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As unions decline, inequality rises

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Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#401

Post by yucky »

bombolo wrote: post #395
yucky wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're trolling, or just setting up a strawman since the argument has been lost. But in good faith, I'll try one more time. "Better players" are defined by production on the field. That better play on the field then results in higher contracts for the better players. I'm not defining better players by the size of their contracts. Players who never perform well won't get the biggest contracts. Which is mer…

Italian players are paid a lot and italy didn't even qualify… are you still insisting on the correctness of your easily disproved theory?

Italy can't control what others pay, but using your example does Italy pay all of their players the same, or do they generally pay more money to their better players?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#402

Post by runarberg »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #396
runarberg wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good question, and there isn’t a clear answer. I’m only answering this from the left point of view though, so take it with a pinch of salt. Traditional labor theory can make arguments for both, if you put in most of the work, then you deserve most of the benefits. However the case for equal pay is also solid, especially if the fruits of labor are abundant. How much does 5 million give you that 1 mill…

Workers can bank their paychecks and walk away at any time. They would deserve more of the benefits if they bore more of the risks of failure, like investors are doing.

Yes, as a leftist, I’m not a believer in that. I’m of the opinion that the supposed risk that investors take is overstated. The average investor is quite wealthy compared to most workers, and can afford to loose a bunch of that money without it causing significant harm, even leaving the investor still significantly wealthier then the worker. On top of that, many investors have insurance, or a wide portfolio of low risk stocks, guaranteeing them continued exploitation without risking much.

Compare this to a worker, most of whom can’t afford to go without paychecks for a single month. Meaning that the loss of a job is far riskier then the investor’s supposed risk of loosing their investment.

This transaction between an investor and a worker (if you look at it as a transaction) is always biased significantly towards the investor, they will grab proportionally more of the profit and tank less of the loss. So I would say the average worker is both risking a lot more and reaping less of the benefits.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#403

Post by runarberg »

nec4b wrote: post #384
runarberg wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of examples of Reductio ad absurdum being a fallacy because of a false or inadequate premise. Zeno’s paradox[1] being a famous one. The false premise being that you can actually add infinite number of times (modern mathematics take the limit as n approaches infinity). Here the prime candidate for the premise being wrong is to equate the work of carpenter working in their own enterprise at a project,…

>> The former gets the fruit of their labor in full when the job is finished and paid for, the latter is suffering from a systematic exploitation as each time the stock goes up in price (or when dividends are issued) the shareholders get the fruits of the worker’s labor, as opposed to the workers them selves. This is a bit hard to parse. Isn't the developer's work also paid for after each unit of time served. And why…

The difference here is in control. The carpenter has full control on which task they take, whereas the developer hasn’t. A developer is forced to work at a bad product that they know is gonna fail, but the carpenter can refuse to take on a job that they know is gonna cost them more then the customer is willing to pay. For the developer, after their project inevitably fails, it will probably cost them their job, despite the failure not being their fault. Given the option, the developer would have voted against the project, the carpenter can simply refuse it. Upper management usually never takes the responsibility of failure, opting instead to mass layoffs. Shifting the cost of failures onto their exploited workers.

Instead of looking at the house the carpenter builds, look at the carpenter as an enterprise. If the carpenter grows in skill, and is able to take on more complicated jobs, they are able to charge more. The carpenter’s enterprise grows in value, which means more pay for the carpenter them self.

This is not true of the developer. The developer might be able to demand more pay, but they are at the mercy of their upper management to relay that to the owners of the business, who might see more value in exploiting the worker for more profit for them selves. Being able to collectively bargain through a union the developer might approach the freedom of their enterprise as the carpenter, but it is still not nearly the same level as if they had direct control of the business, like the carpenter does.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#404

Post by erik_seaberg »

runarberg wrote: post #402
erik_seaberg wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workers can bank their paychecks and walk away at any time. They would deserve more of the benefits if they bore more of the risks of failure, like investors are doing.

