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U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

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Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#61

Post by impossiblefork »

nox101 wrote: post #46
komali2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> impossible to fire bad teachers though. It's impossible to fire bad teachers (it really isn't, btw, at least not in Texas) because there are no teachers because teachers wages are pathologically low because every education department in the country is underfunded.

IIUC the USA spend near the top per student of all countries. Why is it other countries get better results with less money? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...

Yes, but if we look at teacher salaries, the average in the state of New York is 79 637.

In Sweden it's around 41550 SEK per month, which implies 498 000 SEK per year, which including the tax would be 647 400 SEK per year, i.e. 59 000 USD.

But Sweden has a per capita GDP of 56000 USD whereas the per capita GDP of New York State is 104343. It's not going to be incredibly competitive.

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#62

Post by badcppdev »

sjtgraham wrote: post #19
wolverine876 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of the same old talking point, what solution do you propose? Should the executive branch agency make decisions by fiat, without due process? The use of due process doesn't make them a judiciary; it's just a more fair way to make decisions within their purview. Should we move every such judgment out of the executive branch's hands? First, they have to be able to make some decisions. But the heart of this issue…

> Instead of the same old talking point, what solution do you propose? Unnecessarily hostile opening, but full separation of powers as written in the Constitution. > Should the executive branch agency make decisions by fiat, without due process? It should not be adjudicating any kind of legal controversy. That is not the role of the executive branch. > The use of due process doesn't make them a judiciary; it's just a…

And what solution do you propose?

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#63

Post by arrrg »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #41
sebtron wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes a positive difference for the employees. You seem to imply that this is correlated to a negative difference for the employer, which is completely wrong.

Obviously in general it makes a positive difference for employees, that was a rhetorical question... I have listed two main negative differences it makes for employers. I am hard-pressed to find any positive differences for them... on the issues this touches it's pretty much a zero-sum game so if employees gain it means employers 'lose'. If something is positive for both sides then I think the market will eventually…

It is perfectly possible that a given company performance can be reached by different paths, some better for employees, some worse.

In fact, I think that even seems like a very plausible hypothesis, given that treating your employees worse can have advantages (reduction in costs and headcount) and disadvantages (less motived and potentially productive employees, worse retention, difficulties attracting people) for the employer, so those two may roughly cancel out under a whole lot of different conditions.

So for the employer there may be no benefit (but also not really a downside) to treating employees better, but add to the mix this strong cultural idea in US business circles that unions are the worst and you get this taboo against unions and no market pressure to change that.

Obviously this is a quite horrific situation to be in because we get worse outcomes for employees and unchanged outcomes for employers. So no one benefits and most people have worse outcomes. Bad all around.

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#64

Post by badcppdev »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #28
jollofricepeas wrote: post #7

I don’t understand how so many HNers are anti-union and anti-collective bargaining. The fact that corporations and billionaires are so anti-union and engage in regular conduct like this demonstrates that unions are pro-worker and ideal for the balance needed in the US and across the globe. Balance is key between workers and owners. Without it we are left with growing wealth inequality such as… - ridiculous housing pr…

> I don’t understand how so many HNers are anti-union and anti-collective bargaining. I had the displeasure of working with union labor in the US, they would come in at 7 (who does that) and leave at 4 on the dot. Then worked with non-union labor: cheaper, worked as much as possible per day, got the job done faster. Money-wise it was less than union labor. Now tell me how is good for me, as a company that needs stuff…

> they would come in at 7 (who does that)

To answer your question human beings who want work life balance and want to do things with friends and family in the afternoon. Or do you believe that a work day should ONLY be for work?

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#65

Post by gklitz »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #34
Stranger43 wrote: post #22

I wonder why US companies keep pulling stunts like this despite the data showing little negative impact of unionization to overall productivity nor company survival. It looks to be a purely dogmatic ego trip where somehow blind loyalty is demanded even when it's not actually necessary.

If it made no difference why would employees bother? It does make a negative difference for employers with potentially higher costs and lower flexibility over time.

Great question. Ledt assume that you’re discussing a topic like working hours. Your company says you have to work. 14h each day, and you argue that if you have to do that, you’ll be sleep deprived, make mistakes and be so low productivity that it wouldn’t benefit the company, especially since they would have to pay you more with a constant hourly wage than if you worked fewer hours and was more productive. The company argues: “STFU pessent, you’ll work when we say, how long we say and exactly how we say or you’re fired this instance, now get back in line before I duct your pay for the time you’re wasting by even thinking you’re worthy of talking to someone in management!”

Now in that scenario the worker has no power at all, even though it actually is as we all know today, a proven benefit to have resonable working hours for the company.

So if you have a union and all the workers can collectively go “we need to talk about work hours or we strike” you force through the policy that is ultimately beneficial to the company, even though management hates the idea of there being 6hours more per day that their wage slaves are not at the work benches.

Why would workers argue for fewer hours if it doesn’t end up costing the company net profits? Because they are humans, not machines, and not everything in this world boils down to pure profit driven motives.

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#66

Post by lotsofpulp »

pmontra wrote: post #27
cjk2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm anti-union AND pro labour regulation. Your government should be targeting wealth inequality with legislation and public services on all of these issues. The union tends to become another opaque organisation with a power hierarchy of its own and layers of internal politics and power struggles. The unions rarely if ever push for legislation change either because it would risk their existence. The corporations shoul…

The interests of the people working inside a union might align with the interests of the workers they represent but as in any other organization they are focused on their own job and careers. The people at the bottom are probably more idealistic. When I hear about strikes in my country and their purpoted goals and the way they are made, most of the time I feel like their goal is to advance the careers of somebody in…

Even the interests of the older members of the union diverge from the younger members (not unlike a country). Pretty much every defined benefit pension plan has “tiers” of benefits, where the older members voted themselves higher benefits in exchange for younger members getting less.

