421–430 of 493 posts
Unions do suck, so that shouldn't be too hard of a job.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Unions do suck, so that shouldn't be too hard of a job.
Found the consultant
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The grass isn't really greener anywhere else, and since so many benefits are tied to employment in the US, leaving a job is often a lot of trouble. Corporations like Google know & lobby for this.
If other companies aren’t better then does Google suck?
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"Every single developed nation" is a very broad generalization that I'd be skeptical of being true. I'd also dispute that all countries are pro-corperation and instead state that most countries are pro-economy. Corporations are just a vehicle for organizing work and profit around a venture. There are many other ways to organize work that have nothing to do with corporations or unions. Consider partnerships, sole prop…
> Consider partnerships, sole proprietorships, cottage industries, co-ops, and more specific arrangements within those vehicles like profit sharing, limited partnerships, and employee ownership (not to be confused with stocks/options, though they are similar in concept). None of those have proven to work at scale though. So as far as we know corporations is how you have to do it. You can believe that there are other…
In the US, we have:
1. A poor social net, meaning employers need to take on the onus of providing many basic benefits like health care.
2. A political environment that conflates communism/socialism/collectivism, which really muddies the waters around organizations that aren't hierarchical.
3. A work culture that prizes profits over all else. Orgs do not have to be this way, and if you look at expectations/obligations of similar entities in other countries they're expected to balance profitability with things like social welfare.
I think you're right in that within the US, corporations have shown the best ability to scale, but I believe this is a consequence of the economic/regulatory/political environment of the US than inherent superiority of corporate governance.
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I don't know, how much would he make if the NBA wasn't a monopoly?
Thats a good point, and I think in general I think using professional sports as an example either for or against unions is a bad faith argument because of the unique dynamics present.
Maybe that's what makes it a great example. It shows labor unions are extremely flexible tools that should be configured for the work force they're representing.
Maybe its all these specific arguments against unions, like "seniority based promotions make for incompetent leaders" and "high performance workers are disincentivized", that are actually the examples given in bad faith.
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I'll engage as though this is a good faith attempt to read the complaint, for the benefit of anyone who is interested by this critique. 1. A union purports to represent the interests of a labor force to its management. Those interests are diverse, because the workplace is diverse, but the issues with largest intersection tend to be compensation, time off, and health benefits. 2. In the past several years, there has b…
1. Unions are a democratic force and it’s important to consider that it’s faults are problems of democracy, not something inherent or restricted to unions. 2. Lots of big words to justify being a bigot here imo. There is nothing cool about being against gay marriage. Also menstrual cups are exactly for people with periods and not women. Why would a post-menopausal woman need a menstrual cup? Your sexism is exclusiona…
>Looks like one small step to racism to me.
This word is meaningless when uttered by true believers like you. In my life I've been called all sorts of racially-based slurs, or worse. I've earned the right to refuse the orthodoxy of arrogant white liberals, and follow my own conscience on this topic.
The propaganda has been very successful it seems with certain segments of the population.
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Who decides who is "incompetent"? What do pronouns have to do with anything? I don't really see how this is related to the post.
> What do pronouns have to do with anything? Unfortunately way too much, some of the people who advocate for them the loudest are very political people of a particular polarization that makes a big deal about pronouns. Take this Google union I found from another comment here: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/ . Take a look at what they have at the top of their homepage. The forth word is "BIPOC," towards the middle i…
I think Google has been in the news many times now for having an incredibly low number of Black employees - Google's diversity efforts have not done really anything to change that, even though publicly they pretend to be doing a lot. I think it's quite reasonable for a union to question why those efforts have failed so miserably, since historically these same marginalized groups are paid less, given fewer opportunities for advancement, etc.
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Businesses create value. That's not universal -- there's regulatory capture, monopolies, tragedy of the commons, etc. -- but it is fundamentally why capitalist economies have raised billions of people out of poverty. Unions fundamentally redistribute the value that's been captured. That's not universal -- there's unions that make workers happier and result in more productivity, unions that are not adversarial and tak…
> Businesses create value Workers labor mixed with capital creates value. Businesses are just a way of organizing that interaction that, if it succeeds, makes the interaction more efficient. The businesses through the ownership of capital are the ones doing the redistributing of value, they are the ones writing the checks. Unions just negotiate that the redistribution allocates more of the pie to labor rather than th…
Capital providers colluding to set a loan rate is illegal. We shouldn't allow them to collude legally; they are a small number of experienced actors operating with information asymmetry already.
Organizers (i.e. senior management) colluding is--I don't know the legality--just unnecessary. They often are paid based on value add (equity, bonuses, etc.), so they are already reasonably aligned and need no further protection.
Workers can exist and do exist with or without collusion (i.e. unions). As a society, we've reasonably decided that colluding is legal, because workers often add a lot of value but have individual low value-over-replacement (hard to organize because of numbers, often inexperienced, etc.). Unions exist to help raise individual value-over-replacement closer to value-add.
What's being discussed here is the pluses and minuses of unionization. What I disagree with is people in this thread--not specifically you--comparing the collusion of workers to the existence of capital or organization (i.e. corporations are sometimes bad! why doesn't anyone discuss that!).
First, obviously people complain about corporations all the time. But second, private companies (capital and organization and workers) add value, and no society has done well without a large component of this.
There are many pluses to unions. But, especially as currently implemented, the minuses exist too, including that many of them focus on raising VOR but wholly ignore value-add, in a way that forces the business into slower and poorer decisions; or shielding some workers from the consequences of adding little to no value.
Everyone can benefit from a union IMO. The Googlers that most need one are probably contractors (ie, not actually Googlers).
If you're top of your field you benefit more by being judged as an individual not a part of a union. Unions are only a major benefit for work where you can't excel and talent and skill are less of a differentiator.
1. It disproportionally affects those who have no other option. There's hero stories of pregnant woman outperforming up until the day they deliver, but this is hard to achieve and there's even a factor of "luck" involved.
Some pregnancies are more tranquil, others are riddled with visits to the doctor, morning sickness, aches, pains, allergies, sleep problems, emotional swings, rashes, etc. It's hard to be "top of your field" when there's another human growing inside you.
2. This argument assumes skills are perfectly measured and employee benefits are based solely on skills. Even in the most objective companies there's subjectivity and politics. Not everyone has the skills or time to bargain. Not everyone shares hobbies or values with the boss, and wants to create a close relationship with them.
3. If the base compensation for all employees in a field rises, the compensation for out-performers will likely rise too. One can't assume "only" benefits those who "can't excel" at their job.