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> "Ahh, okay, now im understanding the point of this article. Lets fight monopolies with more monopolies instead of solving the underlying issues!" So you don'

> "Ahh, okay, now im understanding the point of this article. Lets fight monopolies with more monopolies instead of solving the underlying issues!" So you don't think unions have a place in modern day society?

randyrand 9y ago
I think unions should be tried for anti-competitive practices, just as any monopoly should. What is the difference between a bunch of carpenters unionizing their wages versus a bunch of small and large companies all agreeing to price-fix their products? Nothing.
- scribu 9y ago
  What are some of those “anti-competitive” practices that you disagree with?
- mikeash 9y ago
  Unions are no more monopolies than any random company is, and union bargaining isn’t collusion any more than a hiring manager consulting with HR is. When employers band together to bargain collectively, we call it a “company” and it’s not only accepted, it’s so entrenched in our culture that we can barely conceive of any other way. When employees do the exact same thing, we attack them relentlessly.
  - randyrand 9y ago
    No. This is completely wrong. A company is not by default a monopoly - a union is. Imagine if there were 10 different smartphone suppliers but all the suppliers agreed that they were only going to let you buy from 1 of them - company X. Company X would just charge you whatever the hell they felt like because you would have no other options. It would fricken suck. It would feel the exact same as a monopoly. Now compare this to a union. Company Y's employees are all unionized and the union forbids company Y from buying labor from anyone but them. Even if it's not forbidden , new hires are typically glad to join the union too, and in some cases the law forbids otherwise. See how similar that is? It's still a monopoly - just a monopoly against a single buyer.
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      > "...a modern day union is." This is also wrong. Your straw man union isn't true across the board.
      - randyrand 9y ago
        I fixed it, as it actually does apply to all unions. Not just modern day ones.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      I don’t believe companies are forced into any exclusivity agreement like you describe. They choose it. It’s not much different from any other long term business deal. A union is by default an organization of employees to bargain together. Anything beyond that is extra.
      - randyrand 9y ago
        Even if hiring from the union is not forced onto them, new hires are often glad to join in on the price-fixing.
        cannonedhamster 9y ago
        We get it, you really dislike unions and think that all union members are scum without any ethics. Before you try to walk your comment back, this is a pretty straightforward summation of what you just said. I think you're clearly overlooking the wide amount of abuses being done against employees, especially in the tech sector. How many times have you heard of a "salaried" employee being asked/forced to work 100 hour weeks end on end for months without extra compensation for some pie in the sky promise of stock options that get diluted with every new employee or stock offering? How many CEOs that drive companies into the ground but still get golden parachutes for laying off workers have you heard about. The power imbalance isn't with the ineffectual unions, it's with the corporations and owners that engage in rent seeking behavior.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  Interesting...maybe in an ideal world...but in the real world where business owners currently have the upper hand (and congressmen and congresswomen basically on payroll), I'm perfectly fine with unions acting as a counterweight to corporate power.
  - randyrand 9y ago
    A few points: 1. Unions are not often a counter balance. They are usually just additional monopolies[0] where there was none before. The airline industry is incredibly competitive but yet airline pilots still decided to unionize and price-fix. 2. Monopolies should be fought with regulations targeted at increasing competition and lowering barriers to entry - not with more monopolies. Fighting a monopoly with another monopoly just hurts the consumer and hurts our country in the global economy. 3. unions have congressmen "on payroll" too. In fact in some states some industries have state laws that forbid people from working outside of the union. Only 27 states have right to work laws. [0] Per-company unions are the easiest monopolies to create because the scale of them is much smaller than the scale of the whole industry. Its very easy to get all your coworkers at company X to unionize and forbid company X from hiring elsewhere - and often new hires are happy to join the union too. But its very difficult for your company X to achieve a monopoly itself because it has to dominate an often much larger global market. For an example, see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16489013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16489013
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      > "People unionize even when their employer is not a monopoly." Nobody said that unions form only when the employer is a monopoly...I'm not sure what "point" you're trying to make here.
      - randyrand 9y ago
        Companies don't always have the upper hand. Unions are not always fighting "unjust" monopolies. They are often the unjust monopoly themself.
- sjg007 9y ago
  I think that's a false equivalence. The difference is that the union and the company come to a negotiated bargain. This is an internal dynamic where consumer prices are still subject to market forces. Large companies that price fix are screwing "non-participant companies" and ultimately the consumer to control the market.
- jim-jim-jim 9y ago
  For a firm to profit, the commodity's sale price must obviously be more than the cost of its production. Market competition ideally shaves prices closer and closer to their original production costs as firms undersell one another. If a firm profits, it follows that it has paid its workers wages less than the value their labor has generated. Collective action through a union brings wages closer and closer to the true value of their labor. Both of these situations limit the extent to which an ownership class, engaged in no productive labor itself, can siphon off the value that real work produces. Captive markets and "right to work" shops likewise both afford this class the liberty of being as parasitic as it wishes.
  - randyrand 9y ago
    Cant it also mean that the firm is adding value to the product? five programmersworking well together together is more valuable than five programmers working independently. you're also forgetting that companies have a lot of capital investments as well such as buildings and manufacturing plants. there alot of reasons a company should profit while still paying their employees of the value of their work

randyrand 9y ago

I think unions should be tried for anti-competitive practices, just as any monopoly should. What is the difference between a bunch of carpenters unionizing their wages versus a bunch of small and large companies all agreeing to price-fix their products? Nothing.

