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Just for another data point: I live in Idaho, which is a right-to-work state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ri

Just for another data point: I live in Idaho, which is a right-to-work state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law Here we tend to call it right-to-work-for-less. The gist of it is that employees aren't compelled to pay union dues if their workplace pays union-negotiated wages. If you think of union protections as something like a private form of OSHA, or say private car insurance, then opting out of paying for them while still receiving benefits is self-evidently not sustainable. Not enough people pay (essentially the same as having too many scabs) so unions can't maintain their bargaining power. The end result is that there are almost no unions in Idaho. My experience with this was when I was moving furniture as a non-technical day job in the early 2000s. It was $10/hr for warehouse work and $12+/hr working for private truck drivers (you could negotiate your own rate). But if you went across the border to Oregon (a non-right-to-work state), it was at least $15/hr. I had several drivers from California pay me $20/hr for the same reason. Our warehouse charged $34/hr. In a business where the work is done primarily by laborers, it's hard to understand how it's fair to pay them less than 1/3 of gross income. That's because it's not. Many businesses here charge $75-100/hr or more and pay their employees the going rate of $15/hr. The end result is that Idaho now has some of the highest wealth inequality in the nation: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article209332734.html http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article209332734... I mention all of this because I get the feeling that non-right-to-work states are enjoying the benefits of unionization without realizing it. It's one thing to argue the nuances of liberty and another to make 1.5 to 2 times as much money (or more) and provide for yourself and your family. Unionization isn't about raising prices. It's about paying better wages so everyone is better off rather than one millionaire at the top. I think of it as "the person doing the lion's share of the work should receive the lion's share of the income". I feel it's important to really stress this on a site like Hacker News whose readership prides itself on being informed and rising above propaganda.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> If you think of union protections as something like a private form of OSHA, or say private car insurance, then opting out of paying for them while still receiving benefits is self-evidently not sustainable. Not enough people pay (essentially the same as having too many scabs) so unions can't maintain their bargaining power. Unions are permitted to refuse representation to non-members, as long as they don't include them in the bargaining unit. If they do, then they are required to represent them. So far, unions have ignored this and pretended that they are forced to represent non-members, because it makes it easier for them to "demonstrate" that they have to have exclusive representation over all members of the bargaining unit. In other words, they intentionally sabotage unions in right-to-work states, because they don't want to admit that they have the legal ability to engage in members-only contracts in right-to-work states, because then they'd have to admit that they have the ability to engage in members-only-contracts in all states. The easy alternative is for unions in right-to-work states to require membership (and fees and dues) for inclusion in the bargaining unit. They would then have no obligation to represent people who don't join the union or don't pay fees and dues.
- rconti 8y ago
  Thanks for this comment. I did not know this. I've never worked in a union job. My wife is now working in her first-ever union job and didn't want to be part of the union, but didn't have the "option". My overall views of unions throughout my life have not been positive, however my opinion of them is slowly improving somewhat.
- aspaceman 8y ago
  A members-only contract wouldn't be able to be negotiated as the employer wouldn't come to the table unless strike was a risk.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  A members-only union is unlikely to last. From the perspective of the employer they have two employee groups - union and non-union. If they pay non-union employees less those employees are just going to join the union, get increased pay and now the union is even stronger than before. Actually the best strategy from the business' perspective is to set pay/benefits for union members and non-union members at the same rate. As union members bargain for more, non-union members freeride, as non-union members freeride, union members defect, and you kill the union's bargaining power. This is actually why we need traditional compulsory unions if a unionization vote succeeds, it's the only way to maintain the bargaining power of the workers. If you don't like that working for a certain employer requires paying union dues you take the same action as if you don't like the health plan or pay offered by a certain employer, you look somewhere else.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > A members-only union is unlikely to last. This is literally how unions work in most of the developed world outside the US.
  - pc86 8y ago
    Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? > This is actually why we need traditional compulsory unions if a unionization vote succeeds Never. If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot?
dv_dt 8y ago
One path to improving ones lot in areas like this, particularly for high-labor content businesses, might be to form cooperatives. I think you tend to see more in some business areas where it's almost all labor-content, but if there could be some better capitalization path for cooperatives I think we would see a lot more of them. Some papers indicate that they can operate more efficient than the average business (though I don't think that's a guaranteed thing).
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  Why not both? :)
  - dv_dt 8y ago
    Oh, I'm not excluding both at all, but in the previous posters warehouse example, it's difficult for a group of laborers, even if already supremely knowledgeable about the warehouse business, to get the capital to buy a warehouse and start their own coop. I've been thinking in the background of how one might setup a process for that kind of "coop lending/setup/tech" service. One thing I've read articles about is how unions actually control a lot of pension type funding, and that either legal restrictions, or even conventional financial management practices shut out that money from use as a community lending source. Added: There are other sources of capital, but unions in theory and with some historical examples, have something of a common interest, and that kind of funding/lending has happened in the past.
godzillabrennus 8y ago
Seems like margins are far enough in Idaho that you could disrupt established players by competing on price.
- danharaj 8y ago
  Sure, they could just ring up their VC buddies and raise the capital they'd need.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  Nah this was just some kids simplification of a business and some /r/iamverysmart material. Like, not a single mention of overhead?
SteveGerencser 8y ago
The cost of living and the average wage is generally higher in both of the states compared to Idaho. Could it be that this is not a function of indirect union influence and just the fact that Idaho is a depressed state compared to the others you mentioned? You could say the exact same thing about wages in rural areas vs urban areas.
- microDude 8y ago
  As someone who lives in Oregon. Eastern Oregon is incredibly cheap, only around select Western areas (Portland, Willamette Valley, Bend) are the costs much higher.
conanbatt 8y ago
This mental model of an economic system leads to disaster. > The gist of it is that employees aren't compelled to pay union dues... This is always the argument unions make to get mandatory contributions from employees. The risks of doing so are the following: 1) that all employees regardless of their individual contribution get the same salaries, meaning that over-achieving workers will work less, and under-achieving workers will not work more. (a.k.a. elimination of incentives) 2) That employees that do not like how the union is managed cannot work in that place, either because the union would not allow them, or because they have to pay for an organization that they do not belong to voluntarily 3) That the union, having sole negotiation power for all workers, takes kickbacks from the company for lower compensation for all workers. 4) That even if the union is incorruptible, its optional but its subscribed by most employees, that it actually manages not to decrease productivity, then, there is another company that does not have the same problem, will attract more capital since it gets bigger returns, and the company fails anyway. Unions are not economically efficient organizations. They are politically efficient, so they serve a great political purpose, but their work in the economic sphere is only destructive.
- munk-a 8y ago
  Similar to a quote often attributed to Churchill that goes... > Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. in this case I think the burden of improvement is on those trying to tear down the union and we can rework it a bit to say > Unions are the worst form of worker protection, except for all the others. I don't disagree that Unions can de-incentivize workers and become corrupt, but it's the best tool we have right now.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    No, the burden is instead on the people who are trying to force everyone to join their club. The baseline default should instead be that nobody is forced to join your organization, and it.is on THEM to convince you to join. Freedom of association is an important value, that is enshined in the Constitution.
    - 8y ago
mkirklions 8y ago
>, it's hard to understand how it's fair to pay them less than 1/3 of gross income. That's because it's not. This person hasnt run a business. No mention of marketing, recruiting, facilities, etc... Total joke post. Took you seriously until I saw that.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  > No mention of marketing, recruiting, facilities, etc... There is a difference between warranted overhead (what you mentioned) and excessive profit on the back of the laborers. First one is fine, but the second one is what drives the wealth inequality that is slowly tearing apart most Western societies.
justherefortart 8y ago
I live in Oklahoma. I call it Right-to-be-fired-for-no-reason. Pretty brilliant how we convince people to vote against their own best interests repeatedly.
rconti 8y ago