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#67

Post by thuridas »

komali2 wrote: post #26
Stranger43 wrote: post #22

I wonder why US companies keep pulling stunts like this despite the data showing little negative impact of unionization to overall productivity nor company survival. It looks to be a purely dogmatic ego trip where somehow blind loyalty is demanded even when it's not actually necessary.

I personally believe companies are given way too much credit in being considered rational pure-profit motive actors. They're far worse than that (a rational pure-profit motive actor is also bad because it would inevitably select for slavery): they're typically run by extremely conservative, often ivy-league people (if not in alma mater, then in worship of ivy league culture). These people are trained from the get go…

You mean that forcing developers to work 60 hours weeks do not work? Surprise!!

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#68

Post by ExoticPearTree »

ok_dad wrote: post #52
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand how so many HNers are anti-union and anti-collective bargaining. I had the displeasure of working with union labor in the US, they would come in at 7 (who does that) and leave at 4 on the dot. Then worked with non-union labor: cheaper, worked as much as possible per day, got the job done faster. Money-wise it was less than union labor. Now tell me how is good for me, as a company that needs stuff…

> Now tell me how is good for me, as a company that needs stuff done, to use union workers? Because in a race to the bottom, even the winner ends up in shit. The reason America is turning to crap now is because everyone is just out for themselves, and that's mostly folks like you who just want to get stuff done cheaply. Unions may not be the answer for your company, but please at least treat your workers like they ma…

Y'all missing the point in this:

- I hired a company to do some construction work and in that particular location, due to how the contracts were set, I could only get union work. Expensive and no over time.

- In another location which did not had this kind of restriction, I hired another company that was not unionized: they worked longer hours and as a result finished faster. Also their hourly rates were lower.

Point being, in a non-union market you can do a lot more faster.

And to get to the financial issue, all hours were paid, so just in case it is not clear, there was never a question of not wanting to pay overtime. The question was why I should pay ~20-25% more for the same work?

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#69

Post by simiones »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #41
sebtron wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes a positive difference for the employees. You seem to imply that this is correlated to a negative difference for the employer, which is completely wrong.

Obviously in general it makes a positive difference for employees, that was a rhetorical question... I have listed two main negative differences it makes for employers. I am hard-pressed to find any positive differences for them... on the issues this touches it's pretty much a zero-sum game so if employees gain it means employers 'lose'. If something is positive for both sides then I think the market will eventually…

You're missing the simple fact that this idea that the market will arrive at every positive thing that can be quantified is simply wrong. Markets will very very often converge on local maxima if allowed to. This is obvious if you think about it from a simple computational perspective: markets at best do a random walk search, and that can only ever find a local maximum, not the global maximum of a function.

Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers

#70

Post by quartesixte »

nox101 wrote: post #46
komali2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> impossible to fire bad teachers though. It's impossible to fire bad teachers (it really isn't, btw, at least not in Texas) because there are no teachers because teachers wages are pathologically low because every education department in the country is underfunded.

IIUC the USA spend near the top per student of all countries. Why is it other countries get better results with less money? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...

I am going to go out on a wild limb here, and conjecture that one of the US's biggest weakness is how they handle teachers.

1. Above average talent in any subject field do not join the talent pool for teachers in the USA. Industry pays better and has better working conditions (both real and perceived). This is going to be a major cultural hurdle but the USA needs to break away from the idea that teaching is lesser work. This will create more political will to boost teacher funding.

2. Free Market Economics. You heard me. Teachers in the USA have the unique "opportunity" of having to find and interview for positions. Two problems: First, you end up with talent pooling unevenly. Next, you have teachers stagnating at one school for decades. Solution: central deployment. Teachers are hired by districts, and then the district rotates teachers through all schools in the district over the course of their career. Seniority grants some preference ranking, and longer rotation periods.

This also counters a third problem: Teachers finding themselves out of a job, or facing job prospects so dire that they just leave the field altogether. There is a level of security, and those who wish to proceed to administration are given opportunities towards the ends of their careers.

3. Administration as a separate career track. Administrative bloat is becoming a real problem, and both the higher pay associated + the opportunity to laterally move into the track via "further education" is a root cause. This makes them a separate class with competing interests, and incentives will only lead to more bloat as well as siphon away talented teachers who get burned out by teaching (mostly due to the abysmal pay). My time in Japan gave me perspective on a perhaps better way:

   a) School based administration (principals and vice principals) is a role only obtainable at the end of your career, on a fixed timeline. If you decided to put yourself on that track, you will most likely be in the last 6 years of your career, and your last 3 years as principal will end in retirement. This both prevents admin bloat and class distinction, while allowing skilled, senior teachers to provide guidance and pass along wisdom.\
 
   b) School District administration -- that is all the bureaucratic management of schools -- is a completely separate career track of professional, general bureaucrats who are assigned to school administration as part of a career rotation inside their career at government.
Teachers teach, and become experts at teaching. In the end, they are rewarded by becoming Principal Teachers. Bureaucrats manage, and in the end are rewarded by becoming ... senior bureaucrats somewhere inside the halls of Government, by being a good administrator during your rotation.

And thus begins a virtuous, positive feedback loop of good teachers rotating around a school district reinforcing good teaching, and then ultimately being rewarded by becoming the ultimate teacher. At the same time, administrative entrenchment is avoided because administration is an assigned, rotating task.

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