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This is of course illegal I wonder how it came to be illegal. Did legislative bodies pass laws to protect workers solely out of the pure and spontaneous goodne

This is of course illegal I wonder how it came to be illegal. Did legislative bodies pass laws to protect workers solely out of the pure and spontaneous goodness of the legislators' hearts? Or did they pass these laws because people organized and agitated and worked to get these laws passed? If only there were some sort of books of history we could go look this stuff up in to find out. And I think you'll find corporations have problems and excesses, too, but you seem perfectly willing to tolerate those. As to the rest, see the other replies: "I have and have always had good bargaining power" does not imply "I will always have good bargaining power". In fact, the belief that how things are now is how they always must be is one of the most basic economic mistakes a person can make.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> I wonder how it came to be illegal. Did legislative bodies pass laws to protect workers solely out of the pure and spontaneous goodness of the legislators' hearts? Or did they pass these laws because people organized and agitated and worked to get these laws passed? Wait, are you really going to try and give unions credit for antitrust laws (ie, the laws that OP is referring to)? The first antitrust laws outlawed collusion, which also had the effect of outlawing a lot of common union activities as well. Labor unions fought to exempt themselves from antitrust laws.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  I'm going to give the progressive movements of the turn of the 19th/20th century a lot of credit for antitrust and worker-protection laws. I'm also going to ignore anyone whose response is to try to nitpick and split out individual acts and try to attribute them to completely contextless utterly independent forces that had nothing whatsoever to do with anything else happening at the time in any way.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > I'm going to give the progressive movements of the turn of the 19th/20th century a lot of credit for antitrust and worker-protection laws. I'm also going to ignore anyone whose response is to try to nitpick and split out individual acts and try to attribute them to completely contextless utterly independent forces that had nothing whatsoever to do with anything else happening at the time in any way. Nobody's saying that these were "utterly independent forces". I'm pointing out that the relationship between them was the exact opposite of what you claimed. Labor unions opposed antitrust laws which outlawed the sorts of behavior OP described; they certainly weren't responsible for it like you tried to claim. It sounds like you're interested in ignoring the actual details of the history which disprove your point, in order to paint a certain narrative. In that case, there's probably not much point in discussing further, because that's not what a good-faith discussion looks like.
rcoveson 8y ago
> As to the rest, see the other replies: "I have and have always had good bargaining power" does not imply "I will always have good bargaining power". In fact, the belief that how things are now is how they always must be is one of the most basic economic mistakes a person can make. But I didn't imply that. What I said was that it makes me happy to be in that position. Requirements may change in the future, but I am capable of change as well. Rather than invest in a union to protect me as I become obsolete, I'll invest in my own development to do my best to ensure that doesn't happen. Programmers are hired without unions for a reason, not because nobody's thought of it yet. Unions are a last-resort crutch to prop up unsustainable employee-employer relationships. Nobody should want to transition from being beholden to no-one to owing their employment to both a union and a government. I could scarcely live with myself.

chimeracoder 8y ago

> I wonder how it came to be illegal. Did legislative bodies pass laws to protect workers solely out of the pure and spontaneous goodness of the legislators' hearts? Or did they pass these laws because people organized and agitated and worked to get these laws passed? Wait, are you really going to try and give unions credit for antitrust laws (ie, the laws that OP is referring to)? The first antitrust laws outlawed collusion, which also had the effect of outlawing a lot of common union activities as well. Labor unions fought to exempt themselves from antitrust laws.

ubernostrum 8y ago
I'm going to give the progressive movements of the turn of the 19th/20th century a lot of credit for antitrust and worker-protection laws. I'm also going to ignore anyone whose response is to try to nitpick and split out individual acts and try to attribute them to completely contextless utterly independent forces that had nothing whatsoever to do with anything else happening at the time in any way.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > I'm going to give the progressive movements of the turn of the 19th/20th century a lot of credit for antitrust and worker-protection laws. I'm also going to ignore anyone whose response is to try to nitpick and split out individual acts and try to attribute them to completely contextless utterly independent forces that had nothing whatsoever to do with anything else happening at the time in any way. Nobody's saying that these were "utterly independent forces". I'm pointing out that the relationship between them was the exact opposite of what you claimed. Labor unions opposed antitrust laws which outlawed the sorts of behavior OP described; they certainly weren't responsible for it like you tried to claim. It sounds like you're interested in ignoring the actual details of the history which disprove your point, in order to paint a certain narrative. In that case, there's probably not much point in discussing further, because that's not what a good-faith discussion looks like.

rcoveson 8y ago

> As to the rest, see the other replies: "I have and have always had good bargaining power" does not imply "I will always have good bargaining power". In fact, the belief that how things are now is how they always must be is one of the most basic economic mistakes a person can make. But I didn't imply that. What I said was that it makes me happy to be in that position. Requirements may change in the future, but I am capable of change as well. Rather than invest in a union to protect me as I become obsolete, I'll invest in my own development to do my best to ensure that doesn't happen. Programmers are hired without unions for a reason, not because nobody's thought of it yet. Unions are a last-resort crutch to prop up unsustainable employee-employer relationships. Nobody should want to transition from being beholden to no-one to owing their employment to both a union and a government. I could scarcely live with myself.