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I think it has to be framed against the baseline of pervasive anti-union ideology in the US. When people have been inculcated all their lives with the idea that

I think it has to be framed against the baseline of pervasive anti-union ideology in the US. When people have been inculcated all their lives with the idea that labor organizing is bad, they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs, it doesn’t take too much to push them back towards this baseline. Or at least enough to quash the union.

cgag 7y ago
What percentage of your life have you been being inculcated with the idea that your political opponents believe themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires?
- geofft 7y ago
  Opponents? My political opponents are actual, non-embarrassed millionaires and billionaires from families of millionaires and billionaires. My political allies are temporarily embarrassed millionaires, from the folks accepting below-market salaries to work at a potential unicorn to the folks buying literal lotto tickets at the corner store. A few of them are no longer temporarily embarrassed, having joined the right startup, which only goes to demonstrate that the worldview is correct. Things worked out for them without unionizing, clearly things will work out for me too one day.
  - parineum 7y ago
    It sounds like you're counting your opponents as politicians and allies as the people whom you personally associate with politically. If you were referring to only politicians, they're basically all millionaires.
    - geofft 7y ago
      That seems like a decent definition, if oversimplified. What's wrong with it? (And I think you'll find that I disproportionately support the non-millionare politicians.)
      - parineum 7y ago
        I know people personally on both the right and the left that aren't millionaires but (nearly) all of the public and influential political actors I know are at least millionaires, regardless of affiliation. You're counting your opponents as the second group and your allies as the first group. Someone on your opposing side could make the _exact_ argument by reversing the groups. It's telling that your statement does nothing to show what your actual politics are. The people I support politically are generally wealthy. I am also fairly confident that the ones who aren't probably will be if they are in politics long enough and not necessarily through corrupt means. Anyone of that stature can, at the very least, sell quite a few books on their name alone for instance. It goes hand in hand that influential people can more easily amass wealth.
        geofft 7y ago
        Sure, politicians can become wealthy after holding office. I'm more talking about where people were situated before they entered politics, and in particular the people who are not politicians - donors, influencers (for lack of a better term), etc. And I think my politics are more accurately represented by normal people vs. career politicians than by donkey mascot vs. elephant mascot. I vote Democrat as a matter of lesser-of-two-evils, but I yearn desperately for a world in which no one who's involved in any way with DCCC can have influence in politics ever again. If you find me someone who votes Republican who says the like AOC and hate Trump, I'd probably agree with them on a lot of things.
        parineum 7y ago
        Your politics are mostly irrelevant although it does help with examples... What you said paints your political allies as people you know personally who are essentially "down on their luck" people who are trying to make it while your political opponents are millionaires the likes of Mitch McConnell or a Lindsay Graham. Someone with the opposite political leanings as you could say that their political allies are the steel workers in Pittsburgh and the auto workers in Detroit who's job were lost to globalization and free trade (and they vote Republican as a lesser of two evils) while their political opponents are millionaires like Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein. You're using two different categories of people as allies and opponents. If you cast your argument using the same categories, it doesn't make sense. Your allies, Pelosi and Feinstein are just as wealthy as your opponents, McConnell and Graham. Or inversely, your allies, the folks buying lotto tickets accepting below market salaries who just haven't joined the right startup are just as poor as your opponents, the factory workers and coal miners who've lost their jobs to globalization and technology. I think you're trying to say your allies are both groups from the second example and your opponents are both groups from the first example but that doesn't really work because you're actively supporting half of each and actively working against the other half. You've chosen a side that you believe will help both sides, even though they are your opponents but I don't think that's a unique position to your side.
  - kazen44 7y ago
    is this not just survivorship bias? What about the countless of people who did not make it into a successful startup, or all those people who bought lottery tickets without winning anything? becoming a millionaire is statistically highly unlikely, and why would such an unlikely event warrant anti-union sentiment?
    - geofft 7y ago
      Yeah, my point is that this isn't actually a rational way to think. That is what the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" concept is about. For the vast majority of those people, it isn't temporary at all.
