As unions decline, inequality rises • Hacker News Board

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#111

Post by flanflan » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #79

kneebonian wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you are mischarecterizing OPs argument. His argument is that rather than focus on inequality we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall.

> > we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall The most important quality of life metric is mental health. There is no way around the fact that mental health is heavily impacted by the fact that citizens feel worthless when they assess their social status vis-a-vis the top 1% And no amount of stuff will solve this problem because social status is a zero-sum game. It's one of those problems th…

i dont think people revolt because they feel bad when they compare themselves to the 1%. People revolt because they have nothing to lose. Their material conditions are the most important thing in this equation. I'm sure that a populace can tolerate inequality to a point (look at the inequality in the US and Europe, for example) but once a large enough slice of the population has nothing to lose then it's choppy boy time.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#112

Post by Gimpei » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #92

To everybody who thinks this is just correlation and not causation - read the post properly. They mention: "Labor unions both sustained prosperity, and ensured that it was shared; union bargaining power has been shown to moderate the compensation of executives at unionized firms." And give a link to a study. This result has been seen across countries, and is the CAUSAL link you're looking for.

I don’t have any real opinion about the direction of causality. If anything the idea of unions contributing to more wage equality makes sense to me. But, linking to a single study as “proof” of anything is a big no no. It is very easy to cherry pick studies so that you get the “true” outcome. The only way to make a halfway convincing argument is to look at every piece of evidence on the question and aggregate them. This is why we believe global warming is man made and severe despite a few studies that suggest otherwise. One other caveat I would add is that if you read the linked study, they’re only reporting correlations. There doesn’t appear to be a causal identification strategy there. Which isn’t to say it isn’t interesting and worthwhile. Only that one should take the results with an appropriate level of caution.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#113

Post by ubercore » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #103

ubercore wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a very US-centric lens on unions. In the Nordic countries, for example, unions operate entirely differently. So you need to be clear where your points come from.

> So you need to be clear where your points come from They were responding to a post specifically asking about Americans' feelings toward unions. That made it pretty clear to me where his points were coming from. If they were responding from Finland I'd be a little confused why they were responding at all.

Because Finland is a great example of unions working for the benefit of employees? Why are we constrained to only discussing how (some, not all) unions are in the US?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#114

Post by jltsiren » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #24

thepasswordis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some people take pride in their work, and being essentially forced to do a bad job hurts them psychologically. I want to get up early, set big goals, work hard on them, and then see the fruits of that hard work. I take immense pride in that, and seeing the output in some sense is a big part of the payment. Unions don’t allow for this attitude, at least none of the ones that I have ever interacted with. They’r…

Hypothesis #1: European unions aren't like American unions in this way: they are far less oppositional to the objectives of the companies. Hypothesis #2: This is a result of European unions having an origin as trade guilds whereas American unions have an origin as political organizers.

European unions have their roots in revolutionary communism. They then evolved towards social democracy, which is effectively a compromise between socialism and capitalism. This social compromise, where the unions accepted market economy and private property and the employers accepted moderate unions, made the unions what they are today.

American unions evolved in another direction. Because there was no serious risk of a communist revolution, the employers had no need to comromise. Both the employers and the unions remain more confrontational than in Europe.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#115

Post by otikik » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

wallawe wrote: post #74

Zeyka wrote: post #3

I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions, maybe they just see themselves as embarrassed millionaires that would want to crush their workers to squeeze money out of them? It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone, say Jerry, 60 year old factory worker from idaho, can be against unions...

If this is your take, you're not being honest about the downsides of unions. Here is a list of reasons for not wanting a union[1]: - I want my underperforming colleagues to be fired quickly. It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I don't want seniority or rank to be rewarded. It's unfair to young people (me) who are m…

> It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort

With your unionized coworkers that might be a possibility. With the business owners that’s a certainty. Do you feel differently about these two groups of people?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#116

Post by geysersam » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

dzink wrote: post #25

World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this. There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic. I’d argue the unions were a bi-product of a historically rare moment in time vs cause of equality. The market bust and global world war increased taxation, demand for workers, and value of each worker in the early 40s. Much more importantly, for a few decades after WWII all other global…

This is bizarre.

Of course there is not one single factor determining the economic, technical and social development of countries over decades of time.

But the relationship between unions, the labor movement, and social democratic policies is obvious.

Those in turn have had a large impact on equality and standard of living.

The economy benefits from having a larger base of well off consumers, and a well educated, healthy, non-striking labor force. It's a self reinforcing positive spriral.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#117

Post by ensignavenger » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

ubercore wrote: post #94

wallawe wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is your take, you're not being honest about the downsides of unions. Here is a list of reasons for not wanting a union[1]: - I want my underperforming colleagues to be fired quickly. It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I don't want seniority or rank to be rewarded. It's unfair to young people (me) who are m…

I think you have a very US-centric lens on unions. In the Nordic countries, for example, unions operate entirely differently. So you need to be clear where your points come from.

The above comment was clearly in response to another comment about how Americans feel about unions, thus it is obvious it was looking at American unions.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#118

Post by ceres » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

wallawe wrote: post #74

Zeyka wrote: post #3

I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions, maybe they just see themselves as embarrassed millionaires that would want to crush their workers to squeeze money out of them? It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone, say Jerry, 60 year old factory worker from idaho, can be against unions...

If this is your take, you're not being honest about the downsides of unions. Here is a list of reasons for not wanting a union[1]: - I want my underperforming colleagues to be fired quickly. It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I don't want seniority or rank to be rewarded. It's unfair to young people (me) who are m…

All great points. To add: As someone who's worked blue collar jobs, it is all too common for unions to protect assholes from getting fired. This leads to a hostile work environment created by the "high seniority" workers.

Something I don't like whenever these discussions come up is the condescending tone, from white collar workers. "Don't these poor people know what's good for them????"

Working class people are capable of thinking for themselves and it's not that uncommon for people to move from a union shop to a non-union shop due to the reasons outlined above.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#119

Post by flanflan » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

wallawe wrote: post #74

Zeyka wrote: post #3

I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions, maybe they just see themselves as embarrassed millionaires that would want to crush their workers to squeeze money out of them? It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone, say Jerry, 60 year old factory worker from idaho, can be against unions...

If this is your take, you're not being honest about the downsides of unions. Here is a list of reasons for not wanting a union[1]: - I want my underperforming colleagues to be fired quickly. It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I don't want seniority or rank to be rewarded. It's unfair to young people (me) who are m…

No post body was provided.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#120

Post by britch » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

zip1234 wrote: post #42

jasode wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone [...] can be against unions... America unions are structured differently from Europe and some can become as distrusted by the workers as the corporation. Your viewpoint is common but it's based on the mental model of "Unions are good. Period end of story." But for voters like your proverbial Jerry against unions, the mental model is more about trad…

There are also public sector unions which appear to only serve a special interest group at the expense of everyone else. Teacher unions are an example--they appear to protect bad teachers, stifle innovation, and it isn't even clear that they are great at getting pay for teachers.

Mind elaborating on what you mean by innovation?

Is it new/unique curriculum? Something else?