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Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

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Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#71

This is basic economics. The rise of income and wealth inequality is directly tied to the weakening of collective bargaining, corporate consolidation and globalization. Source: https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions... . Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests.

The majority of unionized workers in the united states are government employees. The union protects the incompetent, shields them from responsibilities, and argues against the public interest. Public sector unions are corruption and a plot against the citizenry.

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Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone would have to be incredibly full of themselves to think they have more bargaining power than an entire union would. Unless you are literally one of a kind, there's always someone out there who could replace you. Replacing all of the workers that an entire union represents is a way more difficult proposition

The overall bargaining power is greater, sure. But the relative power isn't. They can always just leave and work somewhere else, a union literally does not have that option. As an individual it is far easier to negotiate of you have an in demand skill. Which is obvious if you look at the study in the OP. College educated people benefit far less from unionization, they can negotiate for their own.

What happens when your education is no longer relevant to the market? And you’ve had kids and don’t really have the time to retool and level up your skills to regain your leverage. Or your industry becomes saturated with highly skilled people and your leverage is steadily reduced in ways you can’t address. Virtually no one is special enough to avoid some or even all of this.

Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers the world over earn much less than Americans. It's why I've always told American developers to be careful what they wish for when it comes to remote work. But it might just be possible that there's more to life than money.

>But it might just be possible that there's more to life than money. There is yes, but a house is still paid in money.

Housing is universally messed up everywhere in Western world, no matter salaries. Where the salaries are higher, houses prices are accordingly higher as well. Only places where housing is affordable are the ones with no jobs. Good for remote workers, but not much else.

Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of leftist argue for worker owned businesses. Wouldn't that mean that losses would effectively be owned by the workers?

What do you think happens when a company is losing money? It's not like the shareholders are just eating that loss out of the goodness of their hearts. Instead there are layoffs, cancelled projects, and pay cuts. All of those are workers bearing the cost of the losses.

Are discounts then customers pilfering the pockets of the workers? Combo deals?

How consistent is your ideology really?

Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But it might just be possible that there's more to life than money. There is yes, but a house is still paid in money.

Housing is universally messed up everywhere in Western world, no matter salaries. Where the salaries are higher, houses prices are accordingly higher as well. Only places where housing is affordable are the ones with no jobs. Good for remote workers, but not much else.

>Housing is universally messed up everywhere in Western world, no matter salaries.

Not to the same scale though. IN Europe and especially Canada housing is way more expensive to buy than in the US relative to local wages. Americans forget how good the4y have it.

Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#77

This is basic economics. The rise of income and wealth inequality is directly tied to the weakening of collective bargaining, corporate consolidation and globalization. Source: https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions... . Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests.

> Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests.

The problem is just like you said, though: Wealth inequality weakens collective bargaining.

A union only holds power by being able to force a stoppage of work, but workers can only afford to stop work if they are rich. Without the arrow of wealth inequality reversing, unions will continue to falter anywhere the workers are poor.

That's just basic economics. However, figuring out how to reverse said arrow is extremely complex economics. If we knew how, we'd have done it already.

Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#78

This is basic economics. The rise of income and wealth inequality is directly tied to the weakening of collective bargaining, corporate consolidation and globalization. Source: https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions... . Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests.

> Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests.

This isn't true, and is often undesirable since unions serve workers, not customers.

Competition is what keeps corporations in check, and is most likely to benefit everyone. Of course unions are important to workers and also have their part to play.

Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall bargaining power is greater, sure. But the relative power isn't. They can always just leave and work somewhere else, a union literally does not have that option. As an individual it is far easier to negotiate of you have an in demand skill. Which is obvious if you look at the study in the OP. College educated people benefit far less from unionization, they can negotiate for their own.

What happens when your education is no longer relevant to the market? And you’ve had kids and don’t really have the time to retool and level up your skills to regain your leverage. Or your industry becomes saturated with highly skilled people and your leverage is steadily reduced in ways you can’t address. Virtually no one is special enough to avoid some or even all of this.

Then you are of very low value to your employer and a union acts as a social benefits organization. Essentially you are payed by the people whose skills are more valuable than yours.

Re: Union households tend to have $100k more in wealth than nonunion families

#80

This is basic economics. The rise of income and wealth inequality is directly tied to the weakening of collective bargaining, corporate consolidation and globalization. Source: https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions... . Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests.

> Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests. This isn't true, and is often undesirable since unions serve workers, not customers. Competition is what keeps corporations in check, and is most likely to benefit everyone. Of course unions are important to workers and also have their part to play.

The restaurant industry is an extremely competitive industry, yet I don't see their employees at the large enjoying any sort of prosperity.

Competition helps customers. Unionization helps workers. Both should happen in tandem, not exclusively.

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