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Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

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Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really? There is nothing wrong with fighting for workers rights while automation is not here yet. The problem is that automation has to be taxed accordingly to allow us to live with dignity when there is no job to occupy (i.e UBI), and guess who's against taxation? "The left" would be the wrong answer. I don't see any paradox. 1.Tax the rich now. 2. Improve worker rights which will push us faster towards automa…

See https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/real-commun...

Yeah, label anyone you agree with as a communist. That's nothing more than a scare tactic.

Is there anything specific you want me to get from this article?

It's a hilarious argument that people advocating for workers rights and want wages to go UP are communists that want the wages to go DOWN...

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#122
post #91
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a union supporter who's spent some time reading about anti-union sentiment here, I've found it generally boils down to a few things: 1) A large portion of users on this site are entrepreneurs or in higher-level tech. For the former, unions can be seen as getting in the way of the startup lifecycle; for the latter, many believe that the value they provide makes them untouchable, or believe that the supply of high…

> Police unions Public unions seem to be a special case and, while I generally support unions, I can understand the perspective that public unions bring about specific problems. E.g., a strong bargaining chip for a union is the right to strike. The idea that a public service can strike creates problems. As another example, I witnessed changes in competition and economics force auto unions to compromise for the busine…

Another reason police unions are entirely different, even from other public sector unions, is that the police are used to break strikes. They're structurally antagonistic to every other part of the labour movement.

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no desire to be part of a union because of my one-person removed (friends) experience with union violence. 1) Interns, not being part of the union, needed to cross the picket line (Canada Federal Government strike). My friend (female) was punched in the face by a union member. 2) Another friend working on the factory floor, doubled then tripled their work quota. They were pulled aside and told it was amazing h…

> 1) Interns, not being part of the union, needed to cross the picket line (Canada Federal Government strike). My friend (female) was punched in the face by a union member. This would have made news and I cannot find it.

It was in the early 90s. Why would you expect it to make the news?

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#124
post #74
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One point I've seen little or no discussion about on hn, is that employers are often (at least in Norway) organized. So they will have access to legal aid, standard contracts, training on negotiating etc - this in addition to the skewed bargaining power between a single employee and the company as a whole. Is this not common in the US (illegal collusion on wages aside)? It's always seemed strange to me that people wi…

Keep in mind that unions in Europe are not the same thing as US unions, despite the same name. In Europe there are multiple unions you can join for an employer. This competition keeps them working well. In the US it's a single union per employer, and if the employer has one, you are forced to join it (and in some states you can decline to join, but still be required to pay fees). This causes lots of problems with cor…

That's not the case here in NL. There's sector unions which represent types of work (logistics, call centers, retail work) and each can negotiate for their members. It's not a shopping mall of orgs you cherry pick from.

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#125
post #124
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that unions in Europe are not the same thing as US unions, despite the same name. In Europe there are multiple unions you can join for an employer. This competition keeps them working well. In the US it's a single union per employer, and if the employer has one, you are forced to join it (and in some states you can decline to join, but still be required to pay fees). This causes lots of problems with cor…

That's not the case here in NL. There's sector unions which represent types of work (logistics, call centers, retail work) and each can negotiate for their members. It's not a shopping mall of orgs you cherry pick from.

Does each employer have a single union?

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#126
post #125
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case here in NL. There's sector unions which represent types of work (logistics, call centers, retail work) and each can negotiate for their members. It's not a shopping mall of orgs you cherry pick from.

Does each employer have a single union?

I noticed before you said "In the US it's a single union per employer".

In the US a company may have employees each in different unions.

Consider a Hollywood movie studio, where the writers, actors, stage workers, and truckers may all be in different unions.

The US unions are by trade, and I think that's what l3uwin also means for NL.

That said, multi-unionism is indeed more common in Europe, if my reading of Google Scholar is correct. Eg, "Multi-unionism and the Representation of Sectional Interests in British Workplaces" at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/104346311454631...

> Unlike in the United States, exclusive jurisdiction is exceptional in Europe (Visser, 1992), and unions commonly negotiate with employers simultaneously with other unions on the level of the sector as well as at the company level (Akkerman, 2008). The majority of the European Union member states have multiple labor union confederations, organizing members along political, religious, or occupational (status) lines (Eurofound, 2014). Even in the United Kingdom, Austria, Ireland, and Latvia— countries with just one union confederation—unaffiliated unions and union representation by several unions within the same confederation exist. Thus, multi-union bargaining is a common if not dominant feature of Western European industrial relations. Sometimes, these unions coordinate their bargaining activities, for instance, by setting joint wage demands and synchronizing the communication to their rank and file. Joining forces increases their bargaining power.

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#127
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a union supporter who's spent some time reading about anti-union sentiment here, I've found it generally boils down to a few things: 1) A large portion of users on this site are entrepreneurs or in higher-level tech. For the former, unions can be seen as getting in the way of the startup lifecycle; for the latter, many believe that the value they provide makes them untouchable, or believe that the supply of high…

I'm very much anti-unionization, but don't really fall into any of those buckets. To be fair, I didn't take it to be an exhaustive list. Basically, I'm opposed to unions as they exist in the US because of the government being involved and "artificially" granting them power.

To add to the other good comments, unions existed and were effective before there were any laws specifically enabling or regulating them.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_v._Hunt . There was no law which "artificially" granted the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society power. The "five or six good workmen" who would have walked out should Horne continue to be employed, were exercising their right of free association.

