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Even in a seller's market unions will still provide you with leverage you couldn't get otherwise. Unions aren't only so the dispossessed can bargain for more, t

Even in a seller's market unions will still provide you with leverage you couldn't get otherwise. Unions aren't only so the dispossessed can bargain for more, they're so any group can bargain for more. The one example I always give is of my mom starting out working in the 70's. Her employer was not unionized but had several unionized competitors in the city. Because her employer didn't want to bother with union negotiations all the time they paid a quarter more an hour than their competitors and so no union ever started up. My mom was benefitting from a union she wasn't even a member of. You could be in that same position if a programmer union ever started up.

SEJeff 9y ago
I find there are more than enough people that want me (as a software engineer with 10+ years of low level linux / unix experience) and wish me to be very happy. If I ever was forced to join a union, I'd quit on the spot and go find somewhere else to work. I worked for Comair (small airline owned by Delta) during a stewardess strike, which ultimately caused the company to sell planes and eventually go out of business. Big unions like the teamsters don't give a crap about their members, only their power and greed. It was said a year or so later that the teamsters were talking to other airlines saying, "Don't give us what we want and we'll pull a Comair on you". All of the Stewardess union members, airplane mechanics union members, and pilots union members were furloughed aka given indefinite non-paid leave due to the profit imbalance that the highest paid stewardesses in the industry caused on a sub-par airline. No thanks unions. There is enough free market for what we do that they aren't necessary.
- Retric 9y ago
  You are likely confusing cause and effect. Comair was having issues before the union got involved. The union simply made the companies failure more obvious.
  - SEJeff 9y ago
    They were doing alright, they just had the highest paid stewardesses in the industry (by a large amount actually) for a solid mid-range airline when it comes to KPIs. If they'd have agreed to be paid more in line with what the industry was paying stewardesses there is a great chance the airline would still be open. Also, no matter how you look at it. The result of the failed negotiations was them selling 90 planes to pay for the stewardesses. This resulted in the furloughing of 90 planes worth of employees, and ultimately in the company not being competitive enough to survive. I saw this front and center as someone with no real view for or against unions sans the union dues were forcibly deducted from my salary whether I wanted to be in one or not. I came out seeing the teamsters for what they truly are. The teamsters unions are the thugs they were formed to prevent. They need to be broken up.
    - steveax 9y ago
      I would suggest that not honoring a picket line was a concrete demonstration of your opinion of unions whether you realized that at the time or not.
      - SEJeff 9y ago
        There was no picket line to not honor. I was in the backoffice IT department as a Unix admin, they were on the plane. My "union" of IT workers did not strike, and I didn't fly during that time, so there was literally no demonstration of my opinion. Perhaps you misunderstood my comment?
        steveax 9y ago
        I think I did, apologies for that!
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  As there are good and bad companies, there are good and bad unions.
  - SEJeff 9y ago
    Oh I agree. My opinion is massively different for smaller unions, but all humongous national unions have all become the power/greed and awfulness they were created to fight. Corruption at the core.
    - mixmastamyk 9y ago
      Yes big organizations seem to suffer the most from human failings.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    The difference being that you're free to leave a bad company. If the union gets any clout, however, it's not quite so easy to leave it behind... EDIT: Hey everyone, I can't comment in this thread for several more hours now, because HN considers questioning the wisdom of deploying conventional databases on Kubernetes beyond the pale. They throttled my account because my posts that did that were too "boring" and "tedious". See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14453705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14453705 for details. If HN's mods ran the union, would they limit your professional advancement for asking questions that may imperil their friends' VC investments, on the subjective basis of the question's technical implications being too "boring" and "tedious"? Because they limit HN accounts for it. Now imagine they could control your salary instead of your imaginary internet points.

SEJeff 9y ago

I find there are more than enough people that want me (as a software engineer with 10+ years of low level linux / unix experience) and wish me to be very happy. If I ever was forced to join a union, I'd quit on the spot and go find somewhere else to work. I worked for Comair (small airline owned by Delta) during a stewardess strike, which ultimately caused the company to sell planes and eventually go out of business. Big unions like the teamsters don't give a crap about their members, only their power and greed. It was said a year or so later that the teamsters were talking to other airlines saying, "Don't give us what we want and we'll pull a Comair on you". All of the Stewardess union members, airplane mechanics union members, and pilots union members were furloughed aka given indefinite non-paid leave due to the profit imbalance that the highest paid stewardesses in the industry caused on a sub-par airline. No thanks unions. There is enough free market for what we do that they aren't necessary.

Retric 9y ago
You are likely confusing cause and effect. Comair was having issues before the union got involved. The union simply made the companies failure more obvious.
- SEJeff 9y ago
  They were doing alright, they just had the highest paid stewardesses in the industry (by a large amount actually) for a solid mid-range airline when it comes to KPIs. If they'd have agreed to be paid more in line with what the industry was paying stewardesses there is a great chance the airline would still be open. Also, no matter how you look at it. The result of the failed negotiations was them selling 90 planes to pay for the stewardesses. This resulted in the furloughing of 90 planes worth of employees, and ultimately in the company not being competitive enough to survive. I saw this front and center as someone with no real view for or against unions sans the union dues were forcibly deducted from my salary whether I wanted to be in one or not. I came out seeing the teamsters for what they truly are. The teamsters unions are the thugs they were formed to prevent. They need to be broken up.
  - steveax 9y ago
    I would suggest that not honoring a picket line was a concrete demonstration of your opinion of unions whether you realized that at the time or not.
    - SEJeff 9y ago
      There was no picket line to not honor. I was in the backoffice IT department as a Unix admin, they were on the plane. My "union" of IT workers did not strike, and I didn't fly during that time, so there was literally no demonstration of my opinion. Perhaps you misunderstood my comment?
      - steveax 9y ago
        I think I did, apologies for that!
mixmastamyk 9y ago
As there are good and bad companies, there are good and bad unions.
- SEJeff 9y ago
  Oh I agree. My opinion is massively different for smaller unions, but all humongous national unions have all become the power/greed and awfulness they were created to fight. Corruption at the core.
  - mixmastamyk 9y ago
    Yes big organizations seem to suffer the most from human failings.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  The difference being that you're free to leave a bad company. If the union gets any clout, however, it's not quite so easy to leave it behind... EDIT: Hey everyone, I can't comment in this thread for several more hours now, because HN considers questioning the wisdom of deploying conventional databases on Kubernetes beyond the pale. They throttled my account because my posts that did that were too "boring" and "tedious". See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14453705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14453705 for details. If HN's mods ran the union, would they limit your professional advancement for asking questions that may imperil their friends' VC investments, on the subjective basis of the question's technical implications being too "boring" and "tedious"? Because they limit HN accounts for it. Now imagine they could control your salary instead of your imaginary internet points.