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As unions decline, inequality rises

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Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#431

Post by berniedurfee »

Spooky23 wrote: post #110
dzink wrote: post #25

World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this. There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic. I’d argue the unions were a bi-product of a historically rare moment in time vs cause of equality. The market bust and global world war increased taxation, demand for workers, and value of each worker in the early 40s. Much more importantly, for a few decades after WWII all other global…

You really need to squint at the sun to conclude that. As money interests have become more politically powerful, it’s harder and harder for employees to organize. You can get fired at Walmart if 4 people are caught talking to each other. It’s easy to rag on unions, but usually that’s a surface complaint ignoring the factors causing it. Even globalization is an example. There’s nothing etched in stone that says we nee…

I think that’s always the key question. Why are most businesses so vehemently anti-union? Why does the power balance always need to be tipped heavily toward management over labor?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#432

Post by berniedurfee »

bombolo wrote: post #62
ohCh6zos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Why would the CEO be my enemy? I studied some basic economics. The goal for a player seems to be to obtain the maximum, giving the least. For his very role, the CEO will pay you the least amount he can get away with. Ok he won't think of a few dollars or cents, because it's not worth to think about it… but when you negotiate your salary he would give you a negative raise if he could get away with it. And during nor…

I’ve always thought of minimum wage as a company declaring they will pay as low a wage possible without being thrown in jail… not a penny more. That should an embarrassing position to take… and yet.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#434

Post by nightski »

azemetre wrote: post #377
nightski wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow on how that would stop you from forming a worker co-op. Almost all businesses who have full time employees pay for health insurance. Are you implying a co-op would make less revenue and therefore could not provide its employees insurance?

Businesses get way different insurance rates than a single individual (or 12 individuals). It costs me $240 a month for full health coverage ($1000 deductible), dentistry, and eye from my current employer; for me to get something equivalent outside this company would cost me $3,000 to $5,000 a month. I can't afford that plus rent, plus energy, plus food. Not all businesses are equal, not all benefits are equal. When…

Yeah I agree with all of that but I don't see how it is relevant to the discussion. A worker co-op should be able to provide health insurance to it's employees the same as any other business. The fact that it is worker-owned shouldn't change that at all.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#435

Post by kingboss »

geysersam wrote: post #116
dzink wrote: post #25

World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this. There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic. I’d argue the unions were a bi-product of a historically rare moment in time vs cause of equality. The market bust and global world war increased taxation, demand for workers, and value of each worker in the early 40s. Much more importantly, for a few decades after WWII all other global…

This is bizarre. Of course there is not one single factor determining the economic, technical and social development of countries over decades of time. But the relationship between unions, the labor movement, and social democratic policies is obvious. Those in turn have had a large impact on equality and standard of living. The economy benefits from having a larger base of well off consumers, and a well educated, hea…

So why are education levels going down? Why is health so expensive?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#436

Post by larksimian »

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…

Beautiful sentiments. Young programmers in the hottest job market in history don't need a union.

Fortunately for your ability to empathize with the plebeians in the regular world, Musk has shown that software companies are probably employing at least twice as many programmers as they need, so this job market should be turning south soon.

After ten-twenty years of being employed half the time and your salary going down with every new job I'm sure you'll be mentally broken down enough to empathize with the blue collar pro-union perspective.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#437

Post by dragonwriter »

larksimian wrote: post #436
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…

Beautiful sentiments. Young programmers in the hottest job market in history don't need a union. Fortunately for your ability to empathize with the plebeians in the regular world, Musk has shown that software companies are probably employing at least twice as many programmers as they need, so this job market should be turning south soon. After ten-twenty years of being employed half the time and your salary going dow…

> Musk has shown that software companies are probably employing at least twice as many programmers as they need

No, he hasn’t; he hasn’t even shown that Twitter was doing that.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#438

Post by kingboss »

missedthecue wrote: post #217
pmoriarty wrote: post #7

Many people don't want equality... especially those who see themselves as superior.

I want society to get richer. I want poor people (in all nations including China, India, and Vietnam) to earn more money. This is not the same thing as wanting equality. In that sense, no I do not support economic equality. Jeff Bezos owning 10% of Amazon worth $X billion does not effect my life in any way. If he owned 50% or 0.001%, instead my life would still be the same. I'm not sure why I need to be upset about t…

It does affect you though. Cause Bezos then lobbies that unions are evil and does everything under the sun to keep wages low. Including yours.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#439

Post by parthianshotgun »

nec4b wrote: post #424
parthianshotgun wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hope you agree that human political will is bounded by some natural laws, the same way rocks and acorns are bound by physics. And if you want to do something useful with that political will, you better understand those laws.

Yes I agree with that, but having understood those laws (hypothetically), of which I guess you might be referring to human behaviour, evolutionary principles etc. How can we be sure that those naturalistic foundations could possibly inform the problem of 'what to do now'? Wouldn't be a bit like a mirror trying to reflect itself, or possibly, a fish trying to understand that it's in water?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#440

Post by wpietri »

missedthecue wrote: post #208
wpietri wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any current data on that? I think it was true of the "Reagan Democrat" variety of union worker in the 1980s, but I suspect it's an outdated stereotype now. For example, SEIU, one of America's largest unions, represents a lot of immigrants and is strongly pro-immigrant: https://www.seiu.org/justice-for-immigrants/

It's not really true any longer, but it was at one point. The head of the AFL-CIO admits here that unions were strongly anti immigration for decades. Only in the past few years have they changed their official opinion. https://www.npr.org/2013/02/05/171175054/how-the-labor-movem...

There's a big difference between being anti-immigration and anti-immigrant. All of the latter people are also the former, of course. But there are people who want lower immigration even though they have no problem with the immigrants who are here. Some union people are surely in that bucket just for "reduce job competition" reasons.
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