71–80 of 230 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's crazy what average folks can do when they collectively own the means of production.
. Edit: deleting my comment. didn't add much value to the conversation.
The point of a union is to be able to push back on your employer, so that fighting for better conditions isn't a special privilege.
>Let’s say a nation is concerned about poverty. So it passes a law that says the rich will have some of their money redistributed to the poor. But instead of a progressive income tax used to fund cash payments to the unfortunate, the government decides that wealthy people who happened to be born in the spring will give their money to poor people whose birthdays are in the summer. Moreover, this redistribution won’t go to anyone who is too poor. You have to already have a job to qualify, and a certain kind of job at that. In fact, you are going to make the poorest of the poor worse off through the policy. Finally, instead of cash payments that they can spend on whatever they actually need, the recipients of aid get gift cards to Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
>I think, regardless of how they feel about the redistribution of wealth, most people would find this to be a pretty stupid policy for reasons that are self-evident. Yet this is similar to how laws protecting organized labor function, which in effect involve the “right” of workers in an industry to form a cartel that prevents other people from being hired by an employer...
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-labor-unions-are-evil
I wonder if the highly unionized Swedish economy is part of why Sweden has trouble assimilating immigrants. Native Swedes enforcing a cartel to prevent new arrivals from competing in low-wage occupations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solidarity Action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_action In Australia, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom, solidarity action is theoretically illegal, and strikes can only be against the contractual employer.
How does that even work? I am, and should be, free to not show up to work for any reason I choose. If I'm legally required to work, isn't that forced labor?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unions span across corporations within business sectors whereas corporate boards do not.
What about Blackrock? Their representatives sit on many boards in a single industry. Same with large VCs. It's not as structured as unions, but each board is not a completely independent entity either.
This is actually a good point, and is detrimental for similar reasons: concentration of power, reduction of competition and increased fragility of the whole system ("too big to fail").
https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-de...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The employer benefits the employer. The union benefits the employee, thus providing a balance in the power between employer and employee.
This is the theory. In America, the union benefits the union first, the employee second, and the employer a very distant third if at all.