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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

#221

Post by MacsHeadroom »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #92
geraldwhen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White and Asian students, if stratified separately, rank in the top 10 academically world wide. Everyone else brings down the average, and it has nothing to do with teachers or how good they are. Teachers in my county are assigned to schools randomly, and yet some schools score 9/10 and others score literally 1/10 and 2/10 on great schools for academic performance. Funding between schools is the same. Teachers assign…

Why do black and hispanic students score worse?

Even adjusted for family wealth, income, and adversity nonimmigrants* with these backgrounds score worse at all schooling levels; even when placed in schools with double the funding per student.

It would be nice if socioeconomic factors were the whole answer here. But that does not appear to be the case. Even Hispanic and Black students adopted by White families do not score much higher than peers of their ethnic group. This is a dark rabbit hole that you may not want to go down.

*Legal immigrants are self selected for higher ability.

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

#222

Post by randomdata »

gklitz wrote: post #65
mytailorisrich wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compan…

> Now in that scenario the worker has no power at all

The worker holds all the power, so long as another worker isn't an asshole ready to screw over his fellow man. What's the company going to do if the worker balks? Hire nobody? Not going to happen.

Which is what a union ultimately serves: Establishing a brotherhood where the workers agree to not be assholes towards each other, to not screw each other over, so that when a worker decides the terms are un-agreeable another worker isn't waiting to pounce to take his position. This retains a worker's power.

But if workers had common decency to begin with...

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

#223

Post by readyman »

trollbridge wrote: post #189

This seems to be part of a persistent pattern of businesses thinking they are above the law, and when challenged, the filing of endless countersuits and appeals. At some point, the democratic process elected Congress and the laws passed therein, and businesses exist at the pleasure of the people and their elected representatives, not the other way around. A business that doesn’t want to unionise is free to close up s…

>a persistent pattern of businesses thinking they are above the law

In the aggregate, they absolutely are. Capital, not democracy, elects US politicians. Those politicians create, enact, and enforce the laws.

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

#224

Post by Aunche »

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…

The purpose of a union is to serve those inside the union. They don't care if the consumer has to pay for higher cost, the unionized company stagnates, or if all new jobs in that company get shipped overseas. Naturally, this means that people who aren't members of a union already have a negative opinion of unions.

> - ridiculous housing prices

> - stagnant wages

> - poor public school education

> - no retirement benefits

> - expensive public universities

Outside of "no retirement benefits," none of these have anything to do with unions, and HN-goers probably would prefer self-funded retire anyways so they can FIRE. Notably, ridiculous housing prices are mostly the result of grassroots NIMBYs, and capital tends to be on the side of build whatever you want. However, when they're operating in a NIMBY environment, they adapt and buy up the existing supply.

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

#225

Post by alistairSH »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #115

In Japan, there's a really symbiotic relationship between unions and corporations. 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.

That's also largely true in Germany (the relationship between union and corporation).

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

#226

Post by ExoticPearTree »

Hikikomori wrote: post #170
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that you can switch jobs if you don't like the one you're in at the moment, right? And it is not my problem with how much someone if paid, really. I put out a request for work, companies bid, the cheapest one overall wins. That's how the free market works. And sure, believe whatever you want, but getting the best deal possible is not going to be the end of the US :)

Why would it matter if they can switch jobs or not when all jobs would exploit workers the same way in your non union ideal.

No one is exploiting anyone. As a free individual you agree or not to be paid a certain amount of money for a unit of work - an hour in the majority of cases.

The only reason unions exist is so they can extort business owners into paying more than the market is willing to pay for that unit of work. And the fact that as a business owner you can't easily fire a unionized employee is the worst thing possible.

You can downvote me to oblivion, but unions are cancer and they need to be abolished.

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

#227

Post by samatman »

trollbridge wrote: post #202
sandworm101 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> businesses exist at the pleasure of the people and their elected representatives As one noted politician famously said: "Corporations are people". The issue is that soo much of US jurisprudence has granted corporate entities all the rights of personhood. The only thing they cannot yet do is vote, but that too will come. They are certainly today allowed to vote with their wallets by financially supporting candidate…

A rather key difference is that people who break the law can and do get put in prison. Whereas consequences and penalties for corporations seem to be nonexistent. An obvious solution would be to revoke limited liability for a corporation, converting it into a general partnership… shareholders could either abandon or sell their shares, and ones who remain would assume both liability and control over the corporation. (…

Revoking the charter is in fact an option, however seldom it's invoked, but it's not actually necessary.

Courts can, and do, pierce the corporate veil, either criminally prosecuting responsible parties or holding them to full liability for corporate action. Corporate personhood is a useful fiction, but it's just that, a legal fiction.

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

#228

Post by alistairSH »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #135
whamlastxmas wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a popular view of anti union propaganda. No one wants to work with lazy people and unions don’t especially want them either

There's a lot of anti-union propaganda, and some of it is self-inflicted. Anyone that has ever participated in a trade show at the Javits Center, has seen unions do serious damage to their own cause.

Yeah, LV and NYC convention sites are probably the worst/most-obvious examples.

Plenty of stories of presenters being disallowed from plugging in their own equipment without a union employee there to assist and other things like that.

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

#229

Post by insane_dreamer »

trollbridge wrote: post #189

This seems to be part of a persistent pattern of businesses thinking they are above the law, and when challenged, the filing of endless countersuits and appeals. At some point, the democratic process elected Congress and the laws passed therein, and businesses exist at the pleasure of the people and their elected representatives, not the other way around. A business that doesn’t want to unionise is free to close up s…

> businesses exist at the pleasure of the people and their elected representatives

not in late-stage capitalism they don't

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

#230

Post by azemetre »

brookst wrote: post #209

I’m in the HN minority that actually likes Apple’s products and business model. I like the consistency the closed ecosystem brings, I like the product design, I like the vertical integration. But this union stuff pisses me off to no end. Apple has high margins and is generally ahead of competitors in things like sustainability and supplier responsibility (yes yes not perfect, I just said ahead). It would be 100% in l…

People easily forget that both Apple and Google actively suppressed tech salaries (along with other tech companies) in collision with each other:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

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