Its a considered a sin to betray fellow workers. That’s why no one does it. You have to look in the eyes of people you work with every day.
And when your local authorizes a strike, every one has a duty to man the picket lines and ensure that pressure is kept on the company to return to negotiations. That’s the way its always worked.
Union locals are in exercise in workplace democracy. Nothing happens without the members voting to authorize it.
Maybe. But their actions are an exercise in theft. Occupying someone's property or using the government to force them to submit to your demands when they would otherwise just hire replacements is hardly innocent or fair. Property rights matter more than democracy. If they didn't we'd all be communists (and poor).
"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." -Joseph Stalin
Seriously, aren't we talking about people who consider subversion and corruption of the public electoral process to be part of their job description?
Unions are an exercise in workplace extortion. They have to be. Unless the union has a way to intimidate potential replacements, then a strike would just be a mass resignation.
Employees need to have the right to resign from the union, without fear of violent reprisal. Employers need the right to say to strikers: "You can stop picketing. You are all fired. You have all been replaced."
Democracy is an unstable and malignant form of governance, rejected by the Founding Fathers. E.g., Federalist number 10:
a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. (emphasis added)
A lynch mob is a democracy.
It's more accurate to say that unions are an exercise in mob rule. Literally.
Unions could not exist without the threat of violence and sabotage, the willingness to harm the business and any person daring to replace strikers. Otherwise, a strike would simply be a mass resignation.