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U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
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Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#52I don’t understand how so many HNers are anti-union and anti-collective bargaining. The fact that corporations and billionaires are so anti-union and engage in regular conduct like this demonstrates that unions are pro-worker and ideal for the balance needed in the US and across the globe. Balance is key between workers and owners. Without it we are left with growing wealth inequality such as… - ridiculous housing pr…
> I don’t understand how so many HNers are anti-union and anti-collective bargaining. I had the displeasure of working with union labor in the US, they would come in at 7 (who does that) and leave at 4 on the dot. Then worked with non-union labor: cheaper, worked as much as possible per day, got the job done faster. Money-wise it was less than union labor. Now tell me how is good for me, as a company that needs stuff…
> Now tell me how is good for me, as a company that needs stuff done, to use union workers?
Because in a race to the bottom, even the winner ends up in shit. The reason America is turning to crap now is because everyone is just out for themselves, and that's mostly folks like you who just want to get stuff done cheaply. Unions may not be the answer for your company, but please at least treat your workers like they matter, and pay them better than you think you should, because they are your company, they are America, and the rampant evisceration of the middle/working/blue collar class by the greedy corpos will destroy us all before anything else.
I truly don't understand how businesspeople cannot understand that humans are your most important resource. You run roughshod over them for a bit more profit. It's perplexing!
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#53I wonder why US companies keep pulling stunts like this despite the data showing little negative impact of unionization to overall productivity nor company survival. It looks to be a purely dogmatic ego trip where somehow blind loyalty is demanded even when it's not actually necessary.
If it saves even a little money, it will happen.
Companies do all sorts of itrrational things that cost money
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#54I don’t understand how so many HNers are anti-union and anti-collective bargaining. The fact that corporations and billionaires are so anti-union and engage in regular conduct like this demonstrates that unions are pro-worker and ideal for the balance needed in the US and across the globe. Balance is key between workers and owners. Without it we are left with growing wealth inequality such as… - ridiculous housing pr…
Public school education is poor in part because it’s darn near impossible to fire bad teachers though. And I don’t see how unions would improve housing affordability. I’m not against unions per se, particularly for positions which are not as lavishly compensated as a typical white collar FAANG employee. I’m merely pointing out that you need to pick better examples. Otherwise you just undermine your own argument.
I’m not anti-union, but I’m not pro-union either.
I was in a union, Teamsters in fact. It protected crappy workers, prevented any change to work processes that might save time and put a low ceiling on high performing workers.
Not all unions are like that, but they certainly aren’t panaceas to all workers ills (in fact, sometimes they are the cause of new ones).
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The corporations should live in fear of the government, not an independent union." I think that membership funded union would be much likely to protect worker rights than tax funded government.
But the union has little to no legislative power, only relying on lobbying and private legal cases, at which point you end up competing with non-union entities who have a lot more money.
A general strike has a lot of power. Which is why they are banned in many countries.
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither of you are giving examples, only conjecture. Bad teachers are a noteworthy cause of poor schools. House prices wouldn't be so high if we had unions. Ok, prove it. Or at least give me some reasoning to go off.
What is the mechanism under which houses would be more affordable if employees had more money thanks to the unions? Real estate (and by extension rents) will take up any available slack on income.
Housing prices rose much, much faster than inflation or rises in wages. So they are obviously not driven by income. Try again.
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously in general it makes a positive difference for employees, that was a rhetorical question... I have listed two main negative differences it makes for employers. I am hard-pressed to find any positive differences for them... on the issues this touches it's pretty much a zero-sum game so if employees gain it means employers 'lose'. If something is positive for both sides then I think the market will eventually…
The purpose of unions is to make sure the employees work is sustainable, easier, pleasant if possible. On a more practical level this means enforcing work regulations, if an employer is at risk of breaking regulations (intentionally or not), unions will help them keep the line. A happier employee is more productive and less likely to leave the company on the forst occasion or do anything hostile (stealing, selling co…
The purpose of unions is to extract as much as possible from the employer on the behalf of its members, or at least to extract more than the employer would otherwise have given.
You do not contradict anything I have written nor provide any examples of how unions might be a positive for employers...
Again, if an happier, more productive employee benefits the company then the market will sort it out by itself (For instances tech companies have not needed unions to offer high pay and plenty of perks). That said, it's not an universal truth that a happier employee is a net gain.
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> impossible to fire bad teachers though. It's impossible to fire bad teachers (it really isn't, btw, at least not in Texas) because there are no teachers because teachers wages are pathologically low because every education department in the country is underfunded.
IIUC the USA spend near the top per student of all countries. Why is it other countries get better results with less money? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
White and Asian students, if stratified separately, rank in the top 10 academically world wide.
Everyone else brings down the average, and it has nothing to do with teachers or how good they are.
Teachers in my county are assigned to schools randomly, and yet some schools score 9/10 and others score literally 1/10 and 2/10 on great schools for academic performance. Funding between schools is the same. Teachers assigned are from the same pool.
It’s not the money. It’s not the teachers.
Anyone who talks about “education in the USA” without addressing the giant disparity in academic performance that begins in kindergarten for black and Hispanic students is ignoring the single largest factor on student outcomes.
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The corporations should live in fear of the government, not an independent union." I think that membership funded union would be much likely to protect worker rights than tax funded government.
But the union has little to no legislative power, only relying on lobbying and private legal cases, at which point you end up competing with non-union entities who have a lot more money.
It's not not always been the case that the unions were the weaker non-state actor, in fact they used to rival political parties and business cartels in their ablity to lobby/negotiate.
And in some countries that power havent completely faded away.
Re: U.S. Rules Apple Illegally Interrogated Staff and Confiscated Union Flyers
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
It makes a positive difference for the employees. You seem to imply that this is correlated to a negative difference for the employer, which is completely wrong.
Obviously in general it makes a positive difference for employees, that was a rhetorical question... I have listed two main negative differences it makes for employers. I am hard-pressed to find any positive differences for them... on the issues this touches it's pretty much a zero-sum game so if employees gain it means employers 'lose'. If something is positive for both sides then I think the market will eventually…
"If something is positive for both sides then I think the market will eventually adopt it on its own."
Due to millions of regulations already in place, the market is not really free, but very distorted. So even if the "free market" would always go for the best solution, current state is nonproof for anything.
Otherwise you might argue, that europe would be a proof, because unions here are strong.