4 ms·

The relationship between you as an employee and employer is totally different than you and a (potential) union. The one is paying you a salary for certain work

The relationship between you as an employee and employer is totally different than you and a (potential) union. The one is paying you a salary for certain work done. The other is to (potentially) help you to negotiate better working conditions. You are absolutely making no sense at all.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> The one is paying you a salary for certain work done. The other is to (potentially) help you to negotiate better working conditions That's like saying that the role of elected officials is to represent their constituents and serve their interests, treating them all with full equality under the law. It's a nice statement, but it's completely idealistic and doesn't accurately describe what actually happens in practice.
- testrun 9y ago
  wtf? You work for a salary and you join a union if you want better working conditions and believe that is the only way to get it. This is not rocket science. What does politics have to do with it?
mikeash 9y ago
As an employee, the union is an organization you belong to which works to further your interests, and the company is an outside organization in a hopefully symbiotic relationship, where you provide them with things they want, and they provide you with things you want. As an employer, the company is an organization you belong to which works to further your interests, and the union is an outside organization in a hopefully symbiotic relationship, where you provide them with things they want, and they provide you with things you want. I am not saying that an employee has the same relationship with their union and their company. I'm saying that when you break it down into employee/employer and company/union, it becomes fairly symmetrical. Look at the individuals on both sides, and then at the organizations on both sides. If one side shouldn't band together, why should the other side do so?
- pdonis 9y ago
  > As an employee, the union is an organization you belong to which works to further your interests If that were actually true, it would be nice. But I doubt it's true for very many unions. Certainly my past experience in the auto industry indicated that it was not the case for the UAW, which is the union involved in this particular case. > If one side shouldn't band together, why should the other side do so? My personal belief is that unions should take this to its logical conclusion. If they really believe they can manage working conditions better than the employers, they should back that claim up by becoming full-fledged for-profit corporations, employing the workers they represent and negotiating contracts with the companies that want the services of those workers. If union claims are true, this arrangement should be a win-win: employees now work directly for the organization that represents them, and companies that want those services get them cheaper because the union can provide them more efficiently since they now employ the workers directly instead of being an inefficient middleman. If this were actually done and worked, it would be great. But I won't hold my breath waiting for it.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Your "logical conclusion" sounds like the proliferation of third-party suppliers which I understand is now a huge part of the auto industry. Sure, they're companies rather than unions, but my underlying point is that the two aren't particularly different: they're both ways for people to band together and get better deals collectively than they would individually. In any case, I'm not saying unions should do this or that, or that we should necessarily cheer them on. I just want the same standards applied to both sides. It looks to me like people decry unions based on things that are not unique to them, but give companies a free pass.
    - pdonis 9y ago
      > the proliferation of third-party suppliers which I understand is now a huge part of the auto industry Yes, it is, even more so now then when I was working in the industry. But that's something different from what I'm talking about. At each of the factories run by those third-party suppliers, the workers are employees of the supplier company. (And many of those factories are also unionized under the UAW.) Similarly, at the assembly plants where finished vehicles are put together from the parts from all of those third-party suppliers, the workers are employees of the auto company (GM or Ford or Toyota or whomever), and (mostly) unionized under the UAW. (AFAIK that's true of all the plants of the US auto companies, but some foreign ones, like Toyota, have US plants that are not unionized.) What I'm describing is something different: a factory belonging to GM or Ford or whomever, but staffed by workers (and supervisors up to whatever level seems appropriate) who are employees of, say, the Auto Workers' Company (AWC), which is a full-fledged, for-profit corporation that specializes in representing and managing automotive factory workers. That company negotiates a contract with the company that owns the factory and supplies it with raw materials and ships out its finished products, just like any other contract between companies. The contract specifies what jobs the workers are to do and under what conditions, and the factory owner pays the AWC for the services it provides according to whatever payment terms are in the contract. The AWC then pays the workers, since they are its employees. > It looks to me like people decry unions based on things that are not unique to them, but give companies a free pass. I don't see companies getting a free pass, but I also think that, to the extent that unions get decried more than companies, it's because unions combine the worst features of companies and democracies: - Unions have a corporate command structure (they have officers, finances, etc.), but it's subject to democratic rule (members vote on the leadership). Thus, the leadership has a long-term mission (to sustain the viability of the labor pool), but a short-term focus. - Unions have, or at least try to have, monopoly power. This means that the actual benefits they can provide from collective action (which is what makes it more sensible for them to be corporations) are more than swallowed up in the deadweight losses associated with having the monopoly (which is demanded by the membership for the same reasons people in a democracy demand government benefits).

