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Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

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Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#461

Post by erik_seaberg »

dls2016 wrote: post #439
josephcsible wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because that's not a contract. Real contracts can only bind people who sign them, but in places that don't recognize right to work, you can be forced to join a union just because 51% of your co-workers signed.

Partnership contracts bind non-signers from receiving benefits of a partnership. And with good reason: you wouldn't want any ole schmoe laying claim to the fruits of your labor. Contracts deprive non-signers of things all the time. That's kind of the point. Do you have a problem with corporations signing "exclusive" deals with other corporations?

Yes, for party A to penalize party B for doing business with party C is an attack on free market competition which should be banned.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#462

Post by DaveExeter »

wbl wrote: post #200
savant_penguin wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are things I do not want to be democratically controlled. My ability to negotiate salaries with my boss is one of them. The scope of my job (some unions get to decide what you are allowed to do). Who should get fired (teachers unions make it impossible for bad teachers to be fired, so students are forced to put up with them) If you should be allowed to work. Some unions forbid you to work during strikes. Often…

The screen actors guild doesn't limit it's members ability to make money.

Um...it does.

If you are in SAG you are not allowed to work on non-union productions.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#463

Post by LordDragonfang »

Jensson wrote: post #292
littlestymaar wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are however many examples of modern economies with very little union influence, USA is an example, and USA is a better place to live than most countries. The US is arguably pretty subpar in terms of quality of life compared to other developed nations (little vacation, really expensive school system, poor health system for the masses leading to a lower life expectancy, high criminality rate, etc.). Of course,…

I didn't argue otherwise. USA is however not subpar compared to any country hostile to corporations, which is the important part. A country being hostile to unions isn't nearly as bad as a country being hostile to corporations.

>USA is however not subpar compared to any country hostile to corporations

The comment you're replying to didn't say anything about hostility to corporations, just hostility to unions, which are categorically not the same measurements. Germany, for example, is extremely pro-union while also being very pro-corporation. Their quality of life metrics are generally much higher than the US as well.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#464

Post by freen »

Jensson wrote: post #345
DetroitThrow wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Labor movements are made up of people, yes. And so if the people in these movements made smaller organizations to advance the goals of the movement at their workplace, in their local communities, and the national level... we might even credit those organizations, yes? Just like we do with the civil rights movement? >Labor organized in every single democracy regardless if there were unions or not. Some economies skip…

Not a single one of those unions had legal backing though, they were just political movements and people working together. Not sure why you say they have anything to do with the theatre that are modern unions. Rather the concept of modern unions limits worker power, since it created a lot of laws preventing workers to organize as they wish and instead have to fit the very narrow framework that are modern unions. Work…

Organizations have bylaws largely because without them, chaos reigns.

A movement that hopes to continue must become an organization, that is, a collection of humans who agree to engage with each other according to an agreed upon set of rules.

Your whole “movement != union” is a distinction without a difference.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#465

Post by nostrademons »

airza wrote: post #173
everdrive wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But could you imagine if we spoke about corporations in this manner? "I've worked for corporations and they are a mixed bag. In practice, they often abuse their employees. I've personally witnessed bosses who contributed nothing for years and just played politics." We definitely talk about corporations in this way. All the time, in fact!

The point which i don’t think was articulated well by the GP is that depsite these objections to corporate power nobody (ok,few people) in HN threads ever seems to endorse getting rid of corporations.

Not so much on HN (perhaps because its a forum sponsored by a VC and filled with people that either own their own business or hope to one day), but one of the fastest growing subreddits - r/antiwork - is dedicated to precisely that premise.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#466

Post by VieEnCode »

Jensson wrote: post #398
d4mi3n wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

John Lewis & Partners, an employee-owned cooperative and the largest and most successful high end chain of department stores in the UK, springs to mind as a larger scale success story for alternative models.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#467

Post by dls2016 »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #461
dls2016 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partnership contracts bind non-signers from receiving benefits of a partnership. And with good reason: you wouldn't want any ole schmoe laying claim to the fruits of your labor. Contracts deprive non-signers of things all the time. That's kind of the point. Do you have a problem with corporations signing "exclusive" deals with other corporations?