How do you feel about those who honestly do not want to work in a union? Is the response to try to convince them of why a union is good for them, and why they must want the same things you want? Or is the response to tell them they should work in another job/industry/area/whatever? Or some third response? The problem is, the best response I can come up with is "tough luck, find another job". Which could be the same response one could give to someone unhappy with their (non-unionized) working conditions.
- dfxm12 8y ago
  How do you feel about those who honestly do not want to work in a union? Come on, you can't answer that question without first knowing why they don't want to work in a union. If that's the best response you can come up, you're being disingenuous.
  - rconti 8y ago
    I'm not, though. Maybe the person doesn't want to pay dues. Maybe they don't want to work in an environment where they perceive that individual talent/effort is not rewarded. Maybe they're afraid it'll be a bureaucratic nightmare of un-fireable employees? These are the best reasons I can come up with, not knowing much about unionized environments. And it seems the answer to all of them is the same -- tough luck, find somewhere else to work. If you're calling me disingenuous, fine -- I assume that means you have better questions or better answers, and I'd appreciate hearing them.
    - dfxm12 8y ago
      These are the best reasons I can come up with, not knowing much about unionized environments. I suggest you learn about a topic before jumping to conclusions. I don't have much to add to the responses all over this thread, none of which are "tough luck, find another job", btw.
    - ilikehurdles 8y ago
      Would that person still want the same job with lower pay and fewer benefits? Because that’s what the union is providing.
damagednoob 8y ago
> I feel it's important to really stress this on a site like Hacker News whose readership prides itself on being informed and rising above propaganda. It's hard to take this last comment seriously when all that's been provided is 15 year old anecdotal evidence about wage rates and an article about income equality which itself poses a different explanation for its cause.
ravar 8y ago
If the economics of Idaho are so awful for poor people then maybe they should move to California or Oregon where it is so much better because of the unions.
Karishma1234 8y ago
Unionisation essentially leads to more power the to Union leaders who invariably promote incompetence and make it less valuable to hire new employees. Idaho has shown healthy growth and Boise has been the fastest growing city in United States. In general economic outlook in Boise is much better than a holes that Oakland or Stockton have become.
JakeKalstad 8y ago
On the opposite side of the coin Idaho has also maintained a lower unemployment rate currently and historically as well as is much cheaper in cost of living. While I have lived in both, that is not entirely anecdotal - however in my early career I made much more money by migrating through the desert over to Idaho. The effect of this could be argued that there is not as high of a demand for public assistance and allows for a MUCH lower personal income tax paired with a small sales tax where as Oregon has no sales tax but is around 7% on personal income, Idaho is 1.6%. I'll hold my opinion on California ;)
hpcjoe 8y ago
Michigan is now (thankfully) a right to work state. This means that people can be hired without worrying about it being a union shop. The union used to have effectively a monopoly on labor at many sites here. This is no longer the case. It is not propaganda to state very basic economics here. You budget X for a years wages for your team of N people, on average paying them Y = (X/N)/12 per month. They form a union, and demand a wage increase of delta per person. So, now, you are paying Y*(1 + delta). X hasn't changed. Number of months in a year hasn't changed. What can possibly change to allow the company to do this? N. The number of people employed. So yeah, you can get fewer workers more money. What are you going to tell the folks who were let go, in order to make room in the budget to pay this? This is where politics starts rearing its ugly head, and you see people referred to as "evil capitalists". You know, the ones who know they can't really raise X, without directly materially impacting the companies bottom line. Their choices are hard. 1) let people go. 2) raise prices. 3) report lower profits (assuming profits), or increase debt to cover. Which of these 3 options would you pick? In recent years, thanks to globalization, a 4th option has opened. 4) move work to a lower cost locale. It is not rocket science to understand that this has been what has been happening since the early 90s. Now with the push to 15, as it is sometimes called ... the $15/hour minimum wage, a new option, thanks to tech, is opening up. 5) automate as much as possible, and reduce the workforce to keep costs low. So, in all those nice locales where the wage is being pushed to 15$/hour, companies are exploring how quickly they can automate those jobs out of existence. None of this is propaganda, all of it is reality.
rmc 8y ago
What's quite funny is that "closed shop" (where all employees must be part of a trade union) is against the European Convention of Human Rights. You have a right to join a trade union, and hence a right not to. And the EU consistently has stroger, and more pro-worker, employment law than the US. Funny that. https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/articles/echr-rules-against-danish-closed-shop-agreements https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/articl...

