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>Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker. It's not necessarily a big deal. The workers can just go and get another job. It's the owners wh
by crdoconnor 8y ago
>Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker.
It's not necessarily a big deal. The workers can just go and get another job. It's the owners who are really crying.
It's not especially perverse for unions to be indifferent to the risk of sinking the company if the people they represent hold no stake in it.
Especially since the threats that this will happen from the owners will be overblown.
- ip26 8y agoI guess I didn't mention, but I'm most specifically thinking of unions that have sunk the company in a fight over pension obligations. Union has a choice of reduced pension payout, or drive the company under & everybody loses their pension as a result. Union, unwilling to reduce pension payout, chooses the latter. Everybody winds up worse off. It almost reminds me of The Scorpion and The Frog
- crdoconnor 8y agoEvery time I've heard of this happening it's because the pension fund has been raided beforehand. I guess it's like that "fairness experiment" where monkeys would rather deprive the other side of 8 berries than take 2.
- ComputerGuru 8y agoWhat world do you live in where losing your job is "not a big deal," and anyone "can just go and get another job?" If that were true, we wouldn't need unions in the first place.
- crdoconnor 8y agoshrug I've done it while on minimum wage. Unions are needed to raise wages, not because it's necessarily hard to move from one low wage job to another. People do it all the time. The company going out of business is a problem for the employees and is obviously a risk, it's just not a big and existential risk like it is for the owners.