5 ms·

Unionization is not banned in any state. Your link does not agree with your dishonest comment. Right to work laws simply prohibit collusion between unions and

Unionization is not banned in any state. Your link does not agree with your dishonest comment. Right to work laws simply prohibit collusion between unions and employers to prevent non-union workers from working. They are no different than other worker protection laws, e.g. the laws prohibiting Apple and Microsoft from forming an anti-poaching agreement.

ashark 10y ago
Well, effective unions–those capable of overcoming the free rider problem–are banned, then. It's like banning all sports equipment but saying Baseball isn't banned, in that you can still get together and say you're playing baseball and go through some of the motions, kind-of, and perhaps even play some cup-ball and call it baseball.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I don't know what you mean by "free rider problem". Rather than buying negotiation services from a union, I simply negotiated my own employment agreement. Who am I "free riding" on? If I hack together my own IDE in emacs, am I somehow "free riding" on the people who sell commercial IDEs?
  - ashark 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem (EDIT: to expand, this is the problem with voluntary associations when it comes to acting effectively toward their goals, and if you follow this general rabbit hole far enough, basically why government is a thing)
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      In reality, price discovery does not require any such monopoly. For example, the stock market is highly efficient at price discovery, yet there is no single monopolistic buyer who chooses prices for everyone who wants to purchase a stock. I am aware of the debate as to whether index funds should be illegal (e.g. [1]), but I don't find them super compelling. Index investors are not, in fact, passive, they are merely investing in one particular direction, and active investors can trade against them if that direction is wrong. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-24/are-index-funds-communist https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-24/are-index...
      - ashark 10y ago
        Unions don't exist to improve price discovery per se, they exist to reduce the power imbalance between massive autocratic organizations given great power (for good reason) by the state and individual workers, on a broad set of issues that does usually include compensation.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        I'm perfectly happy with that "power imbalance", whatever that means. Why can't the union refuse to protect non-union workers against this "imbalance"? It sounds like the union needs special legally granted monopoly powers to sell me services I don't actually want. The term for that is "rent seeking", actually.
        ashark 10y ago
        > I don't know what you mean by "free rider problem" > I'm perfectly happy with that "power imbalance", whatever that means. > It sounds like the union needs special legally granted monopoly powers to sell me services I don't actually want. The term for that is "rent seeking", actually. You may want to do some reading on the topic, it seems, if it's interesting to you. You appear to have picked up some ideas and vocabulary, but missed a lot of others. Should be able to find political-economy or labor relations focused econ textbooks that cover this stuff without difficulty, and probably in some cheap older-revision copy that'll be fine for the purpose. A few minutes looking at 200ish-level poli-sci and econ class syllabi should give you a good idea of what kinds of materials you'd want to hunt down, and I'm guessing a skim over a broad selection of that stuff would be helpful. (EDIT) to give a nutshell description of the power imbalance: it is far more harmful, in the general case, to the individual than to the company when a, say, 500+ person company rejects them as a candidate or fires them, which means they have vastly less leverage in any sort of negotiation, official or otherwise, which may occur.
        st3v3r 10y ago
        "It sounds like the union needs special legally granted monopoly powers to sell me services I don't actually want." To paraphrase the classic anti-union argument, "Nobody is forcing you to work somewhere with a compulsory union."
  - jancsika 10y ago
    No. But if you sell and distribute your own commercial IDE based on emacs and don't release your changes to their source, you are a "free rider". Emacs devs even have a clever license to prevent just that. You do agree that there's value in their licensing scheme, right? I mean, it would be weird if you were comfortable casually using the software in a metaphor against "right to work" laws but were dead set against their license choice.
    - pc86 10y ago
      That is not remotely what the free rider problem is.
- pc86 10y ago
  You mean those where people are forced to join the union whether they want to or not? Because those are very much a thing. Try becoming a public school teacher or police officer without joining a union.
kodt 10y ago
Unions aren't much use in right to work states since the employer can simply fire all Union workers and hire non-union.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Please read the wikipedia article before spreading further misinformation. In fact, "right to work laws" simply allow non-union members to negotiate their own employment agreement with a company. Your comment is like saying Comcast isn't much use in municipalities where Google Fiber (or other competition) is legal. If that's true, it's merely illustrating that the monopoly provider is creating no value for customers.
BEEdwards 10y ago
Except that this law makes the union pointless. Laws like that are a prime reason unions are dying. Why pay union dues when you get all the benefits for free? Oh sure, the union shrivels and dies and the benefits leave with it, but fuck it you saved $25 off a few paychecks.
- coredog64 10y ago
  When I worked at Boeing, membership in SPEEA was optional. They offered benefits to paying members, but the benefits I received as a "free rider" were pretty minimal.
  - lmm 10y ago
    The real benefits will be things like a decent contract with e.g. proper treatment of overtime, sensible safety policies and so on. Which you absolutely get to free-ride on.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      There is no reason Boeing can't offer a non-decent contract without overtime or safety to non-union workers. This is like saying Joe 401k is free-riding on Goldman Sachs because Goldman tries to find the right price while Joe 401k just takes whatever price is available.
      - lmm 10y ago
        There are economists who seriously criticise the rise of index funds on exactly those grounds.
- RHSeeger 10y ago
  On the other hand, you also get all the negatives while losing many of the benefits. Unions have some positives and some negatives. Some of the positives you benefit from even if you're not in it, some you don't. Some of the negatives you are impacted by if you're not in it, some you don't. It's not a clear case of "getting a big bucket of benefits without paying the cost" if you work for a company w/o joining the union.

