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Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

wsj.com

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Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#221

Post by satvikpendem »

dmitriid wrote: post #119
satvikpendem wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And much lower wages, no?

What good is a high wage when you either don't have the time to use it (crazy working ours/short vacations) or still need to spend it on things like medical care? Not everyone works at Facebook or Google. A friend of mine works as a data analyst somewhere near Washington, D.C. They still need to spend a week arguing with insurance companies for any medical emergency. Yeah, thanks, no. Keep your higher wage.

Not sure about your friend but people generally get good healthcare as professionals. And anyway, that should not be the argument either way, universal healthcare is what one should strive towards, which has nothing to do with union or non-union membership.

> Yeah, thanks, no. Keep your higher wage.

Thank you, I will.

Re: Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

#222

Post by modo_mario »

lettergram wrote: post #38
rayiner wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it weird that nobody in the US seems to look beyond their country or similar systems for different models regarding this. Looking to European models would be great. But the current American union structure is written into federal statute, and there is approximately zero chance of the statute ever being amended.

> Looking to European models would be great. Europeans on average earn half of Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_b... Software engineers make 4x or more their European counterparts If unions were effective I’d expect at least somewhat comparable wages… but that’s not the case. Is it time off it optimized for? I mean tha…

I don't think that's necessarily related to the prevalence of unions though and where it might be related it is far from the only factor as there are many other at play there from unrelated legislations and governance styles all the way to reserve currencies. Even just the fact that Europe was/is a fractured market preventing the rice of something akin to silicon valley.
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