Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unions work

werd.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 237 posts

Re: Unions work

#161

Post by wilg »

Spivak wrote: post #157
wilg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those companies auto workers are unionized in the US.

But they're still in the US and paying near identical wages to UAW plants so it's not unions "ever demanding higher wages" that makes the difference. But maybe not forever since the UAW strike those unionized workers might gasp make the same amount they did pre-inflation in real dollars. The greedy bastards not taking a pay cut while the cost of the cars go up and those companies make record profits. Won't you think…

OK

Re: Unions work

#162

Post by nonethewiser »

eric_cc wrote: post #120
nonethewiser wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's safe to say 32 hours of work does not produce more than 40 hours. The gray area is the point at which there are diminishing returns. Is that between 32 and 40 hours, or more? And how much do they diminish?

> It's safe to say 32 hours of work does not produce more than 40 hours. This is too simple. 32 hours of huge output may produce more than 40 hours of light output. If the machine/human output is a constant, then sure you’re correct. But that’s not true. And that’s my point. It’s relative and fluid. It’s relative to the work, the individual, the health of the individual, the weather that day, and on and on.

But 40 hours includes 32 hours. If you can produce a huge output in 32 hours then you can produce a huge output + 8 hours worth of work in 40 hours.

Re: Unions work

#163

Post by bastardoperator »

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?

Power, greed? Why do CEO's make 100x their employees? Some things just don't make sense.

Re: Unions work

#164

Post by [deleted] »

sershe wrote: post #126
callmeal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 b…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Unions work

#165

Post by spacemadness »

wilg wrote: post #140
spacemadness wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not crazy to suggest you need to balance labor demands with the demands of efficiently running a business.

Agreed. It’s too bad company leaders want nothing of the sort unless it’s a boulder on one side vs a pebble on the other side of the scale.

Re: Unions work

#166

Post by Boogie_Man »

sershe wrote: post #126
callmeal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 b…

[flagged]

>historically known to be... racist

As many (most?) American institutions historically were

>virulently anti-immigrant

To prevent wage reduction as a result of an influx of cheap labor

>outright violent against non-union workers

When "scabbing", or not cooperating with their fellow workers to secure better terms

There are reasonable criticisms of Unions historically and the concept of Unions as a whole, but I'm not certain your quoted comment quite hits the nail on the head.

Re: Unions work

#167

Post by blindhippo »

bko wrote: post #94
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…

Unions are meant to be effective in situations where the balance of power between capital and labor is heavily tilted towards the former.

In a situation where there is an actual competitive market and people can leverage their skills and experience towards better salaries on their own, the effectiveness of a union is much lower, though there is still industry wide benefits such as normalization of health insurance standards, anti-cartel advocacy, general working condition standards, etc.

I think the police union example is a bit of a bad faith example - there is more to that one than just "union bad, mmmmkay" - it's institutionalized power and would NEVER be a market driven situation.

Teachers, generally speaking, work in a single employer market, meaning the power dynamic is again tilted towards the employer. Without a union, teachers would likely have even worse conditions than they currently "enjoy" in the USA (and frankly Canada). Hell even now they basically work overtime for free due to expected "extra curricular" workloads outside of school hours and in many cases have to supply their own materials just to be able to do their own job.

Yes, there are disadvantages (as there is in all things). But these do not mean that unions are fundamentally broken.

Re: Unions work

#168

Post by adamrezich »

phone8675309 wrote: post #146
bko wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It's mainly due to the fact that it treats everyone more or less the same based on some formula. The beauty of a free market system is that if you feel that way, that the union bring mediocrity, you're not forced to deal with them. Start your own company that does not deal with the unions and bring in talent however you see fit. If unions really make things worse then congratulations, you've just created a more agi…

> The beauty of a free market system is that if you feel that way, that the union bring mediocrity, you're not forced to deal with them. Start your own company that does not deal with the unions and bring in talent however you see fit. If unions really make things worse then congratulations, you've just created a more agile company that will certainly dominate in the marketplace.

this works until your workers start asking questions like others in the comments here like "any pointers on how to turn an existing company into a worker co-op or employee owned company?", as though for some reason you're not entitled to the rewards that came from the risk and resources you put into starting your own company and growing its success. somehow enthusiastically pro-union people don't see any problem with this line of thinking. somehow the idea of them starting a business themselves, as a co-op, is Literally Impossible, even though it's 2023 and everyone has the Internet in their pockets at all times, so connecting and organizing people who share a common purpose or ideal is easier than it ever has been in human history. somehow it's considered perfectly fine and just to do nothing like that on your own, but, instead, reap the rewards of others' risk and resources by pretending, after the fact, that they had never had any value to begin with—that it's the workers and workers alone who provide the Real Value to the company, and always have, and always will.

Re: Unions work

#169

Post by specialist »

nebula8804 wrote: post #149
specialist wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Im not OP but when I think of bad government employees, I think of this jerk at my local post office that has been there for at least 10+ years(I am in the US). Always unhelpful, always making a simple task of sending a package as hard as possible by yelling, complaining about alignment of address labels, providing improper advice on the best way to ship different items causing me to spend a lot more money than I nee…

Agreed, we need flexibility to fire people. And, honestly, I've never been real clear why civil servants, eg admin and staff, are unionized.

Unions are not uniquely impotent wrt their "bad apples". Every organization is afflicted.

This phenomenon seems to be holding all of society back.

Ideas?

(FWIW, my main motivation for being pro-union & pro-labor is profit sharing. Corporate welfare and record high profits while most people struggle really pisses me off.)

Re: Unions work

#170

Post by braza »

bko wrote: post #94
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…

> 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

But I think the counter argument here would be that for every bad cop/teacher that get away with something due to some shenanigans of a Union, there’s cases also that the same Union provides a platform for someone innocent to not get fired.

Let me place another perspective regarding why some unions are necessary that is for airline pilots.

This is a classic case where you have a monopoly of workforce (qualified pilots with specific knowledge with low job transitivity) and workplace (exists in some specific location just a few airlines).

In a hypothetical situation where the airlines start to enforce increase in working hours, reducing rest, and place strain on the workforce; the Unions has the organisation and power to balance that relationship and in some of the cases to help to shape the minimum regulation for the work conditions.

In those situations with dual-monopoly and low job transitivity of the workforce I think make sense to have Unions.

Post reply on HN