EQ
Martin Owens 
The company's "HR department" is for the company.
Your HR department is called a Union.
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@doctormo Sometimes the union does some of the employer's HR department's work as well, and the union officials are paid by the employer at least partly because they'd otherwise have to hire more HR staff.
Chad 
@doctormo the company HR department does NOT have your interests in mind. You're just a "resource". When you're not deemed "resourceful" anymore they'll get rid of you. Collective agreement or not.
Ask me how I know. I'm due to start to collect EI in January after giving five years to my provincial health authority.
EricTrue for me. Manager of my site leaves company for another job 1 month before I retire. Said mgr would normally communicate to HR information regarding benefits retiring employee is entitled to (in my case accrued vacation pay and a severance payout worth $15,000) per contract. At the time of my retirement, still no mgr on site, leaving me to deal with HR myself. Weeks of disinterest from HR. Go to my union. Union places strategic call to company exec. HR now interested. Coughs up $.
Rachel has moved...!@doctormo *chef's kiss*
John Caveney woke is me🛠️@doctormo For clarity the acronym HR stands for ‘human resources’. The company regards you in much the same way as it regards stationary. If your Union regards you as a resource it’s time to find a different Union.
Matt Noyes@doctormo Agree with the impulse to separate from company HR, and, in fact, many unions do operate (well or poorly) as semi-independent HR bodies, but that's still what we used to call class-collaborationist, or later, business unionism. W.Z.Foster, in the TUEL days, spoke about this. More recently, Laurent Cantet's film Ressources Humaines explores this with subtlety and ferocity.
ducksauz 🦆HR exists primarily to keep the company from getting sued. HR is not the worker's friend. HR is not on your side.
LeftyLabourTechToronto
Chris Johnson@doctormo Precisely.
David Mitchell 
This is clearly and definitely true at any for-profit corporation, it’s less clear when “the company” is not-for-profit or cooperative. For example, I know of a small university (in Canada) whose tiny faculty of 40 just unionized, and I suspect they will be sorely disappointed by the added (and unnecessary) structural adversarialism.
McWabbit 🇺🇦🍋🌻🍉@doctormo HR is never your friend. Their MO is almost the same as American health insurers.
The Animal and the Machine@doctormo @HollyGoDarkly
I’m often reminding people of this. The function of the HR department is to reduce the risk of you working for them.
They work top down. If it’s you vs your manager, HR works for your manager.
Ian K Tindale
Geoffairey@doctormo @TSindelar It’s amazing how many people don’t understand that the HR Department’s job is to protect the company.
Tony Sindelar@Geoffairey i think HR can be disingenuous about their role which confuses a lot of people new to the workplace
@TSindelar I think that many people who work in HR want to help employees as much as they can, but their primary role is to protect the company and that takes precedent.
Zeborah@Geoffairey Yes exactly: there are times when individual HR reps will do things that are good for employees (and therefore longterm good for the company by complying with the law, improving morale and retention etc). But that doesn't mean you should *trust* them per se, because at any point there may be a real conflict between good-for-employee vs good-for-company and ultimately their job security relies on them doing what's best for the company.
JamesOr is the HR department for the HR department?
At an exit interview I told HR I didn't like a tool they were using, and rather than tick a box and say 'Uh huh', they got hostile!
The best HR I've seen was a one-person department at a small company, 500 miles from its' parent company, who fought battles with the parent company for the workers. Of course, he was one of the workers, so . . . does this count?