an entry position was 1.5X minimum wage and I was 16. Not bad, and a very good work environment.

Overall I support unions, but they're not enough.