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It should be compulsory for everyone to be a member of a union as the HR staff at Uber have recently shown. It's much better to let your Union representative d

It should be compulsory for everyone to be a member of a union as the HR staff at Uber have recently shown. It's much better to let your Union representative deal with sexual harassment charges than your company's internal departments. In the UK there is ACAS as well but being a member of a union is important for all sorts of reasons; fair pay and better working conditions are just two.

witty_username 10y ago
Making it compulsory is bad as that means everybody will be forced to pay membership costs and can increase unemployment. Let companies decide what workers they want.
- andy_ppp 10y ago
  I mean salaries [1] for almost everyone other than executives and programmers haven't increased in 20 years. Corporate profits on the other hand are at record levels - so basically in my opinion workers are being screwed. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor...
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Economies are not zero-sum. The gain of corporations doesn't mean workers are being "screwed". Corporate profits are good; they mean more return to shareholders.
    - xg15 10y ago
      Shareholders, who are for the most part not workers. If living costs raise and the quality of available jobs worsens (e.g. less job security) but your wage stays the same that's objectively a loss.
      - witty_username 10y ago
        Workers indirectly invest in the stock market through retirement funds and other investments. Also, I think higher profits increase bond yields and bank interest rates. > If living costs raise and the quality of available jobs worsens (e.g. less job security) but your wage stays the same that's objectively a loss. True, but that hasn't happened.
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  > Let companies decide what workers they want. Let companies manipulate their workforce as much as they want?. It's THEIR workforce after all?
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Define "manipulate".
    - alex_hitchins 10y ago
      Google gives "control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly or unscrupulously." I'd say keeping your workers confused about their rights was a form of unscrupulous control. Hurts the bottom line when employees want things they are entitled to by law.
      - witty_username 10y ago
        Source for "keeping your workers confused"? It seems like Uber is making drivers listen to anti-union propaganda.
        alex_hitchins 10y ago
        The source for that quote is sort of in your second sentence. Why should a company want to give this anti-union propaganda to it's workforce?
- xg15 10y ago
  > Let companies decide what workers they want. The ones who cost the least, probably.
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    Actually, the ones that give the most productivity per dollar, if the company has any intelligence.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    That is just like how we buy things for the lowest price.
- davexunit 10y ago
  >Let companies decide what workers they want. What you're saying is "companies should hold a lot of power over workers." Management is much more powerful than an individual worker and collective bargaining via unions seeks to be a check on that power. Why is that so undesirable?
  - witty_username 10y ago
    It's undesirable because the company shouldn't be forced to allow unions. Maybe the company thinks unions are inefficient or doesn't like the collective bargaining power (in extreme cases it resembles a monopoly). Companies and workers are entitled to their opinion. Workers can choose to work at companies that allow unions. Of course management (multiple people) should be more powerful than an individual worker.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
If I wanted to sexually harass people, I'd be very happy to have a union to protect me. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/17/dirty-dozen-12-bad-teachers-who-tenure-and-unions-protected.html http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/17/dirty-dozen-12-bad-teac...
- andy_ppp 10y ago
  What do you recommend then? So basically go straight to the police then if sexual harassment at work isn't dealt with? Having another avenue of people who are supposed to help you should be useful in the majority of cases.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Unions are obligated to defend the person accused of harassment. Why do you believe that giving accused harassers another line of defense will help?
    - andy_ppp 10y ago
      And they are also obligated to defend the accuser right? Your arguments are very one sided; makes me think you just dislike unions.
      - Symmetry 10y ago
        Well, they're obligated to prevent the accuser from losing their job from making the accusation. The accuser probably wants more than that, however. My understanding is that in many countries other than the US unions are legally allowed to do the sort of self-policing of their members that would help in this case. The law exists because historically many non-socialist unions in the US formed part of the bulwark of segregation and had to be prevented from finding ways to kick non-white members out.
      - 013a 10y ago
        Unions are obligated to protect jobs. In this situation, the perpetrator's job is at stake, but the victim's job is not.
RugnirViking 10y ago
I agree. As someone who only recently entered the workforce, I have noticed that people from the US seem to have a particular tendancy to dislike unions whereas here in the UK they are often seen as a good thing. Anyone have any thoughts as to why?
- wavefunction 10y ago
  The US population has been under a sustained propaganda campaign for several decades intended to promote a hyper-capitalist/libertarian agenda that serves the interests of a very small number of people. The media in the US promotes this message, both because its members have themselves been awash in the propaganda their whole lives and also because the media organs in this country are largely corporate. Combine that with a general disinterest in critical thinking that has also been "encouraged" by those same cynical forces described above to ensure that they have an uneducated, incurious population that believes what they want. So now you can see why income inequality is growing in the US.
  - mhneu 10y ago