      - kortilla 7y ago
        The “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” is a trope of the left. It constructs a strawman argument of how people on the right think to discount the reasons they actually vote against entitlements and anti-business legislature. I know of nobody on the right that has voted with that mindset.
        bsanr2 7y ago
        The only convincing alternative that I've heard from someone in that world is that conservatives are so afraid of getting screwed over by the rich and powerful that they'll do whatever they can to placate them while scraping to themselves what they need to survive. A, "Pray I don't alter it any further," situation. Of course, this "TEM" thing is partly a face-saving move for our white, right neighbors by progressives who don't want to point to the racism/classism and a willingness to accept Pyhric victories that really drives a lot of anti-union sentiment. Why, not wanting the "undeserving" to receive undo benefits is the crux of several arguments on this very page.
        kortilla 7y ago
        No offense, but you’ve clearly never talked to a conservative to ask them why they support policies good for business. It has nothing to do with being afraid of rich people.
- ajross 7y ago
  That's a Steinbeck quote[1]. It's surely being used, just as it was originally, as a fun way to describe the somewhat banal point that people in demographics relevant to organized labor often hold opinions about public policy that are contrary to their personal interest. It's not a literal statement about what's in a republican voter's head. That said: how many posters here consider themselves just One Great Idea away from being the next Zuckerberg, and thus tend to view discussions on, I dunno, work/life balance or engineers' unions from an employer's perspective instead of their own? Seems like more than a few to me. [1] OK, I checked wikipedia, turns out that the original phrase was "temporarily embarrassed capitalists", but this is the variant that stuck.
  - dx87 7y ago
    That quote isn't being used how it was originally intended. It's referring to capitalists that fell on hard times, so they started supporting communism because they believed that they'd have everything they need. They're called "temporarily embarassed capitalists" because they only support communism if it benefits them and they don't have to work hard for it, not because they actually believe in it.
  - cgag 7y ago
    I know, that it's a well known quote is essentially my point. They frame their personal politics as some well-earned enlightenment, far from the ignorant anti-union baseline, while quoting a Nobel prize winning author whose works most people are forced to read as teenagers.
    - bsanr2 7y ago
      So your main objection is that the quote betrays its speaker as uppity?
      - cgag 7y ago
        No, it betrays that they're, at best, equally guilty of sitting on a pro-union baseline themselves.
staticautomatic 7y ago
One can be pro-organizing but not pro-union.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Not sure how you square those two. Could you elaborate? Any less durable form of organizing seems likely to have its work undone by the very well-organized and durable cadre of owners/management
  - dodobirdlord 7y ago
    Many professions that tend to be highly individualistic and require complex mastery have historically been represented by a Guild. While Guilds these days are sometimes a specialized form of union, the distinctions are often significant. A couple examples that come to mind are the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America.
    - claudeganon 7y ago
      Well, at least in the case of SAG and the WGA, those are essentially just white-collar unions. Neither of those groups would describe themselves as pro-organizing, but opposed to unions.
  - staticautomatic 7y ago
    To characterize unions-- especially contemporary unions in the United States-- as limited strictly to collective action functions, is factually incomplete and wrong. That unions perform other functions and aim to protect workers in other ways beyond collective action should be a totally uncontroversial statement. Although unions proximately came into existence for the purpose of taking collective action against oppressive employers, it's equally true, and at least as important, to understand that they came into existence in order to fill a regulatory vacuum in labor law. This should prompt some important questions: 1. Should the job of protecting workers from employers properly belong to any entity other than the government? 2. Is filling the regulatory vacuum with regulation theoretically or empirically insufficient to protect workers? 3. Are unions the only means of collective action? 4. Are the functions that unions serve beyond coordinating collective action actually necessary in order to protect workers? Would they still be necessary even if labor law was sufficiently well regulated? My position is this: We should dramatically expand and increase labor regulation and enforcement actions, and we should allow employees to take collective action. Then we should ask ourselves whether unions are still necessary.
coupdetaco 7y ago
Or the unions are composed of reprehensible bigots who support the Vietnam war and are bad on race
- arglebarnacle 7y ago
  The unions are democratic institutions that represent the self-organization of working people. If the current leadership of a union is bad (and in many cases it is) it should be campaigned against, voted out, and replaced. Giving up on the idea of a union because you don't like who's been elected to run it is self-defeating.
  - guerrilla 7y ago
    > unions are democratic institutions Not necessarily, some are quite centralized. For example, LO in Sweden. The US has plenty of examples. Look at Harlan County for an extreme example.
