New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat • Hacker News Board

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#331

Post by xyzzyz » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

johnday wrote: post #319

mennis16 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really your main point but there are quite a few US "metro areas" with fairly sparse layout/wide scope, so I think public transit actually is a harder problem in the US than it is in e.g. Europe. That said even the cities that don't have this excuse tend to have mediocre at best transit here (for example Boston).

You would expect that the surplus of space in many US metropolitan areas would make it considerably easier to install and operate metro transit lines, but this seems not to be the case. I suspect the systemic bias towards road users is much more of a problem than geographical scale.

The point is not lack of space. If the metro station in Europe has 10 times as many people in 1 km radius around it as a metro station in US, you’ll have 10 times as many people riding it. If you have too few people riding it, the capital costs of building the metro (which, by the way, are much higher in the US than in Europe for some inexplicable reason) will be ten times higher per rider. At the same time, low ridership will also result in reducing number of trains per hour to control the costs, further reducing the ridership. The result is that you get a very expensive metro system that nobody is actually using, because most people don’t live close enough to use it, and the train schedules are less convenient than driving.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#332

Post by missedthecue » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

CryptoPunk wrote: post #167

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

Support for unions is based on a basic misunderstanding of economics. It is not mandates from the state that lead to wages and work conditions improving. It's rising demand from employers, as their revenue increases, and they compete with other employers for a limited pool of workers. Unions obstruct the flexibility and freedom of the market, and thereby hamper economic efficiency and competitiveness. Firms will, all…

Precisely. A union is a cartel. It exists to restrict supply of the product they sell (labour) in order to fetch a higher price. They work just like any other cartel, for instance OPEC. Cartels benefit at the expense of everyone who is not in it. They perform rent-seeking behaviour to extract more than the product they sell is worth.

From the perspective of an economist, all cartels are bad, whether they deal in oil or labour or anything else.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#333

Post by yibg » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #323

yibg wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's necessarily based on misconceptions about what unions are, but also their own experience and from what they hear from people they know. We've already seen in this thread very different personal experiences with unions, often based on where they are. e.g. folks in Europe seems to have mostly positive interactions, where as folks in the US negative. I personally don't want an union in my work place.…

It’s usually a symptom more than the cause. Unions are formed in environments where people feel it’d bad enough to pay the price. The same way if we looked at jobs hiring bodyguards, most would look pretty dangerous, but we wouldn’t blame the bodyguards.

Perhaps, but even so I still wouldn't want to work at a place that requires bodyguards, even if bodyguards are not the cause of the danger.

Without getting into the details of cause and effect, look at it from the perspective of the current employees. Currently it's a nice place to work. Contrasting with previous experiences with unions where they've been terrible experiences to work at. Why would I want this kind of change?

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#334

Post by nogabebop23 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

There's no oligopoly of tech companies like hollywood studios though. Even the salary-collusion BS was a very small group of companies and illegal without union protection.

Also the Rock may pay his union dues because (a) he's required to be a memeber and (b) the cost is immaterial to him. The top performers are usually hampered by unions they'd be fine without; he's not going to need the pension and health insurance the collective bargaining agreement gets him.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#335

Post by claudeganon » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

redbeard0x0a wrote: post #294

hedora wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions would be much more attractive if US were an open shop country. Instead, we’re closed shop, which means that, once a union is in place, you can’t choose to join a different union. This routinely leads to situations where corrupt unions abuse their own members. For an example of how this works in practice, look at the UAW’s conduct with UC’s grad students. Years ago, they negotiated salary caps for grad students…

Where did the closed shop restrictions come from, did it come from anti-union lobbying or some think tank somewhere? This smells completely like "the government is useless", then going in and defunding things that the government is responsible for.

Your intuition is correct. Workplace-based bargaining was put in place with NRLA in 1935, which requires that unions be formed on the basis of shop votes. This was done to prevent labor from having the same political power that sector-wide unions have in Europe. The sector-wide Hollywood unions were grandfathered in, which is why they remain as successful and powerful as they are today.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#336

Post by JackFr » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #231

KorfmannArno wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please give an example of good public transport. (I'm living in Germany)

From the perspective of a person who travels a lot and exclusively uses public transportation; I think you don't value what you have. American systems are not dependable, intercity and interstate travel is often not punctual to the point of futility. There are very few examples that prove me wrong here (probably NYC NJ links being an exception) Travelling around Los Angeles is just not possible, the buses are disgust…

> Travelling around NYC using their underground was "ok" from a dependability standpoint; though I saw human excrement on many occasions, in one case it was smeared entirely on one of the benches where passengers usually sit.

“Many occasions” sounds like BS to me. Until the pandemic I rode the subway at least 12 times a week, every week for the past 22 years, and only saw human excrement twice (and one time it was actually a pretty funny story.)

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#337

Post by nogabebop23 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #175

jcims wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For years now I've seen comments like this from Europeans every time unions come up in conversation online. You all need need to come work for a large union in the US. They are just not the same thing. I've had direct or indirect experience with Teamsters, CWA, NEA, IBEW and UBC. You can dress it up however you like but there are definitely 'union jobs' with all of the connotation that brings. Yes there are benefits…

This is the same argument I see americans make a lot. "Unions are bad!", no, the concept is fine, you have some bad ones. "Police are bad!", no, the concept is fine, yours are just untrained and overburdened. "Public transport is bad, I need a car!", no, the concept is fine, you just have bad public transport and that forms your opinion.

OK - but your response could be abstracted to

Q: "Why is X so bad?"

A: "You're doing it wrong"

Could it also be that Y is always/sometimes just better?

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#338

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #324

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

I'll never forget the union at a convention center that forced vendors to pay them to move anything from their own car they couldn't carry. Nothing but extortionist bullies squeezing every cent of protection money they could out of the people there who actually make things and add value to the world. In contrast, these union employees were nothing but parasites. They did nothing the vendors couldn't do themselves, wh…

So because you can't move a piece of furniture, you believe it cancels the amount of protections and good from unionization?!

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#339

Post by nogabebop23 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

thatguy0900 wrote: post #307

newen wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between a union and a guild? Do Americans just have an aversion to the word union now?

A guild is a collection of independent contractors, a union is typically your own employees. Also guild sounds way cooler.

Guilds (I assume) involve more mead and iron working.

Re: New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

#340

Post by chasd00 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #25

I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions. Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of: * "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union" * "I'll be paid less under a union" * "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more b…

how exactly would a union improve working conditions for engineers at Facebook? Engineers at Facebook are probably the most catered to and sheltered workers in all of capitalism.