    Right. This disinformation campaign gathered steam in the 1970s. The Powell Memorandum is a decent marker of the beginning of this modern corporate political movement. Here's a place to start reading. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-cor...
  - andy_ppp 10y ago
    It's just like the "Japan has no housing regulations and it's better". It's not; the homes are small, cheaply made and over priced compared to anything in the west! The only places where housing is priced at a sensible level are those countries that the government build high quality local housing that the market has to produce better housing than to compete.
    - Jabanga 10y ago
      Please, for the love of God, learn about the US home building industry and about the construction industry in general. Nothing you said even approaches the truth, except for old Japanese housing (new Japanese housing is much better than the old stock) being of lower quality than US housing.
fixxer 10y ago
I think trade unions are fine. The issue I have with unions relates to public sector unions like AFSCME that are able to have representation on both sides of the negotiating table. Libertarians (of which I am not) are not against unions, they are simply pro freedom. Freedom means being able to assemble, but it also means not being compelled to assemble, especially when a portion of the dues are used to fund political action for policies they don't support. EDIT: autocorrect is horrendous
- dannypgh 10y ago
  I don't really understand why the idea of union shops bothers people. Freedom also means you can strike, walk-out, or quit your job if you want. Union shops exist because unions have the power to have everyone else walk out if someone is hired who isn't in the union. That's how the concept was originally created. (I think the formalism around modern elections, created by Taft-Hartley, is actually strongly anti-union but that's another matter) it therefore seems odd to argue that you should be free to work in a union shop without joining the union, with all of your union co-workers forced to not walk out in response. Or just speaking practically- a good union is democratic, and the democracy is much smaller - you can have more impact if you speak up- than the big democracy of the federal or state governments. So shouldn't taxes be a larger gripe than union dues? A portion of my taxes goes to fund all sorts of things I don't support.
  - fixxer 10y ago
    No, you're missing the point. The issue is individual freedoms. You're talking about the benefits of collective bargaining and calling that freedom. It is in no way the same thing. I think the free rider problem you allude to is a result of union membership providing diminishing value. But again, the only part I really have an issue with are public sector. PS. You're not wrong about taxes, but let's not use debating fallacies please. We're talking about unions.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
      >I think the free rider problem you allude to is a result of union membership providing diminishing value. No, free riders are a problem regardless of membership value. You say that you are for unions but you are against the only thing that allows unions to exist.
wdr1 10y ago
> It should be compulsory for everyone to be a member of a union as the HR staff at Uber have recently shown. I find that thought terrifying. I don't mind people choosing to unionize, but forcing it is another matter entirely.
emiliobumachar 10y ago
That's how it is in Brazil where I work, unions are mandatory. If you don't "voluntarily" contribute to one, your employer is required by law to withold a day's pay every year, and give it to the default union for your category. Obviously not anyone can start a union that counts. It's controversial, but, IMO, it's not good at all. Unions here are very political, and often detached from what the workers actually want. I once "participated" in a nationwide protest I hadn't heard about until the very day. Union thugs stopped the corporate buses full of workers from reaching the factory, got in bus by bus and instructed us to remain on the bus "for our own safety" - seriously, direct quote - so we were "deliberately" late for work.
- somethingsimple 10y ago
  I used to like my union when I was still working there. They always managed to negotiate higher and fairer raises for us every year. That said, some things were unpleasant. For example, they wouldn't let you switch from a 40h to a 30h contract, no matter how many times you told them you actually wanted that, because they would always take the stance that the employer was forcing the employee to do that so they could pay them less.
SilasX 10y ago
When this was brought up in the past HN/Uber discussions, several commenters made the point that a union runs into much the same bad incentives, in that they need to protect other employees with more "value" to the organization -- which may include the harasser -- just as the company wants to defend high performers. Characteristic example of the point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13686560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13686560
- Spooky23 10y ago
  That linked comment is pretty ridiculous. Unions only have that kind of hire/fire ability in some of the building trades. I've worked for 4-5 different employers that were unionized, and they had nothing like that kind of influence. You work for the company, who has hire/fire rights, under a contract negotiated by the union. There's definitely a bias towards protecting useless people, for the simple reason that divide & conquer is a key tactic for disrupting the bargaining position of a union, and it's always a better play to defend the dopes. WRT to harassment, unions almost always help. The company has an interest in not getting sued, the union has an interest to protect the employees. As with any relationship involving humans, things go off the rails sometimes, but you are protected against most types of arbritary and capricious retailiation.
malandrew 10y ago
In Brazil, being part of a union is for all intents and purposes compulsory (you have to jump through hoops to opt out). It's terrible arrangement that leads to endemic corruption and graft. The union ends up operating for the benefits of those running the union. Back when I worked there, the union I would have been a part of (had I not jumped through hoops) tried to make it so software engineering would be a licensed profession requiring a degree in the field. I'm so glad to not be working in that system anymore. There are many reasons why productivity in Latin America is less than half of the US. The attitude towards unions is one of them. I guess its a swell idea if you don't care that your country and industry is competitive globally.

