5 ms·

Why is he being downvoted? I don't get this site sometimes. San Francisco is a union town--get used to it. (It might be the last union town.) Yes--firefighet

Why is he being downvoted? I don't get this site sometimes. San Francisco is a union town--get used to it. (It might be the last union town.) Yes--firefigheters, electricians, plumbers, cops, etc. make a very livable wage. I've been in a San Francisco union, and never felt so--what's the word--protected. No--I didn't like the fact that everyone was paid the same, but in retrospect I was wrong. There will be a day where you are not the best in the room. You won't be the Rock Star. You will thank the socialists for that union. To be honest, I think certain sectors of tech would benefit from a union. So many of you go to that fun place. You get free food. You get free sodas. You get the fun office hootenannies. And a salary that's barely livable. We're still in a bull market in tech. All the Ayn Rand/Rebublican mantra will get very old when it gamblers decide to pull that money back in. Sorry, I'm a fan of unions. Worked too many non-union jobs; jobs that were worse than not working. For some reason, owners only like to pay just what they get away with.

Shivetya 11y ago
Because public sector unions are not bargaining on the same footing or with similar power that private unions do. They have an undue influence over local elections and in effect can hold local politicians hostage by it. There have been many documented cases where said unions used intimidation to include billboards and the like against any politician trying to reign in retirement and similar benefits back to reasonable levels.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  Corporations do the same shit from an opposite angle. You need opposing groups to form a balance; unfortunately in our society, things are heavily weighted towards corporate power.
- tamana 11y ago
  How do public unions get more influence?
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > How do public unions get more influence? Public sector unions operate in a way analogous to private-sector unions where the union members are mostly also shareholders of the corporation for which they are employed, and work together to lobby other shareholders for action as well as engaging in the usual collective bargaining approaches. This is rare (though not impossible) in the private sector, though there is a private-sector business model (the union co-op model) in which the union more power than in any public union situation, because the union workers are the entirety of the ownership group, not just an important and active subset of the constituency [0]. [0] http://www.geo.coop/story/unions-and-worker-co-ops-working-together http://www.geo.coop/story/unions-and-worker-co-ops-working-t...
untothebreach 11y ago
I have mixed feelings towards unions. I grew up just outside of Flint, MI, so the UAW was a big part of my life (though my parents were not GM workers, so it was not as big a part of my life as it was for my friends). I am in favor of unions in theory, as I tend to think that businesses will take advantage of their workers as much as they think they can, and a union is a great way for workers to protect themselves. But, eventually GM moved all of their factory jobs overseas and the whole Greater Flint area has suffered because of it. Now, I'm not going to lay the blame for this solely at the feet of the UAW, GM is ultimately responsible, but I'm sure the outlandish wages that the UAW had secured for their (unskilled) labor didn't help any. Demanding a living wage is vital, but when you have an unskilled workforce that is comprised entirely of high school graduates (or even dropouts in some cases) that are all making enough money to afford 2 homes, a boat, and enough cars to litter their front yard with them, I can see why a business would start looking at moving those jobs elsewhere. So, I guess I would say that I am a fan of unions, but I believe that, while a unions primary goal should be protecting their workers, they should also be cognizant of the needs of the business(es) to which their workers sell their labor.
- throwawaygrey 11y ago
  >>> a workforce that is comprised entirely of high school graduates (or even dropouts Interesting. I always wondered why GM made such unapologetically crap cars. This explains a lot.
- zanny 11y ago
  If a company is not going to pay you a living wage either way, the union did not mean anything. I often decry compromise because it means settling for worse - in the case of Michigan, while it is awful how rampant poverty and unemployment are there now that the union jobs dried up, the alternative was the slow gradual death of reasonable wages like is happening everywhere else. The union bought their workers as much time as they could but nobody will stop the trends of globalization and automation, and as a society we need to do a lot more to handle rampant unemployability than we are now. Unions can only protect the living wage employable in the long term.
  - 11y ago
crimsonalucard 11y ago
It's because y combinator is an incubator for startup companies. Anyone who owns a startup doesn't want a union in their own company.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Like all laws, laws which give unions monopoly protections are enforced by threats of violence To the extent that's true, its less true (or entirely, flatly untrue, depending on the relation of the government issuing the rule to the one employing the workers) in the case of laws giving them such monopolies in public employment, which in fact withdraw the capacity of the government employer to apply violence or its threat in certain ways, like all laws restraining government.

