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Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

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Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#181

Post by [deleted] »

Sevii wrote: post #176
tptacek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the capital and ownership sectors of our economy are all trained to operate businesses rationally and to not leave value on the table, it seems pretty clear that anything that labor doesn't take will be traded away. To me, in that light, neither the "depredations" of owners and investors nor the "coercion" of labor unions is really a problem; it's just the natural give and take of the market at work. The real p…

Organized labor has a stigma in the US because it is the reason you own a Japanese car. The unions killed a huge part of american life and that stigma is not going away.

[deleted]

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#182

Post by hgsigala »

dkhenry wrote: post #15

No its not. This is a union fluff piece. The reality is these are contractors who will get dropped as soon as it makes sense. Thats why you hire these services as contractors. I think the real test here will be how long till the union pushes facebook too far and they are just dropped. I have never seen a union that could actually compete with non-union shops unless there was a legal force preventing the competition.

Which is exactly why we have to make it easier for people to form and join unions everywhere.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#183

Post by chimeracoder »

Animats wrote: post #136
wyldfire wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real problem is the late 20th century stigma labor organization has acquired. I think the stigma is well-deserved. Indeed they are rife with corruption and often create very odd incentives. Unfortunately unions suffer the same fate as other "invisible" benefits: everyone takes them for granted and doesn't recognize their value. People focus on the drawbacks and it's much easier to convince them that we're all b…

Unfortunately unions suffer the same fate as other "invisible" benefits: everyone takes them for granted and doesn't recognize their value. Unions - the folks who brought you the weekend. (That's a button and bumper sticker.) Also the 8-hour day and the 40-hour week, which the US somehow lost.

> Unions - the folks who brought you the weekend. (That's a button and bumper sticker.

"Unions - the folks who bought you immigration quotas" would be equally accurate, but I guess they don't want to remind people of that.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#184

Post by mlindner »

Sevii wrote: post #176
tptacek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the capital and ownership sectors of our economy are all trained to operate businesses rationally and to not leave value on the table, it seems pretty clear that anything that labor doesn't take will be traded away. To me, in that light, neither the "depredations" of owners and investors nor the "coercion" of labor unions is really a problem; it's just the natural give and take of the market at work. The real p…

Organized labor has a stigma in the US because it is the reason you own a Japanese car. The unions killed a huge part of american life and that stigma is not going away.

Yep, everyone I knew growing up and my everyone in my extended family doesn't like unions, especially those who were forced to join unions.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#185

Post by logicallee »

kevmo wrote: post #30

If there is one thing I've learned from two decades of reading about labor history, it's: Every gain labor has ever made has been taken. Every gain the working class (i.e. the overwhelming majority of people) has achieved has come from organizing their majority of low-power workers and then standing strongly against the empowered minority at the top. Good for these people. They are essentially moving our society forw…

>Every gain labor has ever made has been taken.

what about the part where a single person can now add enough utility to the world and capture the entirety of sales and ownership of it without needing to own anything?

1. Isn't that a gain?

2. Who has taken it?

Or doesn't it count as "labor" anymore if you work for yourself? Isn't owning your own work in full, the ultimate triumph of the proletariat?

Piketty has nothing to say on this subject but I'm curious if after "two decades of reading about labor history" and given your participation here on HN (a forum of YCombinator, which enables anyone to become an entrepreneur) you have anything to say about whether this is a genuine gain. I also see you're C-level at upsolve.org - which helps low-income Americans.

Isn't the fact that in my estimation at least 80% of those Americans could theoretically learn to code within 6 months (for the remaining 20% it may be too difficult) and with minimal (or no) financial backing capture some part of some output on the Internet, a source of victory for labor?

If any of those "low-income Americans" build a web startup without funding (through perseverance and learning) then are they now 'evil', and taking from someone else? Who are they taking from in that case?

I am sure you agree that wealth is not a zero-sum gain, and I am sure you see it is difficult to apply theories of exploitation of the working class, to one-person startups.

What do you think about the movement toward a knowledge economy, and a lowering of the barriers to creating value and startups?

I am particularly interested in this because I did not receive satisfying answers from experts in this field. Thanks for any thoughts. (Genuinely interested.)

