As Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Stripe, Shopify, Lyft, Netflix, and Microsoft lay off workers, let it serve as a reminder that free snacks, beer kegs, and ping pong tables are not real perks.
Do you know what is? Being part of a union that will defend you.
If you suffer any kind of long-term illness a union will advise you what your rights are & they'll also help smooth your relationship with your employer.
If a company is determined to no longer employ you there's not much you can do about it, but advice from a union can make a huge difference to how much compensation you get paid for your employment being terminated.
To answer your question, how unions help businesses, is mainly that they help them retain staff. Some staff are more costly & difficult to replace than others, but there is always a cost associated with replacing staff.
By encouraging companies to follow best practice in terms of how employees are treated, unions also help companies improve their reputation as a good place to work. That makes it easier for those companies to attract good staff.
A significant part of the advice that unions offer is to explain how the employer will be viewing things. That helps prevent disagreements between workers & employers escalating.
In the event that a company has no choice but to reduce headcount, making sure redundancies are handled correctly & respectfully helps prevent damage to the future reputation of the company, which makes it easier to attract good staff when things improve again.
Robert Reich
Joseph Ishie
Black Fen