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US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

theguardian.com

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Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#201

Post by cindyllm »

ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #194
aliasxneo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honest question -- what should happen to poor performing people? 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.

How is any of that the responsibility of organised labour? We used to expect training, mentorship, skill-building and effective job placement from employers. If anything, unions should be lobbying employers to provide those things to poor performers.

[dead]

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#202

Post by Jensson »

nielsbot wrote: post #119
bhoops wrote: post #12

Not sure if that is a bad thing - labor unions can have too much power. Its not as if the employers agree to everything that they will go away.

we’re nowhere near that problem today. don’t worry.

You don't think the police union is too powerful? You should worry, nobody likes it when unions are too powerful.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#203

Post by throwaway27448 »

missedthecue wrote: post #103
miltonlost wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they provide capital. It's the workers who provide value to the company.

It's hard to explain why entrepreneurs want capital so much if it provides zero value. They're all stupid and doing something they ought not to?

> It's hard to explain why entrepreneurs want capital so much if it provides zero value

Because they want to abuse people. If they wanted to provide value they would have found a skill

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#204

Post by throwaway27448 »

achenet wrote: post #125
miltonlost wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they provide capital. It's the workers who provide value to the company.

arguably, capital is also value. 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…

Yes, but capital only has value traced back to the product of labor and production

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#205

Post by pbronez »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #180
Muromec wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> what should happen to poor performing people? In my experience most poor performers just arent putting the effort in. They should be made to understand that low effort compared to peers will lead to less money, yes. If theyre genuinely unable to perform the duties they should do something else/

Genuinely poor performers are so toxic. They might not recognize their poor performance and suck up infinite amounts of support for no improvement. They might be ultra-aware of their game and manipulate the institution in mind-boggling ways to protect their graft. You have to get these folks out ASAP.

Of course, they could also be unrealized potential just waiting for someone to believe in them and mentor them to greatness. If you drop them too quickly you miss out on wonderful, loyal, capable people.

The trick is being able to tell the difference quickly, make the best choice you can, and move on.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#206

Post by davkan »

aliasxneo wrote: post #18

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…

I’ve had just one job where I was in a union and it was the only time in my life where the boss had ever had to bend to me on anything. The only place I’ve ever had a shred of power beyond my ability to walk out the door. I’ll take all the downsides that come with it over the feeling of being in the palm of management’s hand.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#207

Post by chii »

anon291 wrote: post #190
oblio wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfettered markets are how we get burning rivers. I know we're on the bastion of libertarianism, but even though I work in tech, I don't feel that tech (hardware/software) is tackling the truly big problems of humanity, just the ones that bring the most money. We should at least acknowledge that and mitigate it.

Tech and the market are orthogonal issues. Burning rivers? No failure to protect the environment is a failure of property rights enforcement. If your stuff is leaking off your property you should be forced to pay for it. That's just basic property rights. You don't have the right to put your stuff on others property

Exactly! The "unfettered" free market examples are all externalities, which is unfortunately unavoidable. Therefore, the role of gov't is to remove by regulation and force, all externalities (and the best way, perhaps, is to fine/charge/tax those externalities such that the effect becomes neutralized).

This would work for carbon emissions, as an example.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#208

Post by missedthecue »

Muromec wrote: post #184
missedthecue wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that they tend to benefit their members in a zero sum way. For example the LIRR wants a double digit raise not in exchange for hitting targets on on-time arrivals or some other metric. They want it or they strike and hold the community hostage. It bothers me that there's no value exchange it's just take take take, and ultimately at my expense.

Double digit raise in this economy and for the economic strata that does this work and is more exposed to prices more than some others, double digit sounds reasonable. The union just wants their members to not be piss poor. Is this bad?

They earn $220k a year for jobs that aren't worth that. Income equals expenditure; they are one and the same. So the $220k comes from someone else, and those people aren't getting value for money, they're being robbed and stolen from by a greedy union that doesn't know when to stop biting the hand that feeds. It's pretty disgusting.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#209

Post by InsideOutSanta »

slibhb wrote: post #132
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> must compensate that worker with two days’ pay 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 li…

> The reason for this rule is that it forces management to schedule workers more predictably and compensates workers who invest in obtaining broader qualifications. No, it's just a scam, and anyone should be able to see that. It's like saying I get 2 days pay if I have to write go in addition to typescript. And 3 days pay if I have to write java. > There are literally thousands of unions just in the US. I agree that…

> No, it's just a scam

The analogy you gave supports my argument: if you are easily able to switch between TypeScript and Java, you are more valuable to your employer than somebody who is unable to do that, so you should get paid more.

> when many people worked in factories under terrible conditions

As opposed to now, where many people work in offices under terrible conditions?

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#210

Post by oblio »

anon291 wrote: post #190
oblio wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfettered markets are how we get burning rivers. I know we're on the bastion of libertarianism, but even though I work in tech, I don't feel that tech (hardware/software) is tackling the truly big problems of humanity, just the ones that bring the most money. We should at least acknowledge that and mitigate it.

Tech and the market are orthogonal issues. Burning rivers? No failure to protect the environment is a failure of property rights enforcement. If your stuff is leaking off your property you should be forced to pay for it. That's just basic property rights. You don't have the right to put your stuff on others property

Turns out, some people are taller and if we don't aim for equality of outcomes, they eat all the apples and shit on our short head.

Every HN poster should be forced to read the chapters in the Black Swan where Taleb describes Extremistan and Mediocristan.

With scalable tech almost everything becomes winners take most. Equality of opportunity leads to many people starving.

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