I don't know about how unions work at the corporate level. I can't discuss their money/reimbursement policies. However, I can talk about personal experience on the lowest level; the workers.
Anytime I have been in a place that utilizes unions, the experience has been unpleasant. Let's look a few case studies:
Case 1: Three guys all doing the "same job" for the same pay. They were forklift operators. Two of the three were slacking off, while the third one worked hard. They all got the same compensation, and the same potential for advancement. Yet one worked harder.
Case 2: A guy was always screwing things up. He was always mising up orders, etc. Yet, I heard it said several times that since he was union, it was cheaper to keep him employed than it would have been to fire him.
Case 3: A new grocery store opened up in town. For months on end, there were picketers outside: "Non-Union, don't shop". I don't know if they were getting paid by the Union or not, but either way that's a screwed up situation. Also, it didn't have any effect on the business.
So, if they weren't getting paid, they were wasting their time when they could/should have been out earning a wage. If they were getting paid, then they were being a drain financially on someone, somewhere, instead of productive citizens.
So, I am against Unions based upon all my experiences with them. They don't promote a competitive workforce where the best get promoted, instead they promote a form of socialism where the lazy can feed off the industrious.
Well here is a better reason to be against them. Colossians 3:22-24, told believers to work for their master as if they were working for the Lord. 1 Peter 2:18-24, counseled Christians to suffer indignity at the hands of masters rather than retaliate.
So Sapper is giving an example of abuses by unions, and you're turning it around to use scripture to say that abuses by "masters" is OK instead (i.e. there should never be any kind of protection from them. Again those passages are speaking to individuals; likely indentured and not "hired", who might find themselves mistreated by a master. and it goes two ways. What is the instruction for masters? No group in the world is doing all of what scripture says, so why try to control one group, and give the other free reign?)
No. You've lost the trail.
The jets the union bosses use to fly around are funded by union dues. For a union to call a corporate CEO greedy for flying in a business jet while the union bosses do the same is hypocritical.
The Lord is not saying that you can't be in a union. You're reading a whole lot into two passages that are just proof-texts the way you are using them.
He's telling individuals to be subject to their masters, and assuming the individual has no legal power against a corrupt master, then he's to "take it patiently". It's not saying he has absolutely no right to any sort of protection, and that the master has total carte blanche just because he managed to have some amount of power over a person.
Read v.25 or Col. and v. 16 or 1 Pet. as well as other passages like Eph. 6:9. I don't know how anyone can claim what "the Lord says", and yet only take one side of select scriptures.
You seem to believe in absolute slavery (which again, was closer to what these scriptures were addressing), and if that's the case, then would you be willing to subject yourself to that?
Talking about reading in to scripture! No company ever sought to put a union in on their own. No person who ever goes on strike can ever be in obedience to the scriptures. it is impossible to work for your employer as unto the Lord and be on strike. You are trying to justify sin.
I agree with these two sentences. If a person is on strike, then at the very least they are violating the "turn the other cheek" scripture, and at the other end of the spectrum possibly trying to damage a good employer who simply does not acquiesce to their demands.
Yes thank you. I am in full favor with collective bargaining IF the employer willingly accepts it, but if not then we are to obey the scriptures.Any one who claims to be a Christian and stands on a picket line loses their testimony as they violate the standards of the word of God.
That depends on the state. In some states, you do not have a choice whether or not to work if the union decides to strike. However, most states are "right to work" and you may pass the picket lines.
While some states do require everyone to join the union, where there is a union, there is no state that requires companies to have a union. Also no state requires the employee in the union to stand on the picket line or to even attend the union meetings. So a child of God can be a member if required by law and still not support the things they do that violates the word of God.
If you do not have a choice to work, you still have a choice whether or not to stand alongside the picketers. That's when taking a stand for God can be hard, but sometimes standing for God is.
I never say never, but I cannot foresee any circumstance in which I would belong to a union. And if I did, I would not participate in those activities.
However, I have seen enough questionable behaviors by companies to understand why some unions came into existance.