Working in a company without a union

While a meme, yes. I'm an ex-boss and I'll happily verify that HR works for the company. The function is, "within what the company needs, keep employees happy and content", sure - but at the slightest conflict between company needs and HR needs it's the company needs that matter.

This isn't really supposed to be a secret, but I think we don't talk about it openly enough since every time a discussion like this pops up I see people who have misunderstood the function of HR.

... now what might be a bit more of a secret is how closely companies work together with the unions. Let's just say I've never seen any real union pushback.

Let’s just say I’ve never seen any real union pushback.
The places that pushed back got retaliatory outsourced and automated until pushback stopped.
Depending on the company/the department, it's also a goal to avoid legal trouble. Which can sometimes benefit the employee, but if HR is acting in your benefit there's a decent chance you could have sued the company
- That's mostly a US thing though I think? Over here in Europe the concept of suing your company is practically non-existent. Your recourse is through the legal system regardless of any HR actions.

My company is 13 people big. HR is the wife of the owner/president/CEO. 💀

Sounds bad, but really isn't that much worse than typical HR, who will rat you out to the CEO in a heartbeat.
- Yeah. HR at my work doesn't know how to do anything other than payroll. I had to set up short term disability because I had surgery and it took like a month for me to get it handled. I was totally on my own because HR knew nothing and didn't even give me the right phone number for the disability insurance folks. -_-
  But don't worry, she'll come yell at you like you're 5 if she thinks you're goofing off.
I worked at a 40 person company. Wife was the CEO, her boyfriend of a decade became the "CTO" because he was an unemployed mechanic.
I just took my pay and waited for the company to fail.

I work in a union and this shit happens there too.

Unions are great and a bad union is better than no union (imo) but if people go into a union job thinking all the problems with modern work culture will be solved by it they'll just walk away jaded and disappointed.
- Agreed. It's very helpful, and useful, but it doesn't turn work into some magic utopia. People are still people.
Well it depends on the union and it depends on local laws. But some of them are international.
Unions don't prevent companies being crap in my experience but at a certain point they step in and yell at them for being crap. You still have to put up with HR being ridiculous, being incomprehensibly corrupt is practically part of the job description.

Bravo