I've never been in an employment situation where joining a union was an option. But I did work at a couple of fast food places during college, and the big thing I learned is that if a corporation has market power in your relationship, they will generally treat you badly. Some are worse than others (e.g., my first job in that industry was with a relatively enlightened organization; the other job was with a company with leaders who should have had "bastard" tatooed across their faces), but they're all that way.

Open Source Initiative's "Webmink" calls them reptiles. When a crocodile, alligator, or snake kills you, it isn't any kind of personal thing against you. Their nature is to do these things, and you forget it at your peril. So it is with corporations: they don't personally hate their employees, but their nature is to drain the life force out of their employees to sustain and grow themselves ... and they'll do the same to their customers and to the communities in which they dwell.

Until you understand this, it is easy to impute human emotions to emotionless beings like reptiles ... and corporations. And then you'll be surprised and disappointed when their inner nature is revealed when they turn on you.

Trust not the corporation, for its nature is to deceive you, to cheat you, and to eventually destroy you, all for its own benefit.