A funny thing happened to me the other day. At a mandatory work meeting, our union representative asked everyone in the union to raise their hand, to show how popular the union was — or, less charitably, to expose those who weren’t in it. And exposed I was! Almost all my classmates are in the graduate student union. I suspect that many of them think I should be in it, too. Or, at least, they might think I am being inconsistent in claiming to favor union rights while not joining my own union. So what gives?
Sometimes, joining your union is in your self-interest. This might be the case when union members are provided exclusive services — legal services, for example. If you deem those services worth the union’s admission fee, then perhaps you ought to join.
But that was not my judgment, and so my decision on whether to join was a moral one.
You might think that you owe it to your colleagues to join the union with them. After all, your colleagues are paying for something that theoretically benefits you as well. But this argument depends on a faulty notion of compensation. If I voluntarily mow your lawn, you don’t owe me compensation unless we previously agreed to it. Similarly, when a group of people voluntarily do something that benefits you, you don’t automatically owe them compensation. Giving them a gift in return is nice, but it is not obligatory.
Joining a union is thus a charitable contribution, of which your coworkers are the benefactors. They might return the favor, or they might not. The question is whether this form of charity is morally required in the first place.
I agree that we all ought to give to charity. But there are many ways to discharge this charitable obligation that don’t involve giving to coworkers. You may, for example, give to the local homeless population, or to your church, or to poverty relief abroad.
If you live and work in the United States, your colleagues are relatively privileged. I’m in graduate school, and all my classmates have bachelor’s degrees and high future expected earnings. If you are an egalitarian, you should prioritize charity for those who need it most and in places where it will go the furthest. This will include mostly charities that aim at global poverty relief.
This doesn’t mean joining your union is wrong. I believe we have the moral right to choose, to some extent, what projects we prioritize in our life. So there is nothing wrong with choosing to use your money to help your colleagues. But nor is there anything wrong with choosing to utilize your money in other ways.
Sometimes, however, it is plausible that you do owe your colleagues special treatment. This is salient when we imagine that a colleague of ours is in crisis. Imagine, for example, a colleague who needs help funding a crucial medical treatment for his or her child. A true friend will help a colleague; to fail to do so would be a failure of friendship. When you share this camaraderie with your colleagues, you have a special reason to promote their interests over the interests of those abroad.
But not everyone has this workplace camaraderie. Some people have stronger bonds in other communities they are a part of. I already gave churches as one example, but there are others. Maybe you’d prefer to give a Christmas bonus to a waiter who regularly serves you or to the custodial staff of your workplace. For most of us, there are many people in our lives who are deserving of our special consideration.
Where I live, there are homeless people that I regularly interact with on my walk to work every day. Many of these people I see more often than many of my colleagues. I don’t make much, but with what I have, I would prefer to these needy souls before my fellow grad students.
Benjamin Hause is a doctoral candidate in the philosophy department at Florida State University.