Shivetya 11y ago

Because public sector unions are not bargaining on the same footing or with similar power that private unions do. They have an undue influence over local elections and in effect can hold local politicians hostage by it. There have been many documented cases where said unions used intimidation to include billboards and the like against any politician trying to reign in retirement and similar benefits back to reasonable levels.

crimsonalucard 11y ago
Corporations do the same shit from an opposite angle. You need opposing groups to form a balance; unfortunately in our society, things are heavily weighted towards corporate power.
tamana 11y ago
How do public unions get more influence?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > How do public unions get more influence? Public sector unions operate in a way analogous to private-sector unions where the union members are mostly also shareholders of the corporation for which they are employed, and work together to lobby other shareholders for action as well as engaging in the usual collective bargaining approaches. This is rare (though not impossible) in the private sector, though there is a private-sector business model (the union co-op model) in which the union more power than in any public union situation, because the union workers are the entirety of the ownership group, not just an important and active subset of the constituency [0]. [0] http://www.geo.coop/story/unions-and-worker-co-ops-working-together http://www.geo.coop/story/unions-and-worker-co-ops-working-t...

untothebreach 11y ago

I have mixed feelings towards unions. I grew up just outside of Flint, MI, so the UAW was a big part of my life (though my parents were not GM workers, so it was not as big a part of my life as it was for my friends). I am in favor of unions in theory, as I tend to think that businesses will take advantage of their workers as much as they think they can, and a union is a great way for workers to protect themselves. But, eventually GM moved all of their factory jobs overseas and the whole Greater Flint area has suffered because of it. Now, I'm not going to lay the blame for this solely at the feet of the UAW, GM is ultimately responsible, but I'm sure the outlandish wages that the UAW had secured for their (unskilled) labor didn't help any. Demanding a living wage is vital, but when you have an unskilled workforce that is comprised entirely of high school graduates (or even dropouts in some cases) that are all making enough money to afford 2 homes, a boat, and enough cars to litter their front yard with them, I can see why a business would start looking at moving those jobs elsewhere. So, I guess I would say that I am a fan of unions, but I believe that, while a unions primary goal should be protecting their workers, they should also be cognizant of the needs of the business(es) to which their workers sell their labor.

throwawaygrey 11y ago
>>> a workforce that is comprised entirely of high school graduates (or even dropouts Interesting. I always wondered why GM made such unapologetically crap cars. This explains a lot.
zanny 11y ago
If a company is not going to pay you a living wage either way, the union did not mean anything. I often decry compromise because it means settling for worse - in the case of Michigan, while it is awful how rampant poverty and unemployment are there now that the union jobs dried up, the alternative was the slow gradual death of reasonable wages like is happening everywhere else. The union bought their workers as much time as they could but nobody will stop the trends of globalization and automation, and as a society we need to do a lot more to handle rampant unemployability than we are now. Unions can only protect the living wage employable in the long term.
- 11y ago

crimsonalucard 11y ago

It's because y combinator is an incubator for startup companies. Anyone who owns a startup doesn't want a union in their own company.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 11y ago
> Like all laws, laws which give unions monopoly protections are enforced by threats of violence To the extent that's true, its less true (or entirely, flatly untrue, depending on the relation of the government issuing the rule to the one employing the workers) in the case of laws giving them such monopolies in public employment, which in fact withdraw the capacity of the government employer to apply violence or its threat in certain ways, like all laws restraining government.