And, fundamentally, that's where union power comes from - the right to collectively decide to quit.

Union laws give unions specific powers, it's true. But they also restrict union power. If you oppose the artificial granting of power, then you should also oppose the artificial restriction of power, and allow "jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns" [1] -- once-legal practices banned by Taft-Hartley and all fundamentally based in the power to collectively decide to stop working.

[1] Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#128
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure teacher performance? Have you looked at the actual proposals? They're atrocious, as if education needed to be any more of a rat race of chasing idiotic """performance""" metrics.

If you read this book, there's a whole chapter dedicated to someone successfully coming up with a metric and validated it: https://www.amazon.com/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Edu... The short answer is you measure student progress over time via standardized testing. Someone was able to obtain anonymized per-teacher data via FOIA request and verify that some teachers perform consistently and significantly better…

If the grades given by unionized teachers is a better prediction of future academic and professional success than standardized tests, would you switch your support to unionized teachers over testing?

See, the thing is, high school GPA is a better predictor for academic success than standardized testing. Here are four quotes from the many relevant papers found through Google Scholar:

1) "Decomposing GPA: Why Is High School GPA the Best Single Predictor of First- Year GPA?" https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeffrey-Steedle/publica... :

> Research has consistently shown that high school grade-point average (HSGPA) is the best single predictor of academic outcomes in the first year of postsecondary education (Bowen, Chingos, & McPherson, 2009). Given that HSGPA is not a standardized measure of academic achievement—and is not therefore perfectly comparable across students or high schools—it likely incorporates information about college readiness beyond academic knowledge and skills.

2) "Does the ACT Composite Score or High School Grade Point Average Provide a Better Prediction of Bachelor Degree Attainment?" https://scholarworks.harding.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...

> Results indicated high school GPA to be a significant predictor of persistence to degree attainment while the ACT Composite score was not a significant predictor. Implications from this study suggest that admissions officers may want to emphasize a student's high school GPA in determining if the student will complete a bachelor's degree program.

3) "High School GPAs and ACT Scores as Predictors of College Completion: Examining Assumptions About Consistency Across High Schools" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0013189X2090211...

> High school GPAs (HSGPAs) are often perceived to represent inconsistent levels of readiness for college across high schools, whereas test scores (e.g., ACT scores) are seen as comparable. This study tests those assumptions, examining variation across high schools of both HSGPAs and ACT scores as measures of academic readiness for college. We found students with the same HSGPA or the same ACT score graduate at very different rates based on which high school they attended. Yet, the relationship of HSGPAs with college graduation is strong and consistent and larger than school effects. In contrast, the relationship of ACT scores with college graduation is weak and smaller than high school effects, and the slope of the relationship varies by high schoolYou write "objective numeric testing", but tell me, what is the objective reason those tests tend to focus on math and short-form English comprehension? Why do they omit art appreciation, musical skills, physical education, essay writing, and other topics that students learn at school?

4) "What Matters Most for College Completion?" https://www.calstate.edu/apply/Documents/elevating-college-c...

> Both SAT or ACT scores and high school GPA are associated with the likelihood that students at four-year colleges earn a bachelor’s degree. But when considered together, the predictive power of high school GPA is much stronger. Figure 2 shows that, among students with similar SAT or ACT scores, those with higher high school GPAs are much more likely to graduate. But among students with similar high school GPAs, no strong relationship exists between SAT or ACT scores and graduation rates (except that those who score below 800 are noticeably less likely to complete college).

> This makes sense given that earning good grades requires consistent behaviors over time—showing up to class and participating, turning in assignments, taking quizzes, etc.—whereas students could in theory do well on a test even if they do not have the motivation and perseverance needed to achieve good grades. It seems likely that the kinds of habits high school grades capture are more relevant for success in college than a score from a single test.

> ... And the relatively weak predictive power of SAT or ACT scores vanishes entirely once the student’s high school is taken into account, suggesting that the test scores serve partly as a proxy for high school quality.

Sure, you can claim I'm cherry-picking. But the same holds for the book you pointed to. And given just how many papers there are which argue that GPA is more predictive than standardized scores, it's certainly nowhere near as clear-cut as you appear to believe.

Does this start to make you reconsider your opposition to unionized teachers now? If not, why not?

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#129
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And unions are exactly that powerful. A strike can easily shut down a company, a town or a country. I do not see a similar power on the corporation's side. Firing everybody would just kill the corporation as well.

The data here seems to indicate otherwise https://www.epi.org/publication/latest-data-release-on-union... https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-y... Now it's true I have not lived all over the world, but I have lived in numerous places in the U.S, in Denmark, and spend some time in Italy every now and then. I also lived in Germany as a kid, but I've never really seen these fearsome unions you are…

In Europe I've seen airports and cities and even countries dead for weeks due to strikes. In my country I've seen union leaders become politicians and then in jail for corruption. In US I've seen evil laws (AB5) imposed on people by politicians (Lorena Gonzalez) owned by unions (Teamsters).

But I am open to the possibility of mistakes in my logic and dfxm12 post above had some good points.

Re: Apple’s anti-union tactics in Atlanta were illegal, US officials say

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/real-commun...

Yeah, label anyone you agree with as a communist. That's nothing more than a scare tactic. Is there anything specific you want me to get from this article? It's a hilarious argument that people advocating for workers rights and want wages to go UP are communists that want the wages to go DOWN...

well, I think we'll exit this conversation - too many different reference points to explain. goodbye
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