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New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

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Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#161

Post by renewiltord »

afavour wrote: post #71
morgante wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. That's why I will vigorously oppose any unionization drives. It's incredible that people would acquiesce to being forced to accept whatever contract some union boss negotiates.

Huh? If there’s no union you’re forced to accept whatever contract the company boss decides upon. At least in the union situation you’ve had an advocate in negotiating the contract. In either situation if you don’t like the end result you can just quit.

I’d rather have no advocate than a moron advocate. The last thing I need is Charlie Kane as my agent.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#162

Post by limelight »

snowwrestler wrote: post #151
morgante wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I always have the option to quit. Which I had in the first place. It's just as possible (in fact, probable) that the union negotiates a worse contract than what I could have gotten myself and I'd be forced to quit a job I liked. That's a strictly worse outcome. > At least in the union situation you’ve had an advocate in negotiating the contract. They're not an advocate for me. They're an advocate for the union .…

Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, with a professional agency to negotiate on his behalf, was in a union. Tom Cruise is in a union. Steven Spielberg is in a union. There may be philosophical reasons to oppose a union, but contracting isn’t generally an issue. If you have more negotiating power than the union, you can just negotiate on top of the union contract, like sports and entertainment stars do.

The existence of some unions which don't enforce collective bargaining doesn't negate the fact that most worker unions limit the negotiating power of individuals. In fact, they actively attempt to eliminate it and socially/professionally isolate anyone who prefers to negotiate directly.

Most software developers, even top performers, are not brand name celebrities. If the union forces everyone to follow a contract, they will need to comply. Realistically, tech unions will end up looking a lot more like journalist unions than football stars.

This is explicitly the goal of the new NYT union: they are looking to "begin negotiations for a contract with management."

Some union boss negotiating my employment contract is my worst nightmare. I have friends who work in union companies and they hate the union's policies but are terrified of going against the union bosses.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#163

Post by scarface74 »

afavour wrote: post #71
morgante wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. That's why I will vigorously oppose any unionization drives. It's incredible that people would acquiesce to being forced to accept whatever contract some union boss negotiates.

Huh? If there’s no union you’re forced to accept whatever contract the company boss decides upon. At least in the union situation you’ve had an advocate in negotiating the contract. In either situation if you don’t like the end result you can just quit.

No, I am not forced to work that particular job.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#164

Post by scarface74 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #105
throwaway73838 wrote: post #53

Problem is, unions are actually counter productive to any industry. They reduce available work and further incentivize off-shoring of jobs. In the post WW2 period, the UK and German manufacturing industries lagged behind the US in both wages and productivity, largely due to the former being unionized and latter not.

Not really true. For industries where you need x human labor to do x amount of defined work, unions definitely help employees. Companies have an incentive to extract as much labor while keeping wages the same or lowering, leveraging peoples need for a job. Also for a lot of positions in those industries, the pay is low enough to put significant friction for employees into doing things like switching jobs, especially…

Haven’t those same companies just picked up and moved to a none union shop?

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#165

Post by renewiltord »

throwaway73838 wrote: post #98
lmm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how's that working out for those manufacturing industries nowadays, hmm?

Well, since they’ve been increasingly unionized, they moved places like Texas (Tesla, SpaceX etc) and China. Take the medical industry, for example - they can’t exactly go on strike, yet they are the highest paying industry in most countries. Which goes to show that unions aren’t necessary to be paid a high wage (also Singapore, unions are illegal, yet they have higher average wages than most developed nations). In m…

The AMA is an incredibly successful union. It is exactly the sign of how bad unions can be for society while being good for some of their members.

Thousands of people have died because of the AMA. Perhaps even hundreds of thousands through the artificial medical professional shortage they began.

Fortunately, America is moving away from MDs to NPs to scale medicine. The nation will treat unions as damage and route around them.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#166

Post by tbrownaw »

freedomben wrote: post #60
goodluckchuck wrote: post #15

So will NYT be a union shop / the union will have a monopoly, have multiple unions, or have a mix of union and non-union work?

I can't speak for this situation, but before I moved to tech I worked in a heavily union industry, and all the union shops had in their bargaining contract that the employer could not hire anyone who wasn't in the union. For people in the union it was great. For people not in the union, it sucked. And before somebody says, "well just join the union" (do you really think I'm that stupid not to have thought about that?…

That sounds very inefficient. How did that whole industry not get their lunch eaten by other states / countries?

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#167

Post by lmm »

eru wrote: post #130
lmm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that if unions were significantly larger and more powerful than corporations then there might be an issue (just as corporations being significantly larger and more powerful than individual workers is an issue - that is after all what unions exist to address). But I highly doubt this union is bigger and more powerful than the NYT, and I rather doubt that any union is as big and powerful as Google/Faceboo…

Many unions are active in entire industries (or more). Many companies are much smaller than that.

Sure, and maybe in cases where a single union has a monopoly on the labour supply for an industry then certain counterbalances would be appropriate, like allowing smaller companies operating in that industry to negotiate collectively with that union. I really don't think that's a relevant concern in this instance though.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#168

Post by eru »

lmm wrote: post #157
eru wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And like an insurance policy, it costs you. Not all insurance policies are good.

Oh absolutely. But the remedy for that is to be actively involved and hold them to account, not dismiss the whole thing as a scam.

You want me to be actively involved in all insurance contracts that are offered to me, and try to lobby them to be better?

Seems like just saying No to them would be the saner option.

(Similar also for unions you don't want to participate in. Or political parties, or companies etc.

Joining and getting involved is fine, if that's what you want. But avoiding is just as valid a response.)

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#169

Post by bryanrasmussen »

eru wrote: post #117
mkr-hn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are insurance against capitalist hubris.

Competition is insurance against that, too. Alas, unions can have their own principal-agent problems and bureaucracy and hubris.

alas, competition can have its own problems too.

In complicated situations it may be that you want more than one insurance against bad things happening.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#170

Post by scarface74 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #114
Kalium wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a union formed when you have leverage doesn't deliver when you do , why would you expect it to deliver when you don't ?

Because you now have a strike and a contract and a grievance process as additional collective leverage.

Or I can just say “f%%% it” and get another job. With remote work being as popular as it is now, I don’t even have geographic restrictions.
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