Yes, as a leftist, I’m not a believer in that. I’m of the opinion that the supposed risk that investors take is overstated. The average investor is quite wealthy compared to most workers, and can afford to loose a bunch of that money without it causing significant harm, even leaving the investor still significantly wealthier then the worker. On top of that, many investors have insurance, or a wide portfolio of low ri…

I agree that investors self-select partly by their ability to weather losses, which is why workers tend to trade away speculative upside for the certainty of wages now. But investors need a reason to take on risk, we need to steer more resources under the guidance of the most successful of the competing decision makers, and profit solves those problems.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#405

Post by credit_guy »

winkeltripel wrote: post #186
wallawe wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think you quite understand how the unions work. -in most cases, the employer is able to fire with cause. The union keeps the employer from using layoffs as a weapon. - pay scales reward loyalty and keeps the workplace stable. - without the union, you have almost no bargaining power. The union usually gets a better rate for everyone than any one person could have negotiated. This is in fact the point of collec…

> without the union, you have almost no bargaining power.

You absolutely do. The most powerful bargaining power of all: the power of the alternative. It's also called "pay me, or I leave" (most often accompanied by "I have an outside offer"). I exercised this power a few times in my career. I did not need any union to bargain for me.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#406

Post by BurningFrog »

acdha wrote: post #331
BurningFrog wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Commercial aviation was just getting started, yes, But a rich person in 1922 had luxury rail travel, boats, cars, horses, etc. Most importantly, they had time: air travel is important for most of us because having a paltry couple weeks per year means people try to do things like weekend trips which couldn’t otherwise work. If you’re truly rich, you have a lot more margin for having other people do the unpleasant trip…

I was trying to make the point that wealth and living standards isn't about numbers on bank statements.

It's about the material conditions you live in. And in 2022, what we take for granted would blow away pretty much anything in 1922.

I don't think I quite succeeded. Will maybe try something else next time.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#407

Post by parthianshotgun »

nec4b wrote: post #311
parthianshotgun wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sarcasm I'm assuming?

I thought implying there was some sort of cosmic injustice when a software developers"deserves" more than a nurse, was some sort of sarcasm. We would never understand anything about the world if we talked like that about for example why does this rock deserves a higher potential energy than that acorn.

I'm not following you. Rocks and acorns are not outcomes of human political will, but our economy, society, and systems, among others, are. Maybe I'm missing something, I'm eager to understand your perspective further.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#408

Post by roflyear »

ohCh6zos wrote: post #54
bombolo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, like the people who say they are better than their coworkers and say unions would make them compensated less… USA propaganda succeeded… they don't even realise the enemy is their CEO.

Why would the CEO be my enemy? A specific CEO maybe but that is a very broad claim to make.

CEO's interest is the shareholders (private or public), the company's profits, and his personal profit and success.

He only cares about employees, their compensation, and their health as much as it impacts these things. If he is altruistic, he'll care about them, but prioritize them after the above (if he's a "good CEO")

Give you an example: I know someone who owns a business making $5-6m PROFIT (take home, cash in the bank) a year. They have about 30-40 warehouse workers.

When wages were going up, they were freaking out about having to pay these workers $20/hr vs the $15 they were getting.

Sure, it's like $500k/yr. But seriously. The greed is astounding.

BTW the execs (I had access to their financials) were getting raises in the order of 2x over the next 2yrs. That's right. Double their salary over the next two years (way more than $500k/yr, btw!)

For what it is worth, I do run my own business, and yes - I give what I can to my employees.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#409

Post by erik_seaberg »

scruple wrote: post #273
moneywoes wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My worry is bringing unions in the US tech industry will just accelerate off shoring especially with super fast growing companies like Deel What are your thoughts?

Outsourcing technical work comes in waves. I've seen it up-close-and-personal 3 times. It's worked once and the magic that went into making it work (one of the founders moved back to his home country and started a consultancy that was contracted by the original business) in that specific instance isn't something that is easily replicated.

If you write a check to a body shop you’re just going to get fleeced. I’ve seen “tested deliverables” that did not compile.

If you open a branch office and do your own careful hiring (just like HQ would have), that can work.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#410

Post by mushbino »

missedthecue wrote: post #192
jessehattabaugh wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prices are largely based on supply and demand Then we'd better unionize before AI starts doing all the easy stuff

Preserving inefficiencies for the sake of extracting money is called rent seeking.

Rent seeking is collecting money while adding no economic value. Like landlords.
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