Unions work • Hacker News Board

Re: Unions work

#91

Post by spacemadness » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #53

I can see why workers are most concerned with their own benefit but total productivity is important to the health of a business and economy, which is important to workers as well. And no, working 32 hours is not as productive as 40 hours.

Ah yes, the economy. The thing we all need to endlessly sacrifice our lives for out of fear something terrible will happen otherwise. A fear that those in power yield continually like a stick that is very rarely backed up by facts and sensible ideas. The same economy that is leading to massive wealth inequality regardless of how much people work to stop being beaten by the stick.

Re: Unions work

#92

Post by specialist » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

ShrigmaMale wrote: post #23

timbit42 wrote: post #4

They do but an even better option is worker cooperatives which bring democracy and fair profit sharing to the workplace.

I agree. I'm kind of surprised more unions haven't taken responsibility for opening up co-ops. They have lots of money to do it, it's pro-worker, and it enables them to own the means of production. Unions ironically act very conservative these days. They could take some bold steps to potentially create very worker-friendly, worker-owned shops, which would create a voluntary, non-coercive path towards the "market soci…

> ...opening up co-ops.

Word.

IIRC: SEIU, or equally large org, has been funding employee co-ops.

Also IIRC: Richard Wolfe coined worker directed social enterprises (WDSE) to encompass all the democracy and co-op notions.

Having done some (very modest) workplace democracy, and seen the results, I'm very bullish. I read Wolfe's book Democracy at Work when it came out. It was a (very modest) good start. But needed a lot more work developing the ideas. Especially wrt governance and operations.

Enough time has passed, I should circle back and see how things have progressed.

> Unions ironically act very conservative these days.

In multiple ways.

In the US, the transition from representing predominately white middle class blue collar workers to representing all workers has been very bumpy.

Labor in the US would be so much further along today if unions had also abandoned their commitment to the Cold War Consensus when Capital did. Anti labor measures like NAFTA should have been wake up calls.

Re: Unions work

#93

Post by eric_cc » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #53

I can see why workers are most concerned with their own benefit but total productivity is important to the health of a business and economy, which is important to workers as well. And no, working 32 hours is not as productive as 40 hours.

> working 32 hours is not as productive as 40 hours.

Absolute statements like this on this topic are invalid. It’s relative and fluid and not something you can prove scientifically and definitively.

Re: Unions work

#94

Post by bko » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

braza wrote: post #43

Kudos for the WGA for the achievement. I partially agree with the statement that unions work. From what I see Unions are great and the current model works in situations where there are 2 monopolies, a monopoly of a work place and monopoly of workforce. In this case the WGA is the monopoly of workforce and the Hollywood is the monopoly of workplace. Along the history I saw that this dynamic worked and got advancements…

I disagree that unions work. It's mainly due to the fact that it treats everyone more or less the same based on some formula. For instance, they make decisions based on an observable set of factors like how long someone has been there and what education and training they have. But anyone that's worked in the workforce knows this is very limited. People aren't the same. Sometimes someone has been in an org forever but is utterly incompetent. Or someone may have all the certifications in the world but be completely useless. So its a dehumanizing sausage factory. Everyone knows two people may have the same title but one is much more productive at their job.

The rigidness also extends to other factors. For instance, working at a bank we were not allowed to move our monitor to another desk. That was a union job. You had to put in a work order have someone show up eventually and move the monitor for you and get paid some fee. It introduces rigidity and inefficiency and there are constant turf wars. Person A can unplug the monitor but person B has to move it, etc. Or they may have to mandate things like "moving is dangerous so you need a supervisor watching as the person move the monitor.

Finally even if they do succeed at paying above market salaries, that introduces a new question: who gets the job? Paying above a market salary will necessarily result in a lot more workers than available positions. So you have gatekeeping. That leads to cronyism as above market jobs are dolled out to friends and family.

A clear example of how destructive unions can be, take a look at police unions that regularly protect bad police. You see that across the board. I've known teachers in the teachers union that obviously phone it in every chance they get (i.e. showing educational videos during class time). This wouldn't fly in a normal work environment, but due to the over-formalization of hiring, you can't just let someone go for being incompetent or just not very good at their job. You have to jump through hoops

Re: Unions work

#95

Post by specialist » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

VancouverMan wrote: post #88

braza wrote: post #43

Kudos for the WGA for the achievement. I partially agree with the statement that unions work. From what I see Unions are great and the current model works in situations where there are 2 monopolies, a monopoly of a work place and monopoly of workforce. In this case the WGA is the monopoly of workforce and the Hollywood is the monopoly of workplace. Along the history I saw that this dynamic worked and got advancements…

The impact of unionization on the customers/consumers should be considered, too. My experiences dealing with unionized workforces in Canada as a customer/consumer have generally not been good at all. Such workers often exhibit tremendous inefficiency, a lack of care, and disinterest. This results in low-quality service/work, and a bad experience for the customers/consumers involved. This is particularly noticeable wh…

In what ways would non-union government employees be better?

