I’m glad they were able to unionize but why should they deserve to have similar or same benefits as Google workers? Sorry to be blunt but they are cafeteria workers working for Bon Appetit. If I were Google I would just close all the cafeterias in order to avoid further precedent setting actions. The meals are going to get taxed by IRS anyway so might as well bite the bullet now and get rid of free food entirely.
That would be funny. Their engineer employment motivation boils down to: Come to Google and be comfortable.
Regardless, labor unions would be a feature of any conceptualization of free markets I’ve ever heard of. In what sense is cooperation and organization not compatible with a free market?
If an employer could negotiate with unions competing for a contract, the outcome might be a market-clearing price for labor. Enforce a monopoly for a single union, and the only possible responses are capitulate or leave, with outcomes that look like Detroit.
That's a valid argument against "closed shop" unions, which is a reasonable discussion to have; but we started this thread with banning unions tout court.
In a perfect world labor unions would be illegal is not a market-based opposition.
> In a perfect world labor unions would be illegal is not a market-based opposition. Why not? It's perfectly reasonable to say in a perfect world, X would be illegal if you think that X is harmful enough for the state to act. I bet there are things you wish the state would ban. You don't have to agree with the OP, but he's not expressing anything wacky or bizarre. He just doesn't see unionization as some kind of unqu…
Your appealing to the big bad state to solve some problem is anything but market-based. If you don't like unions, compete against them with a better idea.
Imagine a gigantic apartment building in San Francisco. Let's say some 400-unit monster. Then picture a campus with four of those buildings. Then realize that such a campus could not house all the Google employees in the area. Then realize that such a campus could not house just the Google cafeteria workers in the area.
Is this an argument against high density construction and tech workers at the same time?
Imagine a gigantic apartment building in San Francisco. Let's say some 400-unit monster. Then picture a campus with four of those buildings. Then realize that such a campus could not house all the Google employees in the area. Then realize that such a campus could not house just the Google cafeteria workers in the area.
What is the point of this comment other than to say Google has a lot of employees?
Wow. I myself hail for your fabled "west", and I'm not suggesting that free association should be scrapped nor that violence be committed against its practitioners.
You literally started this thread by demanding that a policital association be banned. History tells us what that looks like in practice, and how much violence is involved in having the police break a strike.
Imagine a gigantic apartment building in San Francisco. Let's say some 400-unit monster. Then picture a campus with four of those buildings. Then realize that such a campus could not house all the Google employees in the area. Then realize that such a campus could not house just the Google cafeteria workers in the area.
Well good thing there is plenty of enough space to build 400 of them in a small area! ;)
I have mixed feelings about unions, but I'm OK with this move. Cafeteria workers need unions. The maids who muck out hotel room toilets need unions. Coal miners who work in horrific conditions for little pay need unions. You know who doesn't need unions? Millionaire TV anchors. Millionaire movie studio execs and actors. Anyone who makes six figures, which includes a hell of a lot of union members. In those cases the…
> Cafeteria workers need unions. The maids who muck out hotel room toilets need unions. Coal miners who work in horrific conditions for little pay need unions. aren't all those jobs ripe for automating? unions feel like an intermediary measure to the end goal: no more humans in shitty jobs.
In tech we talk about automation like it’s an inevitable thing but for as long as the cost of developing robots to do all of these jobs is much more than hiring humans it’s not happening. Even that stupid pizza oven Zune is all about won’t replace workers anytime soon.