scribu 9y ago
What are some of those “anti-competitive” practices that you disagree with?
mikeash 9y ago
Unions are no more monopolies than any random company is, and union bargaining isn’t collusion any more than a hiring manager consulting with HR is. When employers band together to bargain collectively, we call it a “company” and it’s not only accepted, it’s so entrenched in our culture that we can barely conceive of any other way. When employees do the exact same thing, we attack them relentlessly.
- randyrand 9y ago
  No. This is completely wrong. A company is not by default a monopoly - a union is. Imagine if there were 10 different smartphone suppliers but all the suppliers agreed that they were only going to let you buy from 1 of them - company X. Company X would just charge you whatever the hell they felt like because you would have no other options. It would fricken suck. It would feel the exact same as a monopoly. Now compare this to a union. Company Y's employees are all unionized and the union forbids company Y from buying labor from anyone but them. Even if it's not forbidden , new hires are typically glad to join the union too, and in some cases the law forbids otherwise. See how similar that is? It's still a monopoly - just a monopoly against a single buyer.
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    > "...a modern day union is." This is also wrong. Your straw man union isn't true across the board.
    - randyrand 9y ago
      I fixed it, as it actually does apply to all unions. Not just modern day ones.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I don’t believe companies are forced into any exclusivity agreement like you describe. They choose it. It’s not much different from any other long term business deal. A union is by default an organization of employees to bargain together. Anything beyond that is extra.
    - randyrand 9y ago
      Even if hiring from the union is not forced onto them, new hires are often glad to join in on the price-fixing.
      - cannonedhamster 9y ago
        We get it, you really dislike unions and think that all union members are scum without any ethics. Before you try to walk your comment back, this is a pretty straightforward summation of what you just said. I think you're clearly overlooking the wide amount of abuses being done against employees, especially in the tech sector. How many times have you heard of a "salaried" employee being asked/forced to work 100 hour weeks end on end for months without extra compensation for some pie in the sky promise of stock options that get diluted with every new employee or stock offering? How many CEOs that drive companies into the ground but still get golden parachutes for laying off workers have you heard about. The power imbalance isn't with the ineffectual unions, it's with the corporations and owners that engage in rent seeking behavior.
Caveman_Coder 9y ago
Interesting...maybe in an ideal world...but in the real world where business owners currently have the upper hand (and congressmen and congresswomen basically on payroll), I'm perfectly fine with unions acting as a counterweight to corporate power.
- randyrand 9y ago
  A few points: 1. Unions are not often a counter balance. They are usually just additional monopolies[0] where there was none before. The airline industry is incredibly competitive but yet airline pilots still decided to unionize and price-fix. 2. Monopolies should be fought with regulations targeted at increasing competition and lowering barriers to entry - not with more monopolies. Fighting a monopoly with another monopoly just hurts the consumer and hurts our country in the global economy. 3. unions have congressmen "on payroll" too. In fact in some states some industries have state laws that forbid people from working outside of the union. Only 27 states have right to work laws. [0] Per-company unions are the easiest monopolies to create because the scale of them is much smaller than the scale of the whole industry. Its very easy to get all your coworkers at company X to unionize and forbid company X from hiring elsewhere - and often new hires are happy to join the union too. But its very difficult for your company X to achieve a monopoly itself because it has to dominate an often much larger global market. For an example, see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16489013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16489013
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    > "People unionize even when their employer is not a monopoly." Nobody said that unions form only when the employer is a monopoly...I'm not sure what "point" you're trying to make here.
    - randyrand 9y ago
      Companies don't always have the upper hand. Unions are not always fighting "unjust" monopolies. They are often the unjust monopoly themself.
sjg007 9y ago
I think that's a false equivalence. The difference is that the union and the company come to a negotiated bargain. This is an internal dynamic where consumer prices are still subject to market forces. Large companies that price fix are screwing "non-participant companies" and ultimately the consumer to control the market.
jim-jim-jim 9y ago
For a firm to profit, the commodity's sale price must obviously be more than the cost of its production. Market competition ideally shaves prices closer and closer to their original production costs as firms undersell one another. If a firm profits, it follows that it has paid its workers wages less than the value their labor has generated. Collective action through a union brings wages closer and closer to the true value of their labor. Both of these situations limit the extent to which an ownership class, engaged in no productive labor itself, can siphon off the value that real work produces. Captive markets and "right to work" shops likewise both afford this class the liberty of being as parasitic as it wishes.
- randyrand 9y ago
  Cant it also mean that the firm is adding value to the product? five programmersworking well together together is more valuable than five programmers working independently. you're also forgetting that companies have a lot of capital investments as well such as buildings and manufacturing plants. there alot of reasons a company should profit while still paying their employees of the value of their work