witty_username 10y ago

Making it compulsory is bad as that means everybody will be forced to pay membership costs and can increase unemployment. Let companies decide what workers they want.

andy_ppp 10y ago
I mean salaries [1] for almost everyone other than executives and programmers haven't increased in 20 years. Corporate profits on the other hand are at record levels - so basically in my opinion workers are being screwed. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor...
- witty_username 10y ago
  Economies are not zero-sum. The gain of corporations doesn't mean workers are being "screwed". Corporate profits are good; they mean more return to shareholders.
  - xg15 10y ago
    Shareholders, who are for the most part not workers. If living costs raise and the quality of available jobs worsens (e.g. less job security) but your wage stays the same that's objectively a loss.
    - witty_username 10y ago
      Workers indirectly invest in the stock market through retirement funds and other investments. Also, I think higher profits increase bond yields and bank interest rates. > If living costs raise and the quality of available jobs worsens (e.g. less job security) but your wage stays the same that's objectively a loss. True, but that hasn't happened.
alex_hitchins 10y ago
> Let companies decide what workers they want. Let companies manipulate their workforce as much as they want?. It's THEIR workforce after all?
- witty_username 10y ago
  Define "manipulate".
  - alex_hitchins 10y ago
    Google gives "control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly or unscrupulously." I'd say keeping your workers confused about their rights was a form of unscrupulous control. Hurts the bottom line when employees want things they are entitled to by law.
    - witty_username 10y ago
      Source for "keeping your workers confused"? It seems like Uber is making drivers listen to anti-union propaganda.
      - alex_hitchins 10y ago
        The source for that quote is sort of in your second sentence. Why should a company want to give this anti-union propaganda to it's workforce?
xg15 10y ago
> Let companies decide what workers they want. The ones who cost the least, probably.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  Actually, the ones that give the most productivity per dollar, if the company has any intelligence.
- witty_username 10y ago
  That is just like how we buy things for the lowest price.
davexunit 10y ago
>Let companies decide what workers they want. What you're saying is "companies should hold a lot of power over workers." Management is much more powerful than an individual worker and collective bargaining via unions seeks to be a check on that power. Why is that so undesirable?
- witty_username 10y ago
  It's undesirable because the company shouldn't be forced to allow unions. Maybe the company thinks unions are inefficient or doesn't like the collective bargaining power (in extreme cases it resembles a monopoly). Companies and workers are entitled to their opinion. Workers can choose to work at companies that allow unions. Of course management (multiple people) should be more powerful than an individual worker.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

If I wanted to sexually harass people, I'd be very happy to have a union to protect me. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/17/dirty-dozen-12-bad-teachers-who-tenure-and-unions-protected.html http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/17/dirty-dozen-12-bad-teac...

andy_ppp 10y ago
What do you recommend then? So basically go straight to the police then if sexual harassment at work isn't dealt with? Having another avenue of people who are supposed to help you should be useful in the majority of cases.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Unions are obligated to defend the person accused of harassment. Why do you believe that giving accused harassers another line of defense will help?
  - andy_ppp 10y ago
    And they are also obligated to defend the accuser right? Your arguments are very one sided; makes me think you just dislike unions.
    - Symmetry 10y ago
      Well, they're obligated to prevent the accuser from losing their job from making the accusation. The accuser probably wants more than that, however. My understanding is that in many countries other than the US unions are legally allowed to do the sort of self-policing of their members that would help in this case. The law exists because historically many non-socialist unions in the US formed part of the bulwark of segregation and had to be prevented from finding ways to kick non-white members out.
    - 013a 10y ago
      Unions are obligated to protect jobs. In this situation, the perpetrator's job is at stake, but the victim's job is not.

RugnirViking 10y ago

I agree. As someone who only recently entered the workforce, I have noticed that people from the US seem to have a particular tendancy to dislike unions whereas here in the UK they are often seen as a good thing. Anyone have any thoughts as to why?

wavefunction 10y ago
The US population has been under a sustained propaganda campaign for several decades intended to promote a hyper-capitalist/libertarian agenda that serves the interests of a very small number of people. The media in the US promotes this message, both because its members have themselves been awash in the propaganda their whole lives and also because the media organs in this country are largely corporate. Combine that with a general disinterest in critical thinking that has also been "encouraged" by those same cynical forces described above to ensure that they have an uneducated, incurious population that believes what they want. So now you can see why income inequality is growing in the US.
- mhneu 10y ago
  Right. This disinformation campaign gathered steam in the 1970s. The Powell Memorandum is a decent marker of the beginning of this modern corporate political movement. Here's a place to start reading. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-cor...
- andy_ppp 10y ago
  It's just like the "Japan has no housing regulations and it's better". It's not; the homes are small, cheaply made and over priced compared to anything in the west! The only places where housing is priced at a sensible level are those countries that the government build high quality local housing that the market has to produce better housing than to compete.
  - Jabanga 10y ago
    Please, for the love of God, learn about the US home building industry and about the construction industry in general. Nothing you said even approaches the truth, except for old Japanese housing (new Japanese housing is much better than the old stock) being of lower quality than US housing.

