Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did the coal union know the pension was underfunded?
Was it underfunded before the split?
Unless they somehow withdrew money from it, it can only be underfunded because it was always underfunded.
Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
201–210 of 450 posts
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Organized labor has most of the same problems as organized ownership and capital. Ownership and capital has some unique problems. Labor has some other unique problems. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Unless you're arguing for the elimination of the market system, "this structure in a market economy is prone to corruption" isn't a dispositive argument, or really an argument at all.
No. The union leaders have zero interest in making any company succeed. They have a ton of interest in themselves succeeding. In fact unions work very hard against innovation and in keeping status quo.
That's not true at all. If the company fails, all their union members are out of a job, and the union loses strength. Unions are just as interested in the company staying alive and profitable as the companies are, they just want to share more of the profits with the workers.
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#203Earlier 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…
It's not just the stigma that labor's gotten, it's the language that's infiltrated our thoughts. Giving a generous maternity leave is "leaving value on the table". Evading taxes via the double-irish or contractor/employee loopholes is "creating shareholder value". It's like Gordon Gekko and George Orwell collaborated.
You might enjoy George Lakoff's writing on what he calls "reframing." This article is about the 2016 Presidential election, but it's equally applicable to this topic: http://www.salon.com/2017/01/15/dont-think-of-a-rampaging-el...
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So when you cite the NLRA as a bad thing, you are literally making the argument I just suggested you were. I never once cited the NLRA as "a bad thing".
It's misleading to suggest that professional associations require the NLRA to operate. Without the NLRA, employees can simply be fired for attempting to organize. Sorry, I should have been clearer earlier.
> Without the NLRA, employees can simply be fired for attempting to organize.
Sort of, but not really. The NLRA does prevent the right to organize, which is mostly (though not exclusively) used in the context of labor unions. The NLRA was passed with the expectation that organization would generally take the form of labor unions. The ability to organize outside of a unionized workplace was specified largely to solve the "chicken and egg" problem of forming a union in the first place.
That said, the NLRA isn't the only thing (or even the primary thing) that prevents employees from being fired for joining a professional association. Which is what I've been saying all along: professional associations are notably different from labor unions which draw their power largely from the NLRA and are overseen by the NLRB.
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#205Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#206This is a bit misleading. Union power is putting pressure on service economy companies which in turn service tech companies. Tech workers are not unionizing -and I can't imagine they would, given their pay compared to other sectors. I could see an AMA type organization perhaps. On the other hand, unfortunately, companies no longer staff vertically. When they can outsource their non core competencies they do. They don…
I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. A past job, I automated away jobs at $0.10 on the dollar and made a healthy salary, but it obviously was 1/10th of what I was worth. I left that company and all those jobs are still automated away and the more the company grows, the more they save. Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equip…
It 100% would raise the wages of tech workers, but it could also hurt the stock price of many tech companies from which many senior employees make such kinds of wages anyways. Additionally, there is complexity around where goods are produced and where they are sold in regards to taxes, so some of these numbers I will list aren't exactly simple.
But anyways, Apple makes 600k in profit a year per employee, meaning they can increase the salary of every employee in the company by 400k (ignoring tax issues) and still turn a crazy large profit. Companies such as Google and Facebook have a revenue per employee that is well over 1 billion dollars, and in turn could theoretically return that money to their employees rather than putting it towards some of the other expenses that they do. However, due to stock compensation, it is for the benefit of existing employees that these companies do focus on continuing to monopolize.
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The transaction of you working for me is still voluntary." Only in the most extreme interpretation of the word. "No person forced you to work for me. " Maybe not, but the idea that I will be fired if I don't do what you say means that it's not entirely voluntary. "I can only "force" you to work 20 hours a day if all your other options are even worse, and I am the one who improves your options the most." Again, that'…
If you disagree with this definition of voluntary, that's fine. Let's choose another string of letters to denote what I wrote in the previous comment, and change my other comment and replace the string "voluntary" with that new string of letters. > Maybe not, but the idea that I will be fired if I don't do what you say means that it's not entirely voluntary. Being fired is simply no longer engaging in the transaction…
"If you disagree with this definition of voluntary, that's fine. Let's choose another string of letters to denote what I wrote in the previous comment, and change my other comment and replace the string "voluntary" with that new string of letters."
That won't make it any better. You're still hand waving away a lot of exploitation.
"Being fired is simply no longer engaging in the transaction where one party trades their money for the labour of the other party."
Which is a threat of force often used when the employer wants the employee to do something that may be unethical, or simply wrong (like making someone work 20 hours a day).
"I did not say that they were."
But the way you're phrasing things, and focusing on them, indicates that you believe that physical force is the only force that matters.
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#208No 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.
To paint a wall in an individual office on Market St, San Francisco, with whiteboard paint, is upwards of $10000 in labor, because of union regulations.
Unions are ripe to be used as instruments for abuse.
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. A past job, I automated away jobs at $0.10 on the dollar and made a healthy salary, but it obviously was 1/10th of what I was worth. I left that company and all those jobs are still automated away and the more the company grows, the more they save. Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equip…
It 100% would raise the wages of tech workers, but it could also hurt the stock price of many tech companies from which many senior employees make such kinds of wages anyways. Additionally, there is complexity around where goods are produced and where they are sold in regards to taxes, so some of these numbers I will list aren't exactly simple. But anyways, Apple makes 600k in profit a year per employee, meaning they…
> a revenue per employee that is well over 1 billion dollars
...
Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is exactly why we have to make it easier for people to form and join unions everywhere.
To paint a wall in an individual office on Market St, San Francisco, with whiteboard paint, is upwards of $10000 in labor, because of union regulations. Unions are ripe to be used as instruments for abuse.
I can't believe this. Do you have proof?