4 ms·

> someone standing up for your rights and asking for compensation to do it They sure would be awfully fine institutions if that's how they actually worked.

chii 8y ago
So how _does_ it actually work then?
- brownbat 8y ago
  Tried to address that a few comments up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17218381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17218381 Sorry it's a wall of text. I suck at brevity. In my defense it's a complex topic and I'm trying to credit some good points on both sides. And ok, I was too flip in my last comment, frustrated that its parent seemed to completely ignore my main point. At their best, maybe some unions do still work that way. Many don't though. Most blue collar guys I know found the teamsters especially abusive. Separately, investigations into construction in New York invariably find its unions rife with mafia-ties and racketeering. But there are some good cases out there too, I'm sure. I just think the best of both worlds is to incorporate fair practices into our legal structures, rather than create new centers of power.
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
    Legal structures are meaningless without the political and economic power to enforce them. But beyond that, it’s about values. You can’t start with a business culture that rewards competitive greed and narcissism over empathy and cooperation and expect it to suddenly start acting against its own core ethics.
    - brownbat 8y ago
      Jelly raised this above too. Pasting my reply at the end here. But I agree with you that values are central. I'd back more investigations to uncover corporations with internal cultures more like Enron and root out bad actors in such places earlier, if we could do that fairly. > Those most in need of the labor rights and respect unions traditionally afford are often those who have almost no access to the legal system. This seems like a powerful concern in theory but the facts make me optimistic. I haven't found, say, OSHA to be toothless in practice, the DOL routinely brings aggressive overtime violations cases, and enforcement of the civil rights act against particularly southern hotels and gas stations by federal courts are all powerful counterexamples. They are not comprehensively solved problems, but clearly demonstrate that organs of state power can and have been used in defense of marginalized groups. I'd say especially Federal courts, but several agencies have done impressive work too.
  - quxbar 8y ago
    It's funny that you're worried about criminality on the side of workers, not the owners: "Eventually, however, it was corruption that led Scrivano to leave the industry, after one of his studio’s investors stole the majority of the company’s funds and disappeared without trace." Clearly, the person who made off with the money would not benefit from a union.
    - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
      > Clearly, the person who made off with the money would not benefit from a union. How would a union have stopped corporate insider theft?
  - walterbell 8y ago
    Any organization that centralizes power will become a target for others (individuals or orgs) to leverage/abuse that power. This is not limited to unions. We have centuries of laws and evolution of governance models to address known threats. The certainty of new threats is insufficient reason to abandon organized cooperation, because we can develop new defenses. e.g. how about decentralization into smaller, independent, labor organizations focused on local issues, which build on open-source legal artifacts for governance, negotiations, threats and defenses?
  - Applejinx 8y ago
    You've nailed it: the criticisms you have are literally all about centers of power. It's said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely: I guess that's confirmed again. The thing is, in the absence of corrupt union power, you got nothing and there's only corrupt corporate/employer power. If you can solve for that, it'll be great. And I agree it's tragic and awful when the corrupt corporate power is only balanced by corrupt union power, none of it giving a damn for ordinary people. But that's power for ya. waves tiny anarchist flag, or something

chii 8y ago

So how _does_ it actually work then?

brownbat 8y ago
Tried to address that a few comments up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17218381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17218381 Sorry it's a wall of text. I suck at brevity. In my defense it's a complex topic and I'm trying to credit some good points on both sides. And ok, I was too flip in my last comment, frustrated that its parent seemed to completely ignore my main point. At their best, maybe some unions do still work that way. Many don't though. Most blue collar guys I know found the teamsters especially abusive. Separately, investigations into construction in New York invariably find its unions rife with mafia-ties and racketeering. But there are some good cases out there too, I'm sure. I just think the best of both worlds is to incorporate fair practices into our legal structures, rather than create new centers of power.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  Legal structures are meaningless without the political and economic power to enforce them. But beyond that, it’s about values. You can’t start with a business culture that rewards competitive greed and narcissism over empathy and cooperation and expect it to suddenly start acting against its own core ethics.
  - brownbat 8y ago
    Jelly raised this above too. Pasting my reply at the end here. But I agree with you that values are central. I'd back more investigations to uncover corporations with internal cultures more like Enron and root out bad actors in such places earlier, if we could do that fairly. > Those most in need of the labor rights and respect unions traditionally afford are often those who have almost no access to the legal system. This seems like a powerful concern in theory but the facts make me optimistic. I haven't found, say, OSHA to be toothless in practice, the DOL routinely brings aggressive overtime violations cases, and enforcement of the civil rights act against particularly southern hotels and gas stations by federal courts are all powerful counterexamples. They are not comprehensively solved problems, but clearly demonstrate that organs of state power can and have been used in defense of marginalized groups. I'd say especially Federal courts, but several agencies have done impressive work too.
- quxbar 8y ago
  It's funny that you're worried about criminality on the side of workers, not the owners: "Eventually, however, it was corruption that led Scrivano to leave the industry, after one of his studio’s investors stole the majority of the company’s funds and disappeared without trace." Clearly, the person who made off with the money would not benefit from a union.
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    > Clearly, the person who made off with the money would not benefit from a union. How would a union have stopped corporate insider theft?
- walterbell 8y ago
  Any organization that centralizes power will become a target for others (individuals or orgs) to leverage/abuse that power. This is not limited to unions. We have centuries of laws and evolution of governance models to address known threats. The certainty of new threats is insufficient reason to abandon organized cooperation, because we can develop new defenses. e.g. how about decentralization into smaller, independent, labor organizations focused on local issues, which build on open-source legal artifacts for governance, negotiations, threats and defenses?
- Applejinx 8y ago
  You've nailed it: the criticisms you have are literally all about centers of power. It's said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely: I guess that's confirmed again. The thing is, in the absence of corrupt union power, you got nothing and there's only corrupt corporate/employer power. If you can solve for that, it'll be great. And I agree it's tragic and awful when the corrupt corporate power is only balanced by corrupt union power, none of it giving a damn for ordinary people. But that's power for ya. waves tiny anarchist flag, or something