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Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

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Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#181

Post by username90 »

chomp wrote: post #71
reaperducer wrote: post #47

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…

All workers can be abused regardless of their salary. Examples for programmers that come to mind: - Companies that require workers to enter arbitration and give up their right to sue. - Companies that force workers to give up IP generated in their free time (not using company resources) - Companies that require programmers to work 12 hour days, "crunch times", minimal paid leave (game dev industry, VFX industry comes…

Another example of abuse:

- Unions that forces its members to only work specific contracts giving up their right to work.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#182

Post by username90 »

reaperducer wrote: post #143
jkrems wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entertainment unions handle such things like health insurance and retirement funds. Most actors aren't millionaires. Having the few millionaires in the same union is good for the non-millionaires. Because it means that studios only get the in-demand millionaires if they provide okay conditions for everybody else as well.

Most actors aren't millionaires Which is why I specified millionaires. Let the actors who are working paycheck to paycheck or earning a middle-class wage, or working second jobs as waiters or whatever join a union. But when an actor is making $10 million for a movie, they don't need a union. They have an accountant and an agent who take care of them.

Problem with actors union is that they strike if the highly paid actors doesn't join the union, because they refuse contracts where non-union actors are present. Actors union also has progressive fees, so the rich actors pays a lot more than the poor ones. So I don't think the rich actors really want to be in a union, they are just forced to be and pay the cost if they want to work.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#183

Post by kmlx »

sbilstein wrote: post #90
kmlx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

for sure. but once the cost is lower than hiring and training a human, it's almost inevitable getting that robot instead of the human.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#184

Post by kmlx »

walshemj wrote: post #108
kmlx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Everyone needs unions - not just the little people.

why thou?

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#185

Post by Proven »

chomp wrote: post #71
reaperducer wrote: post #47

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…

All workers can be abused regardless of their salary. Examples for programmers that come to mind: - Companies that require workers to enter arbitration and give up their right to sue. - Companies that force workers to give up IP generated in their free time (not using company resources) - Companies that require programmers to work 12 hour days, "crunch times", minimal paid leave (game dev industry, VFX industry comes…

Nonsense. They can't force you to do anything, you can always quit before you agree to doing that.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#187

Post by chrismcb »

quotemstr wrote: post #67
joshuamorton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A union is just the free market at work. Much as a business is a collection of individuals working toward the common goal of supplying a product, a union is a collection of individuals working toward the common goal of supplying a product (labor). If you believe a union is a cartel that squeezes money from consumers, you must necessarily believe that a company is the same thing.

> A union is just the free market at work. That's not the case. A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. Rent-seeking activity --- no matter who does it --- makes society as a whole worse off. Bastiat showed that a long time ago. When corporations organize to extract rents, we call them cartels and apply strict penalties under the law. Why should employees have a r…

A union is a group of people saying pay us more it give us better benefits, otherwise we will go elsewhere. Most of the power is in the employer. A single individual didn't have much power. And it isn't quite the same as choosing to purchase a loaf of bread from a different store. You keep claiming that a union extracts rents above those the market would ordinarily best. But I don't think you've given any evidence that that is the case. This isn't the case where someone thinks that salaries are too low, so they'll open a new business and pay more.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#188

Post by quotemstr »

chrismcb wrote: post #187
quotemstr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A union is just the free market at work. That's not the case. A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. Rent-seeking activity --- no matter who does it --- makes society as a whole worse off. Bastiat showed that a long time ago. When corporations organize to extract rents, we call them cartels and apply strict penalties under the law. Why should employees have a r…

A union is a group of people saying pay us more it give us better benefits, otherwise we will go elsewhere. Most of the power is in the employer. A single individual didn't have much power. And it isn't quite the same as choosing to purchase a loaf of bread from a different store. You keep claiming that a union extracts rents above those the market would ordinarily best. But I don't think you've given any evidence th…

> A union is a group of people saying pay us more it give us better benefits, otherwise we will go elsewhere.

No. A union is a group of people saying "pay us more or we'll shut down your business". That's why unions have traditionally had picket lines and why they've historically used violence against "scabs".

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#189

Post by quotemstr »

joshuamorton wrote: post #114
quotemstr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A union is just the free market at work. That's not the case. A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. Rent-seeking activity --- no matter who does it --- makes society as a whole worse off. Bastiat showed that a long time ago. When corporations organize to extract rents, we call them cartels and apply strict penalties under the law. Why should employees have a r…

> A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. The operative word there is "normally", which makes your claim tautalogical. Unions do increase the cost of labor compared to a market without unions, but this is simply relative. You haven't (and I claim that you cannot) provide a reason that the cost of labor without unions is more natural, and isn't simply unnaturally s…

> You haven't (and I claim that you cannot) provide a reason that the cost of labor without unions is more natural

I reject the premise of your claim. The market price isn't just one of many prices from which we should choose arbitrarily. The emergent market price is special. It's the privileged result of price discovery via distributed transactions. Every time in history someone tries to conform the market into an unnatural shape using wage and price controls, the result is shortages and other dysfunctions. The burden of proof isn't on me to show that the market price is the natural one: it's on you to show that in the case of labor we shouldn't have a free market.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#190

Post by joshuamorton »

quotemstr wrote: post #189
joshuamorton wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. The operative word there is "normally", which makes your claim tautalogical. Unions do increase the cost of labor compared to a market without unions, but this is simply relative. You haven't (and I claim that you cannot) provide a reason that the cost of labor without unions is more natural, and isn't simply unnaturally s…

> You haven't (and I claim that you cannot) provide a reason that the cost of labor without unions is more natural I reject the premise of your claim. The market price isn't just one of many prices from which we should choose arbitrarily. The emergent market price is special. It's the privileged result of price discovery via distributed transactions. Every time in history someone tries to conform the market into an u…

My point is that unions arise in a free market, so the price with unions is the market price.

You need to show that unions are unnatural before you can claim that they aren't the market price.

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