Not American but my union deduct 10 dolars from my payment every month to cover union costs. It does it with thousands. Is it too much? Yes. But everyone got 10% payment increase this year plus some benefit increases too. i'm not going to complain
Maybe the pay is so low to begin with that a ten percent raise is less than the 10 dollars in union dues a paycheck.
$520 a year isn't much though, if your first 20 minutes of work for the pay period pays your dues then you have another 39.66 hours of money that is for you and your creditors.
Edit: did bad math. Look further down comment for adjustments
I'm using "I've been up for 20 hours because I'm packing my house up to move somewhere affordable" math. I meant 79.66 hours of your own money.
I read their post wrong and thought it must be 10 a paycheck because it seems so small.
When I was a Teamster many years ago it was nearly 800 a year so thirty dollars a paycheck.
I'm not American either, and I have no idea how much I pay my union. They've made sure I had several increases in salary in addition for the yearly rise, and I get several insurances for a better price than if I were to buy them for my self.
Last year the collective raise wasn't that high, but they made sure my colleagues with lower salary than me got it instead, and I expect the same thing will happen this year.
I'm totally fine with that because that is what I voted for to happen. My salary is good enough for now, and I want to make sure others are taken care of.
Totally, my union got us bonuses in our last negotiations. The lower your salary the higher your bonus. The only way to have it be fair at all as I see it.