chimeracoder 8y ago

> If you think of union protections as something like a private form of OSHA, or say private car insurance, then opting out of paying for them while still receiving benefits is self-evidently not sustainable. Not enough people pay (essentially the same as having too many scabs) so unions can't maintain their bargaining power. Unions are permitted to refuse representation to non-members, as long as they don't include them in the bargaining unit. If they do, then they are required to represent them. So far, unions have ignored this and pretended that they are forced to represent non-members, because it makes it easier for them to "demonstrate" that they have to have exclusive representation over all members of the bargaining unit. In other words, they intentionally sabotage unions in right-to-work states, because they don't want to admit that they have the legal ability to engage in members-only contracts in right-to-work states, because then they'd have to admit that they have the ability to engage in members-only-contracts in all states. The easy alternative is for unions in right-to-work states to require membership (and fees and dues) for inclusion in the bargaining unit. They would then have no obligation to represent people who don't join the union or don't pay fees and dues.

rconti 8y ago
Thanks for this comment. I did not know this. I've never worked in a union job. My wife is now working in her first-ever union job and didn't want to be part of the union, but didn't have the "option". My overall views of unions throughout my life have not been positive, however my opinion of them is slowly improving somewhat.
aspaceman 8y ago
A members-only contract wouldn't be able to be negotiated as the employer wouldn't come to the table unless strike was a risk.
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
A members-only union is unlikely to last. From the perspective of the employer they have two employee groups - union and non-union. If they pay non-union employees less those employees are just going to join the union, get increased pay and now the union is even stronger than before. Actually the best strategy from the business' perspective is to set pay/benefits for union members and non-union members at the same rate. As union members bargain for more, non-union members freeride, as non-union members freeride, union members defect, and you kill the union's bargaining power. This is actually why we need traditional compulsory unions if a unionization vote succeeds, it's the only way to maintain the bargaining power of the workers. If you don't like that working for a certain employer requires paying union dues you take the same action as if you don't like the health plan or pay offered by a certain employer, you look somewhere else.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > A members-only union is unlikely to last. This is literally how unions work in most of the developed world outside the US.
- pc86 8y ago
  Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? > This is actually why we need traditional compulsory unions if a unionization vote succeeds Never. If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot?

dv_dt 8y ago

One path to improving ones lot in areas like this, particularly for high-labor content businesses, might be to form cooperatives. I think you tend to see more in some business areas where it's almost all labor-content, but if there could be some better capitalization path for cooperatives I think we would see a lot more of them. Some papers indicate that they can operate more efficient than the average business (though I don't think that's a guaranteed thing).

knuththetruth 8y ago
Why not both? :)
- dv_dt 8y ago
  Oh, I'm not excluding both at all, but in the previous posters warehouse example, it's difficult for a group of laborers, even if already supremely knowledgeable about the warehouse business, to get the capital to buy a warehouse and start their own coop. I've been thinking in the background of how one might setup a process for that kind of "coop lending/setup/tech" service. One thing I've read articles about is how unions actually control a lot of pension type funding, and that either legal restrictions, or even conventional financial management practices shut out that money from use as a community lending source. Added: There are other sources of capital, but unions in theory and with some historical examples, have something of a common interest, and that kind of funding/lending has happened in the past.

godzillabrennus 8y ago

Seems like margins are far enough in Idaho that you could disrupt established players by competing on price.

danharaj 8y ago
Sure, they could just ring up their VC buddies and raise the capital they'd need.
mkirklions 8y ago
Nah this was just some kids simplification of a business and some /r/iamverysmart material. Like, not a single mention of overhead?

SteveGerencser 8y ago

The cost of living and the average wage is generally higher in both of the states compared to Idaho. Could it be that this is not a function of indirect union influence and just the fact that Idaho is a depressed state compared to the others you mentioned? You could say the exact same thing about wages in rural areas vs urban areas.

microDude 8y ago
As someone who lives in Oregon. Eastern Oregon is incredibly cheap, only around select Western areas (Portland, Willamette Valley, Bend) are the costs much higher.

conanbatt 8y ago

This mental model of an economic system leads to disaster. > The gist of it is that employees aren't compelled to pay union dues... This is always the argument unions make to get mandatory contributions from employees. The risks of doing so are the following: 1) that all employees regardless of their individual contribution get the same salaries, meaning that over-achieving workers will work less, and under-achieving workers will not work more. (a.k.a. elimination of incentives) 2) That employees that do not like how the union is managed cannot work in that place, either because the union would not allow them, or because they have to pay for an organization that they do not belong to voluntarily 3) That the union, having sole negotiation power for all workers, takes kickbacks from the company for lower compensation for all workers. 4) That even if the union is incorruptible, its optional but its subscribed by most employees, that it actually manages not to decrease productivity, then, there is another company that does not have the same problem, will attract more capital since it gets bigger returns, and the company fails anyway. Unions are not economically efficient organizations. They are politically efficient, so they serve a great political purpose, but their work in the economic sphere is only destructive.

munk-a 8y ago
Similar to a quote often attributed to Churchill that goes... > Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. in this case I think the burden of improvement is on those trying to tear down the union and we can rework it a bit to say > Unions are the worst form of worker protection, except for all the others. I don't disagree that Unions can de-incentivize workers and become corrupt, but it's the best tool we have right now.
- stale2002 8y ago
  No, the burden is instead on the people who are trying to force everyone to join their club. The baseline default should instead be that nobody is forced to join your organization, and it.is on THEM to convince you to join. Freedom of association is an important value, that is enshined in the Constitution.
  - 8y ago

mkirklions 8y ago

>, it's hard to understand how it's fair to pay them less than 1/3 of gross income. That's because it's not. This person hasnt run a business. No mention of marketing, recruiting, facilities, etc... Total joke post. Took you seriously until I saw that.

mschuster91 8y ago
> No mention of marketing, recruiting, facilities, etc... There is a difference between warranted overhead (what you mentioned) and excessive profit on the back of the laborers. First one is fine, but the second one is what drives the wealth inequality that is slowly tearing apart most Western societies.

