Silicon Valley workers may pursue collusion case as group • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley workers may pursue collusion case as group

#91

Post by raganwald » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 12:12 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #76

raganwald wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me, personally, I use my judgment. Others go by whomever has the cleverest lawyers or the most well-paid lobbyists. Or you can cop out and say that since there is no perfect way to write a law relating to this, there should be no law. Which is effectively the law of the jungle. Some people prefer that.

"I use my judgement" is the cop out. Crazygringo asked what the underlying principle is to provide justification for an otherwise arbitrary-sounding rule. The underlying principle you provide isn't actually an underlying principle at all - it's just pushing the arbitrary-sounding rule one level up. You might as well just say "I use my judgement" as a (non-)answer to his original question. Your suggestion that people…

I do carefully think through a lot of things, I just don't end up with the conclusion that companies should be free to form cartels while passing "right to work" laws that hobble unions.

I'm ok with you disagreeing with me and/or insulting me for not playing the society game by your rules.

Re: Silicon Valley workers may pursue collusion case as group

#92

Post by yummyfajitas » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 7:16 AM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #91

yummyfajitas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I use my judgement" is the cop out. Crazygringo asked what the underlying principle is to provide justification for an otherwise arbitrary-sounding rule. The underlying principle you provide isn't actually an underlying principle at all - it's just pushing the arbitrary-sounding rule one level up. You might as well just say "I use my judgement" as a (non-)answer to his original question. Your suggestion that people…

I do carefully think through a lot of things, I just don't end up with the conclusion that companies should be free to form cartels while passing "right to work" laws that hobble unions. I'm ok with you disagreeing with me and/or insulting me for not playing the society game by your rules.

I have no idea why you are arguing against a conclusion that neither crazygringo nor I expressed. I have no idea why you think we disagreed with you - crazygringo explicitly agreed with you and I never expressed an opinion.

I've discovered that I learn far more when I treat questions I have no answer for as an opportunity to learn than when I treat it as an insult and a straw man argument.

Re: Silicon Valley workers may pursue collusion case as group

#93

Post by specialist » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 1:10 PM UTC

blazespin wrote: post #21

pron wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is that the law attempts to balance power; when there is an imbalance of power, it helps the weaker side. A workers union in itself does not exploit employers. Its purpose is to force a fair distribution of wealth. A collusion of businesses is different, as its goal is to force an unfair distribution of wealth, as workers generally have fewer options than corporations. It's much easier for a corporation to…

"A workers union in itself does not exploit employers." No, pretty much all unions exploit workers via forced due paying. Unions sucks in the same way corporations colluding suck.

All citizens are "forced" to pay taxes. Otherwise free loaders would cheat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action

So it is with all organizations, such as unions, trade groups, etc.

Very simple game theory.

Re: Silicon Valley workers may pursue collusion case as group

#94

Post by JoeAltmaier » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 3:31 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #88

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easy to label business owners as mansion-dwelling money-grubbers. But consider that for every big deal union made by a car manufacturer someplace, theres a hundred small businesses that have to pay more for machinists etc. Their bottom line may not support that; their business model may fail. Then somebody loses a (lesser-paying) job, and $0 is a lot less than poor pay. So it all comes at a cost. My Mother-in-law…

In Denmark we tend to have the view that $0 is actually better than poor pay. In a modern country, it only makes sense to put human labor towards fairly high-value purposes, while low-paid jobs are by definition not considered very valuable by the market. Hence we have (roughly, with some asterisks) a $20/hr minimum wage. People who might've worked $5/hour jobs should put their effort towards improving the value of t…

...says the guy with a job. In some economies you can hustle, pick up a few odd jobs and get by. Minimum wage means only Real fulltime jobs are available, and if you're not qualified you are done.

I advise against glib answers about ruining peoples lives.