chimeracoder 9y ago

> The one is paying you a salary for certain work done. The other is to (potentially) help you to negotiate better working conditions That's like saying that the role of elected officials is to represent their constituents and serve their interests, treating them all with full equality under the law. It's a nice statement, but it's completely idealistic and doesn't accurately describe what actually happens in practice.

testrun 9y ago
wtf? You work for a salary and you join a union if you want better working conditions and believe that is the only way to get it. This is not rocket science. What does politics have to do with it?

mikeash 9y ago

As an employee, the union is an organization you belong to which works to further your interests, and the company is an outside organization in a hopefully symbiotic relationship, where you provide them with things they want, and they provide you with things you want. As an employer, the company is an organization you belong to which works to further your interests, and the union is an outside organization in a hopefully symbiotic relationship, where you provide them with things they want, and they provide you with things you want. I am not saying that an employee has the same relationship with their union and their company. I'm saying that when you break it down into employee/employer and company/union, it becomes fairly symmetrical. Look at the individuals on both sides, and then at the organizations on both sides. If one side shouldn't band together, why should the other side do so?

pdonis 9y ago
> As an employee, the union is an organization you belong to which works to further your interests If that were actually true, it would be nice. But I doubt it's true for very many unions. Certainly my past experience in the auto industry indicated that it was not the case for the UAW, which is the union involved in this particular case. > If one side shouldn't band together, why should the other side do so? My personal belief is that unions should take this to its logical conclusion. If they really believe they can manage working conditions better than the employers, they should back that claim up by becoming full-fledged for-profit corporations, employing the workers they represent and negotiating contracts with the companies that want the services of those workers. If union claims are true, this arrangement should be a win-win: employees now work directly for the organization that represents them, and companies that want those services get them cheaper because the union can provide them more efficiently since they now employ the workers directly instead of being an inefficient middleman. If this were actually done and worked, it would be great. But I won't hold my breath waiting for it.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Your "logical conclusion" sounds like the proliferation of third-party suppliers which I understand is now a huge part of the auto industry. Sure, they're companies rather than unions, but my underlying point is that the two aren't particularly different: they're both ways for people to band together and get better deals collectively than they would individually. In any case, I'm not saying unions should do this or that, or that we should necessarily cheer them on. I just want the same standards applied to both sides. It looks to me like people decry unions based on things that are not unique to them, but give companies a free pass.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    > the proliferation of third-party suppliers which I understand is now a huge part of the auto industry Yes, it is, even more so now then when I was working in the industry. But that's something different from what I'm talking about. At each of the factories run by those third-party suppliers, the workers are employees of the supplier company. (And many of those factories are also unionized under the UAW.) Similarly, at the assembly plants where finished vehicles are put together from the parts from all of those third-party suppliers, the workers are employees of the auto company (GM or Ford or Toyota or whomever), and (mostly) unionized under the UAW. (AFAIK that's true of all the plants of the US auto companies, but some foreign ones, like Toyota, have US plants that are not unionized.) What I'm describing is something different: a factory belonging to GM or Ford or whomever, but staffed by workers (and supervisors up to whatever level seems appropriate) who are employees of, say, the Auto Workers' Company (AWC), which is a full-fledged, for-profit corporation that specializes in representing and managing automotive factory workers. That company negotiates a contract with the company that owns the factory and supplies it with raw materials and ships out its finished products, just like any other contract between companies. The contract specifies what jobs the workers are to do and under what conditions, and the factory owner pays the AWC for the services it provides according to whatever payment terms are in the contract. The AWC then pays the workers, since they are its employees. > It looks to me like people decry unions based on things that are not unique to them, but give companies a free pass. I don't see companies getting a free pass, but I also think that, to the extent that unions get decried more than companies, it's because unions combine the worst features of companies and democracies: - Unions have a corporate command structure (they have officers, finances, etc.), but it's subject to democratic rule (members vote on the leadership). Thus, the leadership has a long-term mission (to sustain the viability of the labor pool), but a short-term focus. - Unions have, or at least try to have, monopoly power. This means that the actual benefits they can provide from collective action (which is what makes it more sensible for them to be corporations) are more than swallowed up in the deadweight losses associated with having the monopoly (which is demanded by the membership for the same reasons people in a democracy demand government benefits).