As unions decline, inequality rises • Hacker News Board

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#71

Post by Closi » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

Devasta wrote: post #63

mannyv wrote: post #22

What does inequality mean in this context? The USSR, North Korea, and Cuba all have/had lower levels of inequality than the west...by making everyone poor. That is the easy way to reduce inequality/ What the left fails to realize is that absolute inequality doesn't matter. The real questions is the vast majority feel better off? In China, hundreds of millions are wealthier than they were two generations ago. They hav…

There are some things, like political campaigns, where absolute inequality does matter. One man one vote may be true in theory, but in practice Rupert Murdoch has fat more political sway than anyone on this thread precisely because of his wealth.

Is that a problem with income inequality, or a problem with political campaign financing rules/influence in a system which has wealthy people?

Personally I think lower inequality in our society would be a good thing - but also with political influence there are more direct faults/solutions.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#72

Post by JumpinJack_Cash » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

mannyv wrote: post #22

What does inequality mean in this context? The USSR, North Korea, and Cuba all have/had lower levels of inequality than the west...by making everyone poor. That is the easy way to reduce inequality/ What the left fails to realize is that absolute inequality doesn't matter. The real questions is the vast majority feel better off? In China, hundreds of millions are wealthier than they were two generations ago. They hav…

> > What the left fails to realize is that absolute inequality doesn't matter.

1) It's always paternalistic to try and explain to people how they should feel, especially when the social group in question is 55-60% of a country of 330M, it's not a matter of being right or wrong. It's a matter of Tilting at the windmills vs. not Tilting at the windmills.

2) It's impossible to solve inequality because every complex system is a Pareto system, however Pareto says nothing about the speed of the turnover of the top 20%.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#73

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

formercoder wrote: post #11

faitswulff wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically you’re being downvoted by the same folks who would benefit from unions. American Twitter employees, for instance, would have done a lot better with European labor protections. European Twitter employees probably have a sizable comeuppance on the horizon.

I really don’t understand the push for white collar tech employees to be in unions. It’s my understanding that in most union jobs, compensation and benefits are strictly based on time in role, not performance. I try and excel in my role and others are less interested in doing so. I should be promoted faster and compensated higher.

Unions can be what the workers want them to be. The industrial time-in-role thing can be a reasonable match to industrial industrial jobs. But collective bargaining can include performance-based pay. E.g., the union negotiates the overall base raise and the size of the performance-based raise pool, and then managers decide on raises and promotions. They can also help you resolve situations of individual managerial unfairness, something that HR is supposed to do but is very rarely effective at.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#74

Post by wallawe » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

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 more competent and ambitious, and it leads to ineffective orgs.

- I want to negotiate individually because I believe I will make more money as an outperformer. I don't want a centralized handicapper to blunt my compensation.

- I don't like that unions are rent seeking in nature.

- I don't like that unions often are exploited by organized crime.

- I don't like that unions interfere in the broader political process and democracy via activism and political pressure (e.g look at the fact that the new EV subsidies will be going to everyone except Tesla, it's a perversion).

- I think people should be free to organize, but I don't like that the state grants special asymmetric powers to unions.

- I don't like especially public sector unions that I believe are doing significant damage to society broadly. For example police unions that shielded Chauvin after a large number of complaints.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28958674

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#75

Post by bombolo » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #50

bombolo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes for example an immigrant that is under threat of being deported might want a more level playing field.

Unions are anti-immigrant.

And companies are pro-exploitation-of-immigrants… and not very pro-immigrants.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#76

Post by throw0101c » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

Closi wrote: post #71

Devasta wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some things, like political campaigns, where absolute inequality does matter. One man one vote may be true in theory, but in practice Rupert Murdoch has fat more political sway than anyone on this thread precisely because of his wealth.

Is that a problem with income inequality, or a problem with political campaign financing rules/influence in a system which has wealthy people? Personally I think lower inequality in our society would be a good thing - but also with political influence there are more direct faults/solutions.

> Is that a problem with income inequality, or a problem with political campaign financing rules?

In the US those are intertwined:

> The court held 5-4 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

More speech for the rich.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#77

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #50

bombolo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes for example an immigrant that is under threat of being deported might want a more level playing field.

Unions are anti-immigrant.

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/

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#78

Post by logicalmonster » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #4

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...

Ironically you’re being downvoted by the same folks who would benefit from unions. American Twitter employees, for instance, would have done a lot better with European labor protections. European Twitter employees probably have a sizable comeuppance on the horizon.

If the European standards are so good, where are all of the influential European tech companies?

To properly weigh all of the tradeoffs, you might consider asking if those Twitter jobs would even emerge in the European system and if there's a link between European labor standards and the lack of influential European tech companies. Europe is a large market that is filled with many capable and educated technology workers, yet almost always all of the tech companies we're ever talking about are American. Why is this?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#79

Post by JumpinJack_Cash » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

kneebonian wrote: post #64

bombolo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying there is nothing wrong with a country where a few own everything and everyone else doesn't even have access to healthcare? > In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation. Yes, rich people, lol. People who GET access to things like housing and healthcare remain.

I feel like you are mischarecterizing OPs argument. His argument is that rather than focus on inequality we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall.

> > we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall

The most important quality of life metric is mental health.

There is no way around the fact that mental health is heavily impacted by the fact that citizens feel worthless when they assess their social status vis-a-vis the top 1%

And no amount of stuff will solve this problem because social status is a zero-sum game.

It's one of those problems that simply cannot be solved.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#80

Post by soco » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

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…

Re. unions: especially in the Eastern Europe I don't think unions deserve to be called like that "unions". They were just facades for the "communist" political power to reach into every corner of worker's lives. Unions real meaning is negotiation power against the employers, and you must agree there was exactly zero of this in the EE. Might have been something before communism took over, but after WW2 there was no union left worth their name behind the iron curtain.