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Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

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Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#161

Post by jules »

s73ver_ wrote: post #152
jules wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mixing up capitalism with anarchy and chaos. Capitalism requires the rule of law and property rights. An unregulated market is one where any voluntary transaction can take place and no involuntary transaction takes place. It is not a voluntary transaction if I put a gun to your head and tell you to hand over your wallet, and a "market" in which that is allowed is not even a market. It is illegal for me to pay…

Except that's not true in the least. You say "no involuntary transaction takes place" because in that system, if the transaction takes place, then by definition it must be "voluntary", despite the existence of any coercion that may have occurred. In your unregulated system, you could have me work 20 hours a day, and consider it "voluntary" as long as I did it, ignoring the fact that I and my family would be out on th…

The transaction of you working for me is still voluntary. No person forced you to work for me. I did not cause you to starve. If I disappeared off the face of the planet you would still starve. That I offer you a job improves your options relative to what you would otherwise have had. I can only "force" you to work 20 hours a day if all your other options are even worse, and I am the one who improves your options the most. If however I put a gun to your head and tell you to work 20 hours a day I actively make your options worse by force.

Capitalism is by no means a perfectly well defined system that you can deduce from a set of axioms. You can have a discussion about which property rights the government should enforce, such as whether it should enforce intellectual property. But certain systems are clearly fall outside of the bounds of what constitutes a free market, such as systems in which I am allowed to put a gun to your head to make you give me your wallet.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#162

Post by s73ver_ »

dkhenry wrote: post #72
crdoconnor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actors and writers are not laborers either and they're also competing against the "crapification" of their industry driven by execs trying to undercut them (e.g. reality TV).

The Screen Actors Guild is an interesting model for professionals. They go much farther then most professional organizations in terms of protecting workers right, but they also don't have rules like you have to hire the actor with 20 years experience before you can hire one right out of school, or you have to pay everyone on the same scale. Also I don't think they have requirements like you must have attended 10 year…

Which is why I, for one, feel they're a far better model for a tech union than an AFL style one.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#163

Post by scarmig »

bnolsen wrote: post #117
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organized labor has most of the same problems as organized ownership and capital. Ownership and capital has some unique problems. Labor has some other unique problems. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Unless you're arguing for the elimination of the market system, "this structure in a market economy is prone to corruption" isn't a dispositive argument, or really an argument at all.

No. The union leaders have zero interest in making any company succeed. They have a ton of interest in themselves succeeding. In fact unions work very hard against innovation and in keeping status quo.

Question: do you think German companies or American companies are better managed?

There're always issues of misaligned or perverse incentives. Although I have no illusions about union leaders having a particular interest in company success, it's not worse than company management having no particular interest in company success. And, since they have less power, they have less of a negative impact on the company and society in general.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#164

Post by s73ver_ »

School-Cotton wrote: post #11
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think programmers are just demonstrating that they skew politically inept by not unionizing. Well, not a union as such, but if you look at other professional degrees, almost all of them have powerful trade groups that represent the workers -- doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc. I think it speaks more to political ineptitude and the newness of the field that programming doesn't even have the same support stru…

What do you mean by "other" professional degrees? There's no "professional degree" to become a programmer and I'd like to keep it that way.

There's no "professional degree" to become an actor/actress or a director. Yet, they're still covered by a union.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#165

Post by s73ver_ »

Karunamon wrote: post #29
toomuchtodo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a long, inefficient and useless money grab who's costs far outweigh the benefits. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. Perhaps some people want the worker protections other industrialized countries have? And if those people are the majority, they can get it. EDIT: > The speed at which this field moved is almost entirely due to the lack of encumbrances. Maybe this field needs some encumbrances and its time its…

If it took as long to build a web app as it did to build a bridge, and as much bureaucracy to go through, tech would be dead. Not every application should be built using NASA-like standards, which is the closest analog I can think of.

No, but many which currently aren't absolutely should be. Imagine if Equifax needed to operate under those kinds of standards.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#166

Post by ic4l »

AlexC04 wrote: post #3

> Eventually, Facebook says, it OK’d proposed terms of the contract, which hiked drivers’ average pay by half, to $27.50 an hour, and for the first time provided fully paid family health care. For those people doing the driving that's pretty great news. I hope they also took care of those working conditions issues too. Split shifts etc...

Won't last long. Few more years, and it will be a autonomous fleet anyways.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#167

Post by s73ver_ »

mc32 wrote: post #79
gok wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tech workers are not unionizing -and I can't imagine they would, given their pay compared to other sectors. Unions needn’t be only for the middle class. See professional sports players unions for example.

Isn't that a diff scenario given the sports leagues are granted legal monopoly exemptions? Not to say that obviates the need, or delegitimizes the idea, but rather the pressure for it isn't as mounting.

Look at the Screen Actor's Guild, the Director's Guild, and the Writer's Guild.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#168

Post by wfo »

kevmo wrote: post #49
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, anyone willing to treat employees horribly, operates cheaper. If using trafficked chinese women were legal, the owner willing to be a psychopath will put his competition under. Capitalism is an inherently unstable system and only works with good regulation. I think a capitalist system only works as well as its regulation.

I largely agree. However, I think it is important for regulations to generally (not always) be structured on a sliding scale that is directly related to company size, i.e. the bigger the business, the more regulations it becomes subject to. Otherwise, regulations become a cudgel with which small businesses are beaten down because only the big established players can afford to comply. In today's age of regulatory capt…

Actually small businesses (while they vary widely and many of them can be good) can be home to the worst kind of abuse. Small business owners can be absolutely monstrous tyrants to their employees. Have you ever met a waitress at a restaurant who hasn't been sexually harassed by her boss? I've met.. one? and I've met quite a few waitresses. She can't complain to HR, there is no HR, there are no policies, there is just the boss who will fire her (and maybe "forget" to send her her last paycheck, oops). Wage theft is rampant in small businesses that can go underwater and don't have a payroll department. Workers absolutely need help at small business, probably more help even than at large corporations.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#169

Post by jules »

crdoconnor wrote: post #118
jules wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People trafficking is an entirely different matter because that involves the use of force. The employees can go to another employer if that employer treats them better. That is the main protector against bad employers, NOT regulation. Most of the advances in labour protection have been a result of a general increase in wealth and better alternatives. Take child labour for example. It used to be that almost every chil…

The elimination of child labor was NOT a result of increased productivity, in fact it grew during the onset of the industrial revolution. it came about as a result of a series of fierce union battles. https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/a...

Children worked at their parents' subsistence farms before the industrial revolution. That is still child labour.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#170

Post by [deleted] »

bnolsen wrote: post #117
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organized labor has most of the same problems as organized ownership and capital. Ownership and capital has some unique problems. Labor has some other unique problems. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Unless you're arguing for the elimination of the market system, "this structure in a market economy is prone to corruption" isn't a dispositive argument, or really an argument at all.

No. The union leaders have zero interest in making any company succeed. They have a ton of interest in themselves succeeding. In fact unions work very hard against innovation and in keeping status quo.

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