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Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

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Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#91

Post by gamblor956 »

aphextron wrote: post #37

Unions Have Lost Most of Their Power, and Labor is at the Complete Mercy of Capital. Slander like this is partly to blame.

It's the myth of merit. Tech workers like to think they're highly-paid based on merit (and not simply because demand far exceeds supply), and also that they are the best at negotiating high salaries.

Of course, these same workers were getting completed shafted out of tens of billions in collective salary due to anti-poaching agreements that limited their bargaining power.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#92

Post by bryanlarsen »

bluGill wrote: post #85
dvdhnt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe how much union busting is going on in these comments. People take for granted the little wins labor has gotten over the last century.

The union has done good, but they are taking more credit than they deserve for those wins. Many would have happened anyway because labor is a limited competitive resource (at times, for some jobs) and so if you want to get good people you need to treat them well even when times are bad. Unions have done good. They have also done bad. Most people will only acknowledge one side of that.

My uncle died in a construction accident that would never have happened on a union site. So while there may be two sides, implying that the sides are similar is classic whataboutism.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#93

Post by Pfhreak »

mrep wrote: post #42
ralph84 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Some of the highest paid individual contributors in the world are actors and professional athletes. They're represented by unions.

Aren't those industry wide unions whose main purpose is to set wage floors because there are so many people desperately trying to get into the industry that without them, employee conditions would be terrible for those just starting out? I don't think that is a problem for programmers and it is way different than a company specific union. If you want to start an industry wide programmer union, by all means, start one…

1) Wage floors (this is a problem in some parts of our industry. Game development, for instance. Maybe in other tech related fields like sysadmins? I'm less familiar.)

2) Healthcare benefits

3) Negotiating better IP control. Side projects, open source, etc. are locked down at various companies. There was a front page story about this today.

4) Better treatment for oncall. I know folks who have had to work for 17 consecutive hours for an incident and got nothing.

5) Better treatment for crunch -- tech workers in games have this particularly bad, but it's not limited to just that industry.

6) More control over how the company outsources/contracts with workers

7) All sorts of other side benefits that could be collectively funded -- union libraries, training, networks, publications, resources for new professionals, discounts on union developed software, etc.

8) Parental leave, sick time, and other basic benefits

9) Ensure and oversee processes to protect people who end up on the public stage. If you believe cancel culture is a thing, maybe having a union rep on hand and an established process for managing firings would be in your best interest.

10) Forced arbitration is another thing I'd consider talking with a union about.

11) Having a union rep on hand for HR proceedings

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#94

Post by Pfhreak »

esoterica wrote: post #81
Pfhreak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is FUD. There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc. Also, as someone in tech, I constantly hear people talking about downleveling when they change jobs, I hear people talking about unclear promotion criteria, etc.

All unions are structurally designed to reward tenure. Current members of the union can vote but future members cannot, and current members have more seniority than future members, so union members will always vote to screw over the people who join the union after them.

> All unions are structurally designed to reward tenure.

This is objectively false. I agree that some unions are structured this way. Maybe even most. But all is incorrect.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#95

Post by esoterica »

gamblor956 wrote: post #89
esoterica wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All unions are structurally designed to reward tenure. Current members of the union can vote but future members cannot, and current members have more seniority than future members, so union members will always vote to screw over the people who join the union after them.

This is FUD, and runs counter to what players' unions in professional sports have actually done...every single time they've negotiated in the past decade.

Have you never heard of rookie vs veteran contracts? Player unions are incredibly stacked in favor of senior players.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#96

Post by Nasrudith »

dvdhnt wrote: post #75
seibelj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees have the ability to switch jobs, whereas unions make it hard to join a different shop at the same seniority level as before. I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules.

> I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules What do you think society is? We live in a giant union of citizens. The point of the union is to protect labor from capital; and protect the rest of us from selfish attitudes.

The thing is that pretense is cheap - everyone and their dog has claimed some sort of grand pretense from the Aztec priests keeping the sun shining to every bandit, warlord, or mobster claiming "protection" when they rob people. Trusting anyone at their face value is being dangerously naive. Look at actual incentives and actions. You may find some organizations or individuals whose actions actually align with or are consistent with professed values in more than a post hoc rationalization but that is very much not the default.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#97

Post by Accujack »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #14
Accujack wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much an "advantage over smaller employers" as it is a "subsidy for large employers" or a "way to spend less money to offer the same benefits so profits are higher".

That is one and the same. The subsidy for large employers is not available to small employers, hence an advantage for large employers.

True, but you're implying it has something to do with competing. It's not that, it's just about spending less money so they get to keep more.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#98

Post by bpodgursky »

gamblor956 wrote: post #84
bpodgursky wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Union bosses have control over raises, promotions, and hours granted to members. They also have built-in powers of communication and messaging control (both publicly and within the union) In corrupt unions, the bosses absolutely will use that power to punish employees seen as challenging their authority or a leadership change. Saying "oh, they can vote them out" sounds great from the outside, but if you have a family…

This is a very wrong understanding over how unions work these days. Union "bosses" don't control raises, promotions, or hours, and haven't for several decades. Union bosses simply don't have the power they used to have (and for some reason, are still portrayed as having in TV or movies). The Irishman, for example, is based on a decades-old perception of union bosses that was only ever true of the NY-based unions...de…

I'm not saying this is universally true. There are a lot of decent unions.

But the longshoreman unions, for example, absolutely still work this way.

Re: Teachers Pay High Fees for Retirement Funds

#99

Post by yellowapple »

Pfhreak wrote: post #17
seibelj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees have the ability to switch jobs, whereas unions make it hard to join a different shop at the same seniority level as before. I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules.

This is FUD. There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc. Also, as someone in tech, I constantly hear people talking about downleveling when they change jobs, I hear people talking about unclear promotion criteria, etc.

> There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions.

In my observation (going by reports from both my own teachers back in the day and from friends and family members who are teachers), teachers' unions are squarely in the former category. Tenured teachers get raises, competent teachers get pink slips.

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