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#186

Post by jules »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #179
jules wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mixing up capitalism with anarchy and chaos. Capitalism requires the rule of law and property rights. An unregulated market is one where any voluntary transaction can take place and no involuntary transaction takes place. It is not a voluntary transaction if I put a gun to your head and tell you to hand over your wallet, and a "market" in which that is allowed is not even a market. It is illegal for me to pay…

But if I put a gun to your head and tell you to get off "my" land that is voluntary? Property rights don't exist without some form of regulation.

You already broke the property rules if you went on my land without my permission. If I agree to let you on my land and then put a gun to your head, that is against the rules.

> Property rights don't exist without some form of regulation.

If by regulation you mean any law whatsoever, certainly. That's not what people usually mean by unregulated market. When people say "unregulated car market" they don't mean a market in which I can steal your car. They could mean a market in which you can sell me a car without safety belts.

Another example is the minimum wage. Let's say that I want to offer to work for you for $5 an hour and you want to accept this offer. This is a transaction that we would both voluntarily engage in, but it is not allowed by the minimum wage law.

If we include stealing and unrestricted use of guns in the meaning of "unregulated market", then the word becomes all but useless. We have other words to describe those situations.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#187

Post by Retric »

Sevii wrote: post #176
tptacek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the capital and ownership sectors of our economy are all trained to operate businesses rationally and to not leave value on the table, it seems pretty clear that anything that labor doesn't take will be traded away. To me, in that light, neither the "depredations" of owners and investors nor the "coercion" of labor unions is really a problem; it's just the natural give and take of the market at work. The real p…

Organized labor has a stigma in the US because it is the reason you own a Japanese car. The unions killed a huge part of american life and that stigma is not going away.

Japan Automobile Workers' Unions has a current membership of about 762,000.

So, no the problem with US manufacturing is mostly a question of MBA's not factory workers. The core issue is companies are not run based on Labor or Capital but a middle layer focused into very short term thinking.

EX: Pensions look great for management as they can jump ship long before the bill is due.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#188

Post by andybak »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #141
kevmo wrote: post #30

If there is one thing I've learned from two decades of reading about labor history, it's: Every gain labor has ever made has been taken. Every gain the working class (i.e. the overwhelming majority of people) has achieved has come from organizing their majority of low-power workers and then standing strongly against the empowered minority at the top. Good for these people. They are essentially moving our society forw…

Any wage gains that are derived by unionisation are zero sum. They are economic rent extracted by reducing the competitiveness of labour markets, and advantaging unionized workers working for big employers at the expense of those without such jobs. In the long run, the reduced profit margins caused by wages that are artificially high (above the rate that would be established by the free market) results in less invest…

What you call rent seeking another person might regard as sensibly avoiding the externalities caused by low wages. An unfettered market merely pushes the costs elsewhere and we all pick up the pieces.

Your argument surely requires a mythical perfect market without externalities?

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#189

Post by mlindner »

jules wrote: post #169
crdoconnor wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elimination of child labor was NOT a result of increased productivity, in fact it grew during the onset of the industrial revolution. it came about as a result of a series of fierce union battles. https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/a...

Children worked at their parents' subsistence farms before the industrial revolution. That is still child labour.

Children all over the world still do. The families would die if they did not. This is why many farming families have large numbers of children, labor (that gets paid in food and family love).

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#190

Post by chimeracoder »

s73ver_ wrote: post #162
dkhenry wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Screen Actors Guild is an interesting model for professionals. They go much farther then most professional organizations in terms of protecting workers right, but they also don't have rules like you have to hire the actor with 20 years experience before you can hire one right out of school, or you have to pay everyone on the same scale. Also I don't think they have requirements like you must have attended 10 year…

Which is why I, for one, feel they're a far better model for a tech union than an AFL style one.

> Which is why I, for one, feel they're a far better model for a tech union than an AFL style one.

First, SAG-AFTRA is a part of AFL-CIO.

Second, over the years, SAG received a number of special exemptions in law that no other union today has received (and after 2012, that's very unlikely to change). So SAG-AFTRA is not really a realistic model for any hypothetically newly-unionized industry.

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