justherefortart 8y ago

I live in Oklahoma. I call it Right-to-be-fired-for-no-reason. Pretty brilliant how we convince people to vote against their own best interests repeatedly.

rconti 8y ago

How do you feel about those who honestly do not want to work in a union? Is the response to try to convince them of why a union is good for them, and why they must want the same things you want? Or is the response to tell them they should work in another job/industry/area/whatever? Or some third response? The problem is, the best response I can come up with is "tough luck, find another job". Which could be the same response one could give to someone unhappy with their (non-unionized) working conditions.

dfxm12 8y ago
How do you feel about those who honestly do not want to work in a union? Come on, you can't answer that question without first knowing why they don't want to work in a union. If that's the best response you can come up, you're being disingenuous.
- rconti 8y ago
  I'm not, though. Maybe the person doesn't want to pay dues. Maybe they don't want to work in an environment where they perceive that individual talent/effort is not rewarded. Maybe they're afraid it'll be a bureaucratic nightmare of un-fireable employees? These are the best reasons I can come up with, not knowing much about unionized environments. And it seems the answer to all of them is the same -- tough luck, find somewhere else to work. If you're calling me disingenuous, fine -- I assume that means you have better questions or better answers, and I'd appreciate hearing them.
  - dfxm12 8y ago
    These are the best reasons I can come up with, not knowing much about unionized environments. I suggest you learn about a topic before jumping to conclusions. I don't have much to add to the responses all over this thread, none of which are "tough luck, find another job", btw.
  - ilikehurdles 8y ago
    Would that person still want the same job with lower pay and fewer benefits? Because that’s what the union is providing.

damagednoob 8y ago

> I feel it's important to really stress this on a site like Hacker News whose readership prides itself on being informed and rising above propaganda. It's hard to take this last comment seriously when all that's been provided is 15 year old anecdotal evidence about wage rates and an article about income equality which itself poses a different explanation for its cause.

ravar 8y ago

If the economics of Idaho are so awful for poor people then maybe they should move to California or Oregon where it is so much better because of the unions.

Karishma1234 8y ago

Unionisation essentially leads to more power the to Union leaders who invariably promote incompetence and make it less valuable to hire new employees. Idaho has shown healthy growth and Boise has been the fastest growing city in United States. In general economic outlook in Boise is much better than a holes that Oakland or Stockton have become.

JakeKalstad 8y ago

On the opposite side of the coin Idaho has also maintained a lower unemployment rate currently and historically as well as is much cheaper in cost of living. While I have lived in both, that is not entirely anecdotal - however in my early career I made much more money by migrating through the desert over to Idaho. The effect of this could be argued that there is not as high of a demand for public assistance and allows for a MUCH lower personal income tax paired with a small sales tax where as Oregon has no sales tax but is around 7% on personal income, Idaho is 1.6%. I'll hold my opinion on California ;)

hpcjoe 8y ago

Michigan is now (thankfully) a right to work state. This means that people can be hired without worrying about it being a union shop. The union used to have effectively a monopoly on labor at many sites here. This is no longer the case. It is not propaganda to state very basic economics here. You budget X for a years wages for your team of N people, on average paying them Y = (X/N)/12 per month. They form a union, and demand a wage increase of delta per person. So, now, you are paying Y*(1 + delta). X hasn't changed. Number of months in a year hasn't changed. What can possibly change to allow the company to do this? N. The number of people employed. So yeah, you can get fewer workers more money. What are you going to tell the folks who were let go, in order to make room in the budget to pay this? This is where politics starts rearing its ugly head, and you see people referred to as "evil capitalists". You know, the ones who know they can't really raise X, without directly materially impacting the companies bottom line. Their choices are hard. 1) let people go. 2) raise prices. 3) report lower profits (assuming profits), or increase debt to cover. Which of these 3 options would you pick? In recent years, thanks to globalization, a 4th option has opened. 4) move work to a lower cost locale. It is not rocket science to understand that this has been what has been happening since the early 90s. Now with the push to 15, as it is sometimes called ... the $15/hour minimum wage, a new option, thanks to tech, is opening up. 5) automate as much as possible, and reduce the workforce to keep costs low. So, in all those nice locales where the wage is being pushed to 15$/hour, companies are exploring how quickly they can automate those jobs out of existence. None of this is propaganda, all of it is reality.

rmc 8y ago

What's quite funny is that "closed shop" (where all employees must be part of a trade union) is against the European Convention of Human Rights. You have a right to join a trade union, and hence a right not to. And the EU consistently has stroger, and more pro-worker, employment law than the US. Funny that. https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/articles/echr-rules-against-danish-closed-shop-agreements https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/articl...