    - coredog64 7y ago
      One of the major differences between US unions and the rest of the world is a ~50 year old legal hangover related to racism. US unions used to be allowed to moderate their support for members (as in “Joe Bag-O-Donuts is a detriment to the company and should never have been hired”). Unfortunately, many unions used that discretionary capacity to refuse to support their African-American members. It went all the way to the USSC, but the upshot is that US unions are required to have a more antagonistic relationship with management because they can’t endorse throwing out dues paying members.
      - gwright 7y ago
        I'm curious, which case are you referring to?
  - stale2002 7y ago
    Ok, now what if that is not possible, and the rest of the workers have extremely bad positions, and it is not possible to convince them to change their mind? Do you understand now why decentralization of power can have its uses?
rayiner 7y ago
I’ve spent 30 years in the US, many of those in red states, and I’ve heard the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” canard way more often than I’ve heard anti-union rhetoric. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti- (private sector) union rhetoric. Have you considered that maybe peoples’ reactions are based on bad experiences with unions? In particular, public sector unions. Even liberal areas are pretty anti-union, and with things like the DC and NYC Subways falling apart despite massive funding, who can blame them? With police unions protecting crooked cops and teachers unions protecting bad teachers, who can blame them? (I think it’s also fair to say that the sheer rapaciousness of American public sector unions is the result of an anti-union war that has otherwise receded from the public consciousness. They fight everything tooth and nail, even reasonable reforms, because they’re the outnumbered survivors of anti-union movements.)
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti- (private sector) union rhetoric. I envy you such selective hearing. You could check out any discussion about the strike against General Motors that's taking place right now and find samplings of both pro- and anti-union rhetoric for comparison, but I wouldn't want you to put your exquisitely tuned eardrums at risk.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Given OP’s reference to anti-union ideology being “inculcated” I was thinking Of authoritative sources. When was the last time you heard an anti union screed from a politician? (Versus anti corporate screeds?)
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump I’ll never get the support of Dues Crazy union leadership, those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune. But the members love Trump. They look at our record economy, tax & reg cuts, military etc. WIN! 7:32 AM - 29 Apr 2019 inb4 'Trump isn't a politician'.
mbostleman 7y ago
Count me in. Inculcated into the backwards ideas that free markets are good and monopolies are their enemy.
oh_sigh 7y ago
I'm fine with unions if they are voluntary, but not if I'm forced to join, forced to strike, forced to pay dues even if I'm not involved, and forced to not seek employment at a place under strike through threats of violence.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- puzzledobserver 7y ago
  Just to clarify, are you saying, "I would like the collective to bargain on my behalf, but I just don't want to be part of that collective"? Isn't mandatory membership a simple corollary of unionization efforts?
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    I'm not in favor of mandatory membership, but on the other hand if someone chooses not to be a member and is subsequently mistreated by management, there's no reason for the union to assist them and they shouldn't receive any benefits established through collective bargaining agreements.
    - username90 7y ago
      > they shouldn't receive any benefits established through collective bargaining agreements. Why not? I can just demand that my contract looks the same as the unions, anything wrong with that?
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        You can demand all you want, and your manager can respond with 'LOL no you're not worth that much'.
        oh_sigh 7y ago
        Then if you think you are worth that much, you can call their bluff and go somewhere else. And what happens in the union scenario? The manager hires an unproductive person for exactly the same wages?
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> When people have been inculcated all their lives with the idea that labor organizing is bad, they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs, it doesn’t take too much to push them back towards this baseline. Okay, everyone, think carefully about what the trite "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" quote implies. The underlying meaning is "These people are too ignorant/foolish/some other pejorative to recognize that they are not, in fact, 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', LOL." It also has a implication of "I, however, do recognize this because I am wiser/smarter/etc. than them and I know what's good for them better than they do themselves." If the people who repeat these kinds of things think that ordinary folk are not bright enough to pick up on these subtexts and resent the hell out of them for it, maybe they are not a tenth as smart as they think they are. Maybe it's time to stop parroting Wright's stupid quote and stop looking down on these people if you all actually want to, like, win elections or something.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs I've always found this condemnation odd given how often it's actually true. If you break down salaries by demographics, one of the biggest correlations with salary is age. Senior positions pay more than junior ones. It's an extremely common career path to start off in an entry level job and ultimately end up in management by the end of your career. So the reason people think they'll be making more money in ten years is that most of them will be. You may not be Warren Buffet but you could easily be the manager of your branch office and making two or three times your current entry-level compensation.