Re: Unions work

#96

Post by heavyset_go » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #83

bastardoperator wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have shown time and time again that a 4 day work week results in higher productivity and happier employees. Happy employees also do better work.

No they have not. Studies by motivated parties show in some cases there are diminishing returns. It's a non-sensical argument. If a 4 day work week is more productive than a 5 day work week it means the 5th days is producing negative work. You could literally do nothing every Friday and you would not be less productive than a 4 day work week.

> If a 4 day work week is more productive than a 5 day work week it means the 5th days is producing negative work

Or it could mean that increasing weekly time off by 50% improves people's happiness and productivity, or that a 5 day work week results in days of work that are less productive than in a 4 day work week.

Re: Unions work

#97

Post by callmeal » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

braza wrote: post #43

Kudos for the WGA for the achievement. I partially agree with the statement that unions work. From what I see Unions are great and the current model works in situations where there are 2 monopolies, a monopoly of a work place and monopoly of workforce. In this case the WGA is the monopoly of workforce and the Hollywood is the monopoly of workplace. Along the history I saw that this dynamic worked and got advancements…

>I would bet that Tesla today can have a high operational margin in comparison with Ford or GM.

Of course they can, and we know where that margin comes from:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/18/tesla-wor...

    Ambulances have been called more than 100 times since 2014 for workers experiencing fainting spells, dizziness, seizures, abnormal breathing and chest pains, according to incident reports obtained by the Guardian. Hundreds more were called for injuries and other medical issues.

...

    “I’ve seen people pass out, hit the floor like a pancake and smash their face open,” said Jonathan Galescu, a production technician at Tesla. “They just send us to work around him while he’s still lying on the floor.”

Re: Unions work

#98

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #83

bastardoperator wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have shown time and time again that a 4 day work week results in higher productivity and happier employees. Happy employees also do better work.

No they have not. Studies by motivated parties show in some cases there are diminishing returns. It's a non-sensical argument. If a 4 day work week is more productive than a 5 day work week it means the 5th days is producing negative work. You could literally do nothing every Friday and you would not be less productive than a 4 day work week.

There's reason for skepticism, but negative work doesn't seem impossible to me. If you've got a 2 hour status meeting that zaps your motivation, reducing productivity by 50% for the remaining 6 hours of the day, that meeting produced -1 hours of work. (And if you postulate that 32 hours is the limit of productivity for the average employee, those kind of soul-sucking meetings are exactly what you'd expect to be scheduled to fill out the remaining 8.)

Re: Unions work

#99

Post by gojomo » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

babypuncher wrote: post #58

mjr00 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that comes to fruition they'll just have one writer who is responsible for putting their name on a ton of AI-generated scripts. But at this very moment, AI generating anything suitable for something other than SEO blogspam isn't possible anyway. It might be right around the corner, or it might be "right around the corner" like self-driving cars were in 2015.

I'm not convinced LLM's are capable of any truly original thought, which is necessary for good compelling writing. LLM's spit out derivative nonsense. Highly convincing nonsense, but derivative nonetheless. Any true originality in the output still comes from the human engineering the prompt. Basically, LLM's know how to follow the rules, color within the lines. A real artist understands those rules well enough to bre…

The latest models generate original combinations that can surprise the prompter with their inventiveness, so your confident assertions about what LLMs can't do seems calibrated to the models of a year or more ago – and not at all an enduring human advantage that one could bank a career (or society) on.

Attempts to rigorously study the relative creativity of LLMs have already found them more creative than average humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40858-3

They're only getting better, fast.

If you're not convinced, what GPT4-level (text or multimodal) or Midjourney-level (imagery) models have you tried, and how much?

Re: Unions work

#100

Post by gossamer » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

hgdfhgfdhgdf wrote: post #82

bastardoperator wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have shown time and time again that a 4 day work week results in higher productivity and happier employees. Happy employees also do better work.

If that were true, why isn't every company adopting 4 day work weeks?

I think there is a change of attitude with a shorter work week. If I am working 9-5 at the same place everyday, I basically live there. It is easier to decide to take more breaks because there is no Friday to relax or get chores done or go to appointments. I take every other Friday off and it helps me focus more at work. I schedule all my weekday appointments for Friday (as much as I can). Monday thru Thursday I can push a little harder and be a little more focused because I know I have Friday (or a week from Friday) to take my dog to the vet, me to the doctor, or whatever else I need to do. I would love a real 4 day work week.