ashark 10y ago

Well, effective unions–those capable of overcoming the free rider problem–are banned, then. It's like banning all sports equipment but saying Baseball isn't banned, in that you can still get together and say you're playing baseball and go through some of the motions, kind-of, and perhaps even play some cup-ball and call it baseball.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I don't know what you mean by "free rider problem". Rather than buying negotiation services from a union, I simply negotiated my own employment agreement. Who am I "free riding" on? If I hack together my own IDE in emacs, am I somehow "free riding" on the people who sell commercial IDEs?
- ashark 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem (EDIT: to expand, this is the problem with voluntary associations when it comes to acting effectively toward their goals, and if you follow this general rabbit hole far enough, basically why government is a thing)
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    In reality, price discovery does not require any such monopoly. For example, the stock market is highly efficient at price discovery, yet there is no single monopolistic buyer who chooses prices for everyone who wants to purchase a stock. I am aware of the debate as to whether index funds should be illegal (e.g. [1]), but I don't find them super compelling. Index investors are not, in fact, passive, they are merely investing in one particular direction, and active investors can trade against them if that direction is wrong. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-24/are-index-funds-communist https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-24/are-index...
    - ashark 10y ago
      Unions don't exist to improve price discovery per se, they exist to reduce the power imbalance between massive autocratic organizations given great power (for good reason) by the state and individual workers, on a broad set of issues that does usually include compensation.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        I'm perfectly happy with that "power imbalance", whatever that means. Why can't the union refuse to protect non-union workers against this "imbalance"? It sounds like the union needs special legally granted monopoly powers to sell me services I don't actually want. The term for that is "rent seeking", actually.
        ashark 10y ago
        > I don't know what you mean by "free rider problem" > I'm perfectly happy with that "power imbalance", whatever that means. > It sounds like the union needs special legally granted monopoly powers to sell me services I don't actually want. The term for that is "rent seeking", actually. You may want to do some reading on the topic, it seems, if it's interesting to you. You appear to have picked up some ideas and vocabulary, but missed a lot of others. Should be able to find political-economy or labor relations focused econ textbooks that cover this stuff without difficulty, and probably in some cheap older-revision copy that'll be fine for the purpose. A few minutes looking at 200ish-level poli-sci and econ class syllabi should give you a good idea of what kinds of materials you'd want to hunt down, and I'm guessing a skim over a broad selection of that stuff would be helpful. (EDIT) to give a nutshell description of the power imbalance: it is far more harmful, in the general case, to the individual than to the company when a, say, 500+ person company rejects them as a candidate or fires them, which means they have vastly less leverage in any sort of negotiation, official or otherwise, which may occur.
        st3v3r 10y ago
        "It sounds like the union needs special legally granted monopoly powers to sell me services I don't actually want." To paraphrase the classic anti-union argument, "Nobody is forcing you to work somewhere with a compulsory union."
- jancsika 10y ago
  No. But if you sell and distribute your own commercial IDE based on emacs and don't release your changes to their source, you are a "free rider". Emacs devs even have a clever license to prevent just that. You do agree that there's value in their licensing scheme, right? I mean, it would be weird if you were comfortable casually using the software in a metaphor against "right to work" laws but were dead set against their license choice.
  - pc86 10y ago
    That is not remotely what the free rider problem is.
pc86 10y ago
You mean those where people are forced to join the union whether they want to or not? Because those are very much a thing. Try becoming a public school teacher or police officer without joining a union.

kodt 10y ago

Unions aren't much use in right to work states since the employer can simply fire all Union workers and hire non-union.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Please read the wikipedia article before spreading further misinformation. In fact, "right to work laws" simply allow non-union members to negotiate their own employment agreement with a company. Your comment is like saying Comcast isn't much use in municipalities where Google Fiber (or other competition) is legal. If that's true, it's merely illustrating that the monopoly provider is creating no value for customers.

BEEdwards 10y ago

Except that this law makes the union pointless. Laws like that are a prime reason unions are dying. Why pay union dues when you get all the benefits for free? Oh sure, the union shrivels and dies and the benefits leave with it, but fuck it you saved $25 off a few paychecks.

coredog64 10y ago
When I worked at Boeing, membership in SPEEA was optional. They offered benefits to paying members, but the benefits I received as a "free rider" were pretty minimal.
- lmm 10y ago
  The real benefits will be things like a decent contract with e.g. proper treatment of overtime, sensible safety policies and so on. Which you absolutely get to free-ride on.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    There is no reason Boeing can't offer a non-decent contract without overtime or safety to non-union workers. This is like saying Joe 401k is free-riding on Goldman Sachs because Goldman tries to find the right price while Joe 401k just takes whatever price is available.
    - lmm 10y ago
      There are economists who seriously criticise the rise of index funds on exactly those grounds.
RHSeeger 10y ago
On the other hand, you also get all the negatives while losing many of the benefits. Unions have some positives and some negatives. Some of the positives you benefit from even if you're not in it, some you don't. Some of the negatives you are impacted by if you're not in it, some you don't. It's not a clear case of "getting a big bucket of benefits without paying the cost" if you work for a company w/o joining the union.