Yes, for party A to penalize party B for doing business with party C is an attack on free market competition which should be banned.

Penalize? So it’s ok for a group of people to enter a contract to form a corporation (“penalizing” non-signatories by preventing them from benefiting from the profits of the corporation)… but it’s not ok for a group of people to enter a contract to collectively bargain with a corporation (“penalizing” non-signatories by preventing them from benefiting from the contract).

This is absurd.

You’re saying a corporation cannot enter into a contract to be the exclusive supplier of a widget to another corporation?

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#468

Post by throwawaylinux »

IncRnd wrote: post #445
woodruffw wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, pray tell, are those corporations made of?

A corporation in the US is a legal fiction that creates a pseudo-person distinct from the owners, providing privileges to operate and legal protections for the owners. A corporation does not require many employees, which you seem to imply are required. The owners are the main component of a corporation not the employees.

By the way corporate personhood is not a legal fiction as in the term of art, it's a legal principle. More like a fact of law than a fiction.

I know in context you don't intend that but just a pejorative based around the fact corporations are a legal structure. Although I'm always puzzled by what the actual problem with this is. And I'll go on a tangent from the topic.

The legal system is fictional in basically the same way a corporation is. So is all other aspects of a government. Even the legal rights that a real person has are just about as far removed from flesh and blood as the legal entity of a corporation is from the brick and mortar and people that make up a corporation (for those corporations that have such corporeal bodies).

Having almost no appreciation for legal systems or their history, I would also guess that the idea a stroke of the pen suddenly gives birth to corporations which spread their ruin across the earth is backward, or at least much more complicated. Usually it is the legal system catching up with reality, solving problems like regulating existing practice of the time. Laws are shaped by society as much or maybe more than society is is shaped by laws, in my opinion.

I mean, argue specific problems of corporate law, but the general disparagement of "legal make-believe" I don't understand. The entire legal system is built on it, there's a lot of good things that are done with it.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#469

Post by hcurtiss »

UncleMeat wrote: post #114
0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #12

Having worked for both union and non-union employers - it's a mixed bag. Unions have advantages and disadvantages. They are great for worker representation - but that's a double-edged sword. Ideally, unions protects worker's interests. In practice, they often lead to abuse, stagnation and corruption. I've personally witnessed union employees who contributed nothing for years, get perpetually shifted from team to team…

These can all be true things. But could you imagine if we spoke about corporations in this manner? "I've worked for corporations and they are a mixed bag. In practice, they often abuse their employees. I've personally witnessed bosses who contributed nothing for years and just played politics." For some reason we hold unions to an incredibly high standard of "no problems, ever" but this is never used to discourage al…

>but this is never used to discourage all participation in the labor force because employers are often shitty.

Because not working is not a viable option for any significant number of people. But you can certainly work without union representation.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#470

Post by hcurtiss »

burkaman wrote: post #389
Jensson wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a lie, labor movements shaped those long before there were a legal concept of unions. Unions != labor movements. Unions are often a result of labor movements, but they are not the same thing. For example, the 8-hour work week was demanded by labor movements who weren't organized as modern unions are organized. Edit: Labor movements often called themselves unions though, but that was just a group of people get…

I would say that an organized group of workers that calls itself a union and advocates on behalf of those workers for labor rights is a union, and I think most people and dictionaries would agree with me. If that's not what you meant by the word "union", I think the burden is on you to provide an alternate definition for this discussion. For example: "an organization of workers formed to protect the rights and intere…

A union is recognized by the NLRB and has certain statutory entitlements regarding strikes and the ability for employers to fire striking workers. "Labor movements," writ large, do not require those statutory entitlements. Modern unions can be understood in terms of their ability to collectively bargain without fear of direct reprisal in terms of employment. Otherwise, collective bargaining has always been an option (it's just humans acting in concert), and long predated the concept of "unions."
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