- hrktb 7y ago
  How does it work for a 10 people team for instance ? One of them will be a team leader at some point. A second one might follow and become a team leader while the firth one goes higher. Will they go up one more level ? let’s say yes. That makes e of them climbing the ladder. Will there be a fourth ? probably not. That leaves 6 people not going up, and only earning marginally more. That’s less than half will see significant change in their 10 yers next.
  - throwawaysea 7y ago
    This seems okay to me. What’s wrong with this? Not everyone deserves further compensation. And others value the work of these employees only so much, so rewards have to be distributed either those bounds.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > How does it work for a 10 people team for instance ? Large organization graphs are shaped like pyramids, but the thing about a pyramid is that the combination of the top and the middle is as big as the bottom. The organizations large enough for unions to come into play have multiple layers of middle management. But let's suppose the company is less than 50% managers. That still doesn't mean the typical person won't ever be a manager, it only means they're an employee for more time than they are a manager. Also remember that small businesses employ the most people and don't have that sort of tree structure. In that case you typically have the owner and the apprentice who is expected to buy out the owner when they retire and ten person teams are not a thing. And you will often have some workers in larger organizations who don't move into management in the same company they started in but who do leave to strike out on their own, i.e. become a founder/manager of a new small business once they have sufficient industry experience.
CryptoPunk 7y ago
I would say that there is a pervasive anti-free-market ideology in the US. Otherwise there's no way the laws that blatantly violate people's contract rights in order to empower union action would be tolerated by society.
kortilla 7y ago
But the view you’re espousing is basically propaganda as well. Corporate execs + all of the management layers below them are frequently promoted from within. Viewing employment as a collaborative endeavor rather than a hostile negotiation goes a long ways towards improving both sides. Finally, part of the issue is that basically none of the innovative companies in the US are union shops. Because of the ham-fisted salary control most US unions are known for, they are just seen as a way to get a company to pay more than the market price for a skill by forming a cartel.

cgag 7y ago

What percentage of your life have you been being inculcated with the idea that your political opponents believe themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires?

geofft 7y ago
Opponents? My political opponents are actual, non-embarrassed millionaires and billionaires from families of millionaires and billionaires. My political allies are temporarily embarrassed millionaires, from the folks accepting below-market salaries to work at a potential unicorn to the folks buying literal lotto tickets at the corner store. A few of them are no longer temporarily embarrassed, having joined the right startup, which only goes to demonstrate that the worldview is correct. Things worked out for them without unionizing, clearly things will work out for me too one day.
- parineum 7y ago
  It sounds like you're counting your opponents as politicians and allies as the people whom you personally associate with politically. If you were referring to only politicians, they're basically all millionaires.
  - geofft 7y ago
    That seems like a decent definition, if oversimplified. What's wrong with it? (And I think you'll find that I disproportionately support the non-millionare politicians.)
    - parineum 7y ago
      I know people personally on both the right and the left that aren't millionaires but (nearly) all of the public and influential political actors I know are at least millionaires, regardless of affiliation. You're counting your opponents as the second group and your allies as the first group. Someone on your opposing side could make the _exact_ argument by reversing the groups. It's telling that your statement does nothing to show what your actual politics are. The people I support politically are generally wealthy. I am also fairly confident that the ones who aren't probably will be if they are in politics long enough and not necessarily through corrupt means. Anyone of that stature can, at the very least, sell quite a few books on their name alone for instance. It goes hand in hand that influential people can more easily amass wealth.
