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That's the theory. The practice is that unions worry more about campus carry than about treatment of adjuncts (yeah, I'm an academic scientist and can speak onl
by HarryHirsch 9y ago
That's the theory. The practice is that unions worry more about campus carry than about treatment of adjuncts (yeah, I'm an academic scientist and can speak only from observations) and that they serve more as a shield from accountability than anything else.
After the local public-sector union made brief noises about unionizing postdocs - my then-supervisor, himself protected from accountability by the double shield of tenure and union, tried to discourage us from supporting the effort - and retreated quickly I changed my position. The local union boss graduated one (1) PhD student during his 30 years on the faculty. Other faculty members were on the record of saying they are ashamed to be represented by such a lazybag.
American unions somehow painted themselves into a corner.
- Retric 9y agoWhile I don't discount your example. In the wider context there is a vast pressure to paint unions as a bad thing because they cost people with power money. Work unlike normal products has a fuzzy relationship to market forces because people are not quite fungible. If you pay relative to the lowest common denominator, then the surplus from over performers ends up with the company. Ratchet up the pay and that surplus ends up with under performers.
- chongli 9y agoAmerican unions somehow painted themselves into a corner. They became too focused on an adversarial relationship with the company. Germany has the right of things. Unions there have guaranteed board seats [0]. This gives the employees more of a say in the direction of the company. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
- mercer 9y agoI'm trying to think of a good word to use instead of 'union', any thoughts? I think the word's been poisoned as much as socialism, so perhaps using a different term can help (in the US?).
- jordanb 9y agoMy Dad was involved in unions from 70s-90s. He describes things differently. In the 1970s the relationship with most companies was collaborative. When they sat down at the negotiating table each side wanted the best deal possible, but the union wanted the company to do well and the corporate management saw the unions as partners. Beginning in the 1980s the whole relationship changed. Companies started hiring professional tiger teams to roll in and negotiate with the most aggressive tactics possible. They began to regard the union to an impediment to profits and make every effort to undermine and break it. Corporations began to even engage in tactics like strategic bankruptcies to invalidate their union contracts and cancel their pensions. American Labor has always wanted a relationship like the one in Germany. It's aways been the other side who's resisted that. Current "Maximum Shareholder Value" theory insists that labor should have no say in how the company is run, because the only stakeholder that matters is the investor.
- HarryHirsch 9y agoThe shareholder value theory is a problem, integrity isn't a consideration any more.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]