Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

As unions decline, inequality rises

epi.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 479 posts

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#301

Post by rejectfinite »

musictubes wrote: post #218
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...

You say you will never understand why some American working class workers oppose unions. Well then I guess you will need be able to convince them otherwise. If your starting point is that the union experience is obviously a good one and you must be stupid to not see that, you have lost any chance of a serious conversation. People have reasons for feeling the way they do. Dismissing them as falling for propaganda is o…

Here is how Swedish unions work :)

Maybe urs are just shit :)

https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#302

Post by BurningFrog »

ubercore wrote: post #107
BurningFrog wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unions which appear to only serve a special interest group at the expense of everyone else I mean, the intended purpose of unions is to serve their members, at the expense of non members.

Not necessarily. As I understand it, in the Nordics, employment conditions and benefits are protected by unions, regardless of an individual's membership.

I see how you read it that way, but I meant non members in a wider sense, as in the employer, and the general public.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#303

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

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…

> - (e.g look at the fact that the new EV subsidies will be going to everyone except Tesla, it's a perversion).

If you mean the federal tax credit, it was the OLD one that stopped going to Tesla (due to the per-model caps in place; caps that any competitor could also reach after enough sales, mind you). The new credit that was signed into law this year does not exclude Tesla (instead, it excludes cars manufactured overseas).

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#304

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

phil21 wrote: post #139
goodpoint wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic No, there isn't. The causation is self-evident, and also unsurprising since it's the whole point of unions.

It's completely "self-evident" to me that the US can never re-achieve post-WWII prosperity largely for the reasons OP stated. It was a moment in history that will not repeated in any of our lifetimes. Anything else against this backdrop is basically a rounding error. I was alive during the drawdown of US industrial capacity and my entire family was blue collar mostly union workers. In my teens and 20's I worked such…

>It was a moment in history that will not repeated in any of our lifetimes.

Unless of course we have another world war, which isn't really unlikely given the shortages and events climate change will bring in the future.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#305

Post by logicalmonster »

BigRedDog1669 wrote: post #160
logicalmonster wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the European standards are so good, where are all of the influential European tech companies? To properly weigh all of the tradeoffs, you might consider asking if those Twitter jobs would even emerge in the European system and if there's a link between European labor standards and the lack of influential European tech companies. Europe is a large market that is filled with many capable and educated technology work…

Good company to work for is not the same as big company everyone is talking about on hacker news. Those are two different things. Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige? I might not care to work for Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Influential can be a bad thing if they are negatively influencing society.

> Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige?

The thing I'd like to focus on isn't nerd prestige, but good jobs, as the article was about inequality as nothing fixes social alienation and inequality more than lots of people having a good income and being part of society. These big tech companies, whatever major negatives they provide to the culture in many ways, at least employ a lot of people and give them a path to being part of that comfy middle class.

If the concern is inequality, then is a pile of great paying jobs with worse labor standards better than a few ok paying jobs with great labor standards? See where I'm going with that?

These are complex issues...I don't think I have all of the answers, but I just want to point out that there might be some tradeoffs to the good sounding things like unions and much better labor protections.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#307

Post by edent »

nec4b wrote: post #286
edent wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The traditional view is that "The workers control the means of production". Suppose you built a successful small company but, suddenly, every employee quit at once. Could your business carry on the next day? Could it survive until you hired and trained replacements? If the answer is "no" then you have made the case that employees both deserve to share in the business's success and will probably be incentivised by co-…

Can you build a house without a carpenter? If not, is he entitled to a part of your house even though you paid him to build it?

I would say that, yes, a carpenter is entitled to a share of the profits. They used their labour to build something which appreciates in value.

Traditionally, it has been too hard to track fractional ownership of an asset and calculate a share of profits. And most workers prefer cash up front rather than waiting for a payday which might not materialise for decades.

I'm not going to go full blockchain/NFT on this idea. But it is easy to see how in the future a long-lived guild of tradespeople could build your house at a discounted price now in return for a share of the sale profits in the future.

I don't know if that's a good or bad thing though.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#308

Post by edent »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #281
edent wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The traditional view is that "The workers control the means of production". Suppose you built a successful small company but, suddenly, every employee quit at once. Could your business carry on the next day? Could it survive until you hired and trained replacements? If the answer is "no" then you have made the case that employees both deserve to share in the business's success and will probably be incentivised by co-…

Neither view will do. The company can't succeed without the workers. The company also can't succeed without capital. Both deserve to get a cut of the rewards.

Exactly.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#309

Post by rejectfinite »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #14

This analysis ignores the effects of WWII. At the end of WWII, the USA was the only industrial economy in the world, not significantly damaged by the fighting. If you see, the spike of worker union participation is right after the end of WWII. Basically, for a couple of decades the USA had a monopoly on advanced manufacturing. Then as Europe and Japan caught up, there was more of a push towards efficiency as US compa…

Sweeden too cope cope cope cope cope cope

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_Sweden#Secon...

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#310

Post by BurningFrog »

acdha wrote: post #288
themitigating wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of living a family in the suburbs has today is like what a rich person a hundred years ago would have. I see people with houses, multiple brand new cars, TVs in every room, and who take a vacation at least once a year complain about the economy their entire life.

Not even close. That rich person had servants, could go on lengthy vacations, etc. and most likely they had substantial passive income. The key thing to understand is the difference in how precarious those situations are: that affluent suburbanite has some shiny things but their cash flow is much higher than their wealth. A TV in every room is a rounding error on the $11k/year each of those new cars costs on average,…

The rich people of the past had no internet, cars, air travel, or much health care by modern standards. The average 2022 American is vastly better off materially.

What they had was social status, and I think that's more what you're talking about. Social status is incredibly important for humans, so I understand focusing on it. But since it's pretty much a Zero Sum Game, nothing much changes there.

Post reply on HN