121–130 of 230 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any amount of power a labor union could have pales in comparison to what employers have over you as an individual.
this really depends on the industry and union. In some sectors they hold zero power (software development) and in other they have it locked up (auto manufacturing)
tell that to all the Meta coders being let go today.
Wow, what are they so afraid of? Treating people with dignity?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that correct? I thought the NLRA was shaped in such a way that you cannot fire someone because they are in a union. You cannot refuse to hire known union supporters. I liken to being similar to a protected class that you cannot discriminate against. Edit: why would this get downvoted? If I am wrong about the NLRA I am happy to be corrected.
you can fire union members you can’t fire people for organizing.
I have pretty mixed feelings on unions. I spent most of my early career as a non-union blue collar worker embedded into mixed teams (union + non-union members). The general experience I walked away with was that unions seemed to attract the worst employees. I remember one individual in particular who, having worked with him for two years, never once actually did any work. He was actually one of my first mentors and I…
The experience which I had which sums up the negatives about unions was when I was working at the then 4th largest printer in the U.S., and the largest privately owned print shop, when I pulled up in my then several years old Chevy Cavalier and parked next to a one year newer one --- an erstwhile union rep then pulled up in a brand new Lincoln Town Car and got out and asked me if I was interested in unionizing the co…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
they literally provide value Shareholders are investors who give valuable resources to business
No, they provide capital. It's the workers who provide value to the company.
If you have a machine that makes widgets, which requires people to operate, the machine (capital) without anyone operating it (labor) is worthless, but if you have people (labor) without any machine (capital), you won't have any widgets.
I feel like this is one of those situations where "the whole is larger than the sum of the parts" - combining the power of capital and labor, you get much more value than just capital or just labor.
Of course, this does NOT imply that "I provided the capital, it couldn't have happened without me, ergo I deserve all the rewards" is true, even if, if we look at the history and current state of the world, generally speaking it is more advantageous to provide capital than it is to provide labor.
I have pretty mixed feelings on unions. I spent most of my early career as a non-union blue collar worker embedded into mixed teams (union + non-union members). The general experience I walked away with was that unions seemed to attract the worst employees. I remember one individual in particular who, having worked with him for two years, never once actually did any work. He was actually one of my first mentors and I…
The same behavior displayed by union workers occurs at a level where people can hide behind a title (Vice President, department head, whatever). Yet people rarely look as critically at senior management as they do at union workers. I also find it that people who are critical of union workers never seem to be critical of police or fire fighters, both of whom are unionized. My dad was a union worker for 19 years and I…
Recently the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road workers) went on strike. The NYT has covered it, including this interesting fact: > For instance, if an engineer drives a diesel train at the start of a shift but is asked to switch to an electric train in the same day, the M.T.A. must compensate that worker with two days’ pay. If, on the same day, the engineer is also asked to switch from driving passengers to driving a train…
The reason for this rule is that it forces management to schedule workers more predictably and compensates workers who invest in obtaining broader qualifications.
> My view is that -- with some exceptions -- unions today are mostly bad, and worth fighting.
There are literally thousands of unions just in the US. I agree that some are dysfunctional, but making a claim like "with some exceptions -- unions today are mostly bad" needs a lot more evidence. My counter-evidence is simple: historically, there's a direct correlation with the strength of unions and the existence of a strong middle class.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>But US unions seem to exist nearly exclusively to protect people who don’t want to work. They don't exist for that reason, but their inevitable ground state is that. The fundamental and intractable problem with any form of socialization is that it naturally attracts free riders. The idea doesn't have a balanced equilibrium, so it's either logistically/bureaucratically heavy or always being pulled towards collapse. E…
This doesn’t seem to be a universal rule at all, but smells more of a boogeyman promulgated within US society. The nordics are anywhere from 50% - 90% of all labor unionized and they absolutely destroy the US on every standard of living metric. It seems to me a case that echoes “better to let 99 guilty men go free than to execute an innocent man”. Of course, in this case, the ratios are actually reversed. Should we e…
We don't have to do an echo. We can just do it as it is.
9 men hunt and 1 man eats free, so the 9 men are carrying the weight of the 1.
This system is inherently unstable and unsustainable. Maybe you can mitigate it (nordic style) by keeping a small population and drilling into people's heads from birth that "you take turns being the 1, and the 1 needs to be eager to get back to the hunt or shame will be had", but even then that is a not an inherently stable system, but one propped up by trust.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your probably a normal guy making a comment in good faith, but I can't help but think this is the exact sort of dark marketing that I would do if I was an anti union commenter/marketer. Attack the vague made up values of union members because you can't attack the fact that large companies have been anti-worker for awhile and most people believe that. I'll also add onto here that if this comment gets down voted into t…
Yep, this is textbook unionbusting propaganda.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for sharing. Very interesting to hear someone else with a similar experience. > Unions devolving to simply protect the lowest common denominator is a problem. I've always wondered if this is because the ones most incentivized to stay are the ones that eventually make it into upper leadership. It always seemed to me like the decisions being made at that level were intended to protect those same people. For exam…
Honest question -- what should happen to poor performing people? They should have less money, less food, be homeless or what? Should they be more stressed and as a result somehow perform better? On one hand I don't like to deal with results of bad craftsmanship, on the other hand I don't desire of the suffering of others. The thing is real, but so are the people. Not a snark or a gotcha, I'm a union member and recogn…
The union should help them find roles they can be successful in. It should offer them more specialized training, mentorship programs, and other ways to help build up their skills. If they refuse to take any of these seriously, they should be fired. To me, that's the difference between poor performing and intentional laziness.