4 ms·

No. The union leaders have zero interest in making any company succeed. They have a ton of interest in themselves succeeding. In fact unions work very hard a

No. The union leaders have zero interest in making any company succeed. They have a ton of interest in themselves succeeding. In fact unions work very hard against innovation and in keeping status quo.

tptacek 9y ago
Labor unions with professionalized management do have a short-termism problem with extracting concessions that can harm the long-term prospects of firms. That's a real problem. Similarly, ownership and capital has a tendency to view labor as a black-box machine. If the machine, when operated in Indonesia, produces comparable financial results, what's the point in running the machine in the US? And so pretty much ever job that can be outsourced is outsourced. Management can have the worst of both worlds. Most managers are hired guns. A ten-year stint at the helm of a company is a respectable tenure, but it's a short period of time compared to the life of some firms. Management in large firms routinely harms both employees and the long-term prospects of the firm by optimizing for short-term metric gains that boost their own compensation. There's no part of the system that works flawlessly, or isn't freighted with obvious problems. It's kind of a miracle that things work at all. Nevertheless, they often do. And they work better for everyone when all the stakeholders are organized and engaged.
s73ver_ 9y ago
And companies have zero interest in helping any individual worker succeed, or letting them share in the company's success.
scarmig 9y ago
Question: do you think German companies or American companies are better managed? There're always issues of misaligned or perverse incentives. Although I have no illusions about union leaders having a particular interest in company success, it's not worse than company management having no particular interest in company success. And, since they have less power, they have less of a negative impact on the company and society in general.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
fsloth 9y ago
See for example how the workforce of Volkswagen is organized in germany. While I would not call it the most innovative company there is very little evidence that the political leverage employees have would have stifled innovation that much.
mixmastamyk 9y ago
That can be true in extreme circumstances, but I'm sure you can see there is already a natural remedy to that problem. The problem is when the company is a monopoly, which should be carefully monitored.
lawnchair_larry 9y ago
Do you know how Mitt Romney made his ~500M fortune?
Clubber 9y ago
That's not true at all. If the company fails, all their union members are out of a job, and the union loses strength. Unions are just as interested in the company staying alive and profitable as the companies are, they just want to share more of the profits with the workers.
ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
Not sure why he's getting downvoted. Unions are only interested in company's existence but even then very often they are willing to see it go to the brink not budging on concessions etc. Not to mention the whole objection to the "right to work" approach.
- sangnoir 9y ago
  > Not sure why he's getting downvoted Because his fact-free attack is demonstrably wrong. The majority of unions are invested in the companies they provide labor for. By way of example, Germany has unions that are evidently committed to the company's existence - to the extent that labor being represented at board level is not unusual. That is the kind of, ahem, synergy that should exist between capital and labor, but is anathema in the US. In contrast, some executives are effectively mercenaries with no interest in the long-term survival of companies, they work on very short horizons, but I never hear anyone demanding that management is toxic and shouldn't exist.
  - coredog64 9y ago
    US unions are required to have a more combative relationship with management than their German counterparts. There's a USSC decision (the name escapes me at the moment) that makes unions offer equal representation to all. So unless there is criminality, the union can't decide that you are incompetent and should find a new career. From discussions with German union members, they do have that flexibility.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  How many times have you seen a company push their best to the brink, or just outright fire them for little to no reason? I've seen it quite a few times. So unions aren't the only ones doing what you accuse them of doing. So why call them out for it if you're not going to call the companies out for doing the same thing?

tptacek 9y ago

Labor unions with professionalized management do have a short-termism problem with extracting concessions that can harm the long-term prospects of firms. That's a real problem. Similarly, ownership and capital has a tendency to view labor as a black-box machine. If the machine, when operated in Indonesia, produces comparable financial results, what's the point in running the machine in the US? And so pretty much ever job that can be outsourced is outsourced. Management can have the worst of both worlds. Most managers are hired guns. A ten-year stint at the helm of a company is a respectable tenure, but it's a short period of time compared to the life of some firms. Management in large firms routinely harms both employees and the long-term prospects of the firm by optimizing for short-term metric gains that boost their own compensation. There's no part of the system that works flawlessly, or isn't freighted with obvious problems. It's kind of a miracle that things work at all. Nevertheless, they often do. And they work better for everyone when all the stakeholders are organized and engaged.

s73ver_ 9y ago

And companies have zero interest in helping any individual worker succeed, or letting them share in the company's success.

scarmig 9y ago

Question: do you think German companies or American companies are better managed? There're always issues of misaligned or perverse incentives. Although I have no illusions about union leaders having a particular interest in company success, it's not worse than company management having no particular interest in company success. And, since they have less power, they have less of a negative impact on the company and society in general.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

fsloth 9y ago

See for example how the workforce of Volkswagen is organized in germany. While I would not call it the most innovative company there is very little evidence that the political leverage employees have would have stifled innovation that much.

mixmastamyk 9y ago

That can be true in extreme circumstances, but I'm sure you can see there is already a natural remedy to that problem. The problem is when the company is a monopoly, which should be carefully monitored.

lawnchair_larry 9y ago

Do you know how Mitt Romney made his ~500M fortune?

Clubber 9y ago

That's not true at all. If the company fails, all their union members are out of a job, and the union loses strength. Unions are just as interested in the company staying alive and profitable as the companies are, they just want to share more of the profits with the workers.

ChemicalWarfare 9y ago

Not sure why he's getting downvoted. Unions are only interested in company's existence but even then very often they are willing to see it go to the brink not budging on concessions etc. Not to mention the whole objection to the "right to work" approach.

sangnoir 9y ago
> Not sure why he's getting downvoted Because his fact-free attack is demonstrably wrong. The majority of unions are invested in the companies they provide labor for. By way of example, Germany has unions that are evidently committed to the company's existence - to the extent that labor being represented at board level is not unusual. That is the kind of, ahem, synergy that should exist between capital and labor, but is anathema in the US. In contrast, some executives are effectively mercenaries with no interest in the long-term survival of companies, they work on very short horizons, but I never hear anyone demanding that management is toxic and shouldn't exist.
- coredog64 9y ago
  US unions are required to have a more combative relationship with management than their German counterparts. There's a USSC decision (the name escapes me at the moment) that makes unions offer equal representation to all. So unless there is criminality, the union can't decide that you are incompetent and should find a new career. From discussions with German union members, they do have that flexibility.
s73ver_ 9y ago
How many times have you seen a company push their best to the brink, or just outright fire them for little to no reason? I've seen it quite a few times. So unions aren't the only ones doing what you accuse them of doing. So why call them out for it if you're not going to call the companies out for doing the same thing?