fixxer 10y ago

I think trade unions are fine. The issue I have with unions relates to public sector unions like AFSCME that are able to have representation on both sides of the negotiating table. Libertarians (of which I am not) are not against unions, they are simply pro freedom. Freedom means being able to assemble, but it also means not being compelled to assemble, especially when a portion of the dues are used to fund political action for policies they don't support. EDIT: autocorrect is horrendous

dannypgh 10y ago
I don't really understand why the idea of union shops bothers people. Freedom also means you can strike, walk-out, or quit your job if you want. Union shops exist because unions have the power to have everyone else walk out if someone is hired who isn't in the union. That's how the concept was originally created. (I think the formalism around modern elections, created by Taft-Hartley, is actually strongly anti-union but that's another matter) it therefore seems odd to argue that you should be free to work in a union shop without joining the union, with all of your union co-workers forced to not walk out in response. Or just speaking practically- a good union is democratic, and the democracy is much smaller - you can have more impact if you speak up- than the big democracy of the federal or state governments. So shouldn't taxes be a larger gripe than union dues? A portion of my taxes goes to fund all sorts of things I don't support.
- fixxer 10y ago
  No, you're missing the point. The issue is individual freedoms. You're talking about the benefits of collective bargaining and calling that freedom. It is in no way the same thing. I think the free rider problem you allude to is a result of union membership providing diminishing value. But again, the only part I really have an issue with are public sector. PS. You're not wrong about taxes, but let's not use debating fallacies please. We're talking about unions.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
    >I think the free rider problem you allude to is a result of union membership providing diminishing value. No, free riders are a problem regardless of membership value. You say that you are for unions but you are against the only thing that allows unions to exist.

wdr1 10y ago

> It should be compulsory for everyone to be a member of a union as the HR staff at Uber have recently shown. I find that thought terrifying. I don't mind people choosing to unionize, but forcing it is another matter entirely.

emiliobumachar 10y ago

That's how it is in Brazil where I work, unions are mandatory. If you don't "voluntarily" contribute to one, your employer is required by law to withold a day's pay every year, and give it to the default union for your category. Obviously not anyone can start a union that counts. It's controversial, but, IMO, it's not good at all. Unions here are very political, and often detached from what the workers actually want. I once "participated" in a nationwide protest I hadn't heard about until the very day. Union thugs stopped the corporate buses full of workers from reaching the factory, got in bus by bus and instructed us to remain on the bus "for our own safety" - seriously, direct quote - so we were "deliberately" late for work.

somethingsimple 10y ago
I used to like my union when I was still working there. They always managed to negotiate higher and fairer raises for us every year. That said, some things were unpleasant. For example, they wouldn't let you switch from a 40h to a 30h contract, no matter how many times you told them you actually wanted that, because they would always take the stance that the employer was forcing the employee to do that so they could pay them less.

SilasX 10y ago

When this was brought up in the past HN/Uber discussions, several commenters made the point that a union runs into much the same bad incentives, in that they need to protect other employees with more "value" to the organization -- which may include the harasser -- just as the company wants to defend high performers. Characteristic example of the point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13686560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13686560

Spooky23 10y ago
That linked comment is pretty ridiculous. Unions only have that kind of hire/fire ability in some of the building trades. I've worked for 4-5 different employers that were unionized, and they had nothing like that kind of influence. You work for the company, who has hire/fire rights, under a contract negotiated by the union. There's definitely a bias towards protecting useless people, for the simple reason that divide & conquer is a key tactic for disrupting the bargaining position of a union, and it's always a better play to defend the dopes. WRT to harassment, unions almost always help. The company has an interest in not getting sued, the union has an interest to protect the employees. As with any relationship involving humans, things go off the rails sometimes, but you are protected against most types of arbritary and capricious retailiation.

malandrew 10y ago

In Brazil, being part of a union is for all intents and purposes compulsory (you have to jump through hoops to opt out). It's terrible arrangement that leads to endemic corruption and graft. The union ends up operating for the benefits of those running the union. Back when I worked there, the union I would have been a part of (had I not jumped through hoops) tried to make it so software engineering would be a licensed profession requiring a degree in the field. I'm so glad to not be working in that system anymore. There are many reasons why productivity in Latin America is less than half of the US. The attitude towards unions is one of them. I guess its a swell idea if you don't care that your country and industry is competitive globally.