111–120 of 327 posts
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 saves even a little money, it will happen.
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.
At a meta level, if your government isn't particularly pro-union (and one side is rabidly anti-union with the potential for them to be in charge for the next four years), and you are to some extent hostage to governmental fortune (cf the current lawsuits against Apple, the reliance on outsourcing to China, etc.) there's probably a certain amount of political sense in being seen to be anti-union Just In Case.
It seems like most of the "union problems" in the US arise from workers clashing with overly-greedy, abusive employers. The employer generally has more power in this relationship, and uses that power to squeeze every last bit of value out of their workforce. The workforce has few ways to push back against this, with unions being one of the options. Maybe if other options were on the table, there would be fewer union…
Yes. The solution you provide might seem to on the surface, but it doesn't in reality. Let me give you an existing exemple, and one that people associate with strong workers right and yet the relation between workforce and employers is horrible : my country of France.
France made a capital mistake compared to our other european neighbors, by making an inverted order of agreement. Countries where it works (like nordics, etc ...) have a flow of importance like this :
1 Union collective agreement
2 Country's law
3 Company local agreement
Meaning the defining rules are made through the union, some are set by the country (but they're not overriding union agreement), and local companies can make their own internal agreement but they can't override the law nor the union agreement (so eg you can give extra holiday, but you can't take out a national holiday or a union negotiated holiday).
France being centralised as it is, and believing in the messiah governement above adult talking with rules; decided to invert this with the following scheme :
1 Country's law
2 Union collective agreement
3 Company local agreement
On the surface, it seems like it makes sense or is even better. In reality, here is what happens : if you are a worker and want a change, or there is a strike and you're the employer negotiating, or ... The end game is not the other side. It's the governement. This doesn't promote discussion between both side of the work share, it makes it useless.
So you have the joke about employer's association regretting that the governement make news laws and rules every time there is a major strike instead of negotiations, and the employee's union regretting that when a strike is stalling the situation employers go to the governement instead of negotiating harder ... You get the governement having to "invite both side to the table" in front of them at every major strike. Because ultimately, our system makes the governement the daddy when workers and employers are the kid.
And what's really insane is that both side hate this and criticize it, yet when Macron made a push to change it both side where also against it because they saw it as destroying their position : employees union pretended it would allow employers to do whatever since they have more power, employers pretended it would put them in a kidnapped situation every strike.
Meanwhile you go on the french subreddit or any other center to left place, you will regularly see things like union agreement that have minimal salaries in them BELOW the french legal salaries, acting like this is horrible, while in reality it's like that because nobody cares about that because it doesn't matter because the minimal is the country's one.
I love my country's approach to people rights and society's rules, but this is one where we're really wrong, except it gives everyone a taste of power (gov like to be in power; employees like that they can call daddy to "screw the evil employer", employers like that they can circumvent their peole to go straight to daddy to "skip those lazy workers").
I don't know if proper union in charge is the best solution. All I know is every place doing better than us at that have strong union and a governement that doesn't try to do their job for them.
It seems like most of the "union problems" in the US arise from workers clashing with overly-greedy, abusive employers. The employer generally has more power in this relationship, and uses that power to squeeze every last bit of value out of their workforce. The workforce has few ways to push back against this, with unions being one of the options. Maybe if other options were on the table, there would be fewer union…
Unions are very powerful, but they also take stakes in the corporations. I'm pretty sure that union reps often sit on corporate boards.
Japan has a long culture of employee relations, but they also work their asses off. I don't think Japanese unions would cover slackers, which is a popular view of US unions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If something is positive for both sides then I think the market will eventually adopt it on its own." In Denmark we (by law) all have 5 weeks of holiday per year (besides public holidays), paid sick leave, 37 hour work week, paid maternity care (m/f), reasonable notice of termination, reasonable rules for work environment, etc. All because of our unions. How is it in the US?
Those very generous working conditions, and the mind set that it comes from and creates, I am convinced, is also why Denmark does not have an Apple, Tesla, Google, Nvidia, or SpaceX, and why the AI revolution is heavily based on the US. I’m not dinging you for it. I am US based ex EU (NL) myself, and have lived under both systems enough time to have experienced the difference. Countries and individuals can make choic…
It might also be that Denmark is half the size of South Carolina (approximately). While the US is the whole size of the US.
They're also super secretive. None of my friends can tell me what they work on. Awhile back it was hinted that they were working on a search engine with K8s as the backend but it's been 2-3 years since I inferred that and there's been nothing. Everyone I know there is/was a k8s contributor.
I used to work for a super secret company making cool stuff and it was so lame that I couldn't talk about any of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> House prices wouldn't be so high if we had unions. In Switzerland, all the large unions (railroad workers, public service workers, ect.) have so much money and so much access to cheap credit, they can (and frequently did in the past) start housing co-ops for their members. This results in large developments in the middle of the most expensive cities, where only union members have a chance to rent. And even those ha…
Where did those unions get so much money from?
That war chest, in combination with it being unthinkable that a big union goes bankrupt, and the fact that they are building real estate, pretty much means they can borrow more money dirt cheap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> House prices wouldn't be so high if we had unions. In Switzerland, all the large unions (railroad workers, public service workers, ect.) have so much money and so much access to cheap credit, they can (and frequently did in the past) start housing co-ops for their members. This results in large developments in the middle of the most expensive cities, where only union members have a chance to rent. And even those ha…
Where did those unions get so much money from?
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.
Is that actually true, you do see unionized pilots and police unions functioning pretty unproductively and in bad faith
Don't expect a wolf in sheeps' clothing to baa.