Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized sc…
Unions are like corporations - there is good and bad, benefits and drawbacks.
One thing I've noticed, is that where 'new unions' are forming, there is' probably a good reason for it.
I wonder what percentage of otherwise very liberal Amazon devs read sentences like "The company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." and come away thinking "we're definitely the good guys."
I asked this in the google union thread, but was too late to the party to get any answers. Copy pasting it here: Everybody here seems to agree that unions have the potential to do good or bad in every thread on it. The next logical step to me is that there needs to be a selection mechanism in place. For companies, the selection mechanism is competition. If someone else does better, the consumer or worker can choose s…
This is how it works in the UK. I have a choice of unions in my workplace. Some are targeted more at one job sector than another - but all of them will gladly take my (cheap!) subscription.
I get a vote in the union's policies. Employers can't require you to be a member of a specific union - or any union at all. You ccany join at any time - or leave whenever you want.
What does it take? Just join a union and get others to do so.
The #1 concern with a school should be the children, not the teachers. Public schools bend-over-backwards to help the teachers over the students. Public schools have remained essentially unchanged for 120 years - one teacher divulging knowledge to a room of kids in silent observation. Nothing will change when unions are in control - they have absolutely no incentive.
That is a failure of the public education system not unions. It is not as if the governments are trying to push innovative teaching methods and investing more in public education especially for the underprivileged.
There is pretty much zero chance of being elected to the public school board without the union endorsement.
Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
> I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies Isn't the trend the rise of 'big' companies. I wish there were a lot of small/medium companies, instead, that were competing for workers, then we won't need 'solutions' like unions. Looks like we are just accepting these 'big' companies as fact of life and moving on to finding solutions to deal with them.
"I wish there were a lot of small/medium companies..." I hear this from a lot of different circles, and I'm not trying to target you, just more or less generically voicing my frustrations. If people wish there were more small/medium companies in the US, then by all means, go to your county courthouse and officially establish a business. You could found a sole proprietorship just to get started. I own a side business and I'm part of ownership at my main job. It's a lot of work, but worth it. If you feel you have a good idea and a good way to form and keep a customer base, then nobody is stopping you. That's one of the greatest aspects of living in the US. And since I'm on my rant now, I often times hear something along the lines that people need to form together to combat something they feel isn't fair in their place of work. While I sympathise with that, I also know for a fact that there aren't a lot of CEO's out there that are waking up asking themselves how they can screw over their employees - that just isn't how the world works. How it does work is often times when times get tough, more than not CEO's and other C-Suite managers will put their own assets on the line to ensure the company can make it through a rough patch. If the rough patch is looking more like the norm, then they may have to make really tough decisions to let some people go. That sucks for them because they're losing talent to (potentially) a competitor. Last thing: if people really don't like that company X doesn't give them some perk - whether that's forming a union or even giving away free popcorn, then start looking for a job that does that stuff!!! Don't expect your employer to just make those changes. Sorry for the rant, but I think it's important to share a view from a different perspective.
Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
what I'm astonished by is the degree to which American firms are allowed to sabotage unionisation efforts despite, as I understand it, the US actually having similar protections for workplace assembly as other Western countries. If you tried interfere with unions here in Germany you'd run up against the law, the media and so on very, very quickly, it's one of the things you don't want to screw with.
Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized sc…
Unions are awful. They come in the guise of protecting people, and protecting employees, but they quickly become a weapon against non union employees - if you don’t join the union can’t work here. Which pressures people to agree with union groupthink in order just to have a job. To hell with unions. All unions are bad.
Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
what I'm astonished by is the degree to which American firms are allowed to sabotage unionisation efforts despite, as I understand it, the US actually having similar protections for workplace assembly as other Western countries. If you tried interfere with unions here in Germany you'd run up against the law, the media and so on very, very quickly, it's one of the things you don't want to screw with.
There's a long history here. The American labor movement secured a lot of those protections in the early and mid-20th century, and they were strong for several decades. It was a hard, violent fight. People died at strikes for those protections.
As we entered the 80's and 90's with the rise of Reaganism and then neoliberalism, however, US businesses as well as the federal and state governments started chipping away at them. Now, between insufficient oversight, "right-to-work (spare me)" laws, lack of NLRB enforcement, and a robust cottage industry of private-sector union-busters, labor has less power in America than it's had in a long time.
Along with the unionization at Google, I think it's a good trend to see them happening at big tech companies. As it says in the article: "Unions are a prominent presence at Amazon in Europe, but the company for years successfully fought off labor organizing efforts in the U.S." It's sad that Amazon, along with FB and Google, etc. have managed to squash unions so completely here in the US. There's a lot of propaganda…
American unions are quite different from European unions. European unions spend a lot of time running apprenticeship programs and doing things like advocating for more productivity. Like trying to figure out how to make the shop floor more efficient. American unions spend time preventing bad employees from being fired (like the NY teacher's rubber rooms and police unions fighting the firing of cops with 5 excessive force violations). Or spend time advocating for extra unneeded employees or forbidding employees from doing two different job roles. You can watch the longshoreman's season from the Wire for illustration. It's supposed to be a defense of unions, but accidentally illustrates why they are utterly broken in the US.
There is a use for unions that advocate for increased pay and clearer benefits. But as constructed and run in the US they are poison to the company. A whole layer of weird incentives the company (and workers!) have to deal with. A lot of the sinister sounding anti-union education the companies do points this out. And there's enough truth that it's very effective.
Pro union folks are always tweeting that companies spending $1 million to avoid an extra $100,000 a year in labor costs is evidence of a widespread conspiracy by the man to keep the working class down. Really the union is like adding a whole extra layer of horrible bureaucracy that costs way more than that $1 million. From that viewpoint shutting down a store or warehouse that unionizes make perfect sense.