      - geofft 7y ago
        Sure, politicians can become wealthy after holding office. I'm more talking about where people were situated before they entered politics, and in particular the people who are not politicians - donors, influencers (for lack of a better term), etc. And I think my politics are more accurately represented by normal people vs. career politicians than by donkey mascot vs. elephant mascot. I vote Democrat as a matter of lesser-of-two-evils, but I yearn desperately for a world in which no one who's involved in any way with DCCC can have influence in politics ever again. If you find me someone who votes Republican who says the like AOC and hate Trump, I'd probably agree with them on a lot of things.
        parineum 7y ago
        Your politics are mostly irrelevant although it does help with examples... What you said paints your political allies as people you know personally who are essentially "down on their luck" people who are trying to make it while your political opponents are millionaires the likes of Mitch McConnell or a Lindsay Graham. Someone with the opposite political leanings as you could say that their political allies are the steel workers in Pittsburgh and the auto workers in Detroit who's job were lost to globalization and free trade (and they vote Republican as a lesser of two evils) while their political opponents are millionaires like Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein. You're using two different categories of people as allies and opponents. If you cast your argument using the same categories, it doesn't make sense. Your allies, Pelosi and Feinstein are just as wealthy as your opponents, McConnell and Graham. Or inversely, your allies, the folks buying lotto tickets accepting below market salaries who just haven't joined the right startup are just as poor as your opponents, the factory workers and coal miners who've lost their jobs to globalization and technology. I think you're trying to say your allies are both groups from the second example and your opponents are both groups from the first example but that doesn't really work because you're actively supporting half of each and actively working against the other half. You've chosen a side that you believe will help both sides, even though they are your opponents but I don't think that's a unique position to your side.
- kazen44 7y ago
  is this not just survivorship bias? What about the countless of people who did not make it into a successful startup, or all those people who bought lottery tickets without winning anything? becoming a millionaire is statistically highly unlikely, and why would such an unlikely event warrant anti-union sentiment?
  - geofft 7y ago
    Yeah, my point is that this isn't actually a rational way to think. That is what the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" concept is about. For the vast majority of those people, it isn't temporary at all.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      The “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” is a trope of the left. It constructs a strawman argument of how people on the right think to discount the reasons they actually vote against entitlements and anti-business legislature. I know of nobody on the right that has voted with that mindset.
      - bsanr2 7y ago
        The only convincing alternative that I've heard from someone in that world is that conservatives are so afraid of getting screwed over by the rich and powerful that they'll do whatever they can to placate them while scraping to themselves what they need to survive. A, "Pray I don't alter it any further," situation. Of course, this "TEM" thing is partly a face-saving move for our white, right neighbors by progressives who don't want to point to the racism/classism and a willingness to accept Pyhric victories that really drives a lot of anti-union sentiment. Why, not wanting the "undeserving" to receive undo benefits is the crux of several arguments on this very page.
        kortilla 7y ago
        No offense, but you’ve clearly never talked to a conservative to ask them why they support policies good for business. It has nothing to do with being afraid of rich people.
ajross 7y ago
That's a Steinbeck quote[1]. It's surely being used, just as it was originally, as a fun way to describe the somewhat banal point that people in demographics relevant to organized labor often hold opinions about public policy that are contrary to their personal interest. It's not a literal statement about what's in a republican voter's head. That said: how many posters here consider themselves just One Great Idea away from being the next Zuckerberg, and thus tend to view discussions on, I dunno, work/life balance or engineers' unions from an employer's perspective instead of their own? Seems like more than a few to me. [1] OK, I checked wikipedia, turns out that the original phrase was "temporarily embarrassed capitalists", but this is the variant that stuck.
- dx87 7y ago
  That quote isn't being used how it was originally intended. It's referring to capitalists that fell on hard times, so they started supporting communism because they believed that they'd have everything they need. They're called "temporarily embarassed capitalists" because they only support communism if it benefits them and they don't have to work hard for it, not because they actually believe in it.
- cgag 7y ago
  I know, that it's a well known quote is essentially my point. They frame their personal politics as some well-earned enlightenment, far from the ignorant anti-union baseline, while quoting a Nobel prize winning author whose works most people are forced to read as teenagers.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    So your main objection is that the quote betrays its speaker as uppity?
    - cgag 7y ago
      No, it betrays that they're, at best, equally guilty of sitting on a pro-union baseline themselves.

staticautomatic 7y ago

One can be pro-organizing but not pro-union.

claudeganon 7y ago
Not sure how you square those two. Could you elaborate? Any less durable form of organizing seems likely to have its work undone by the very well-organized and durable cadre of owners/management
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  Many professions that tend to be highly individualistic and require complex mastery have historically been represented by a Guild. While Guilds these days are sometimes a specialized form of union, the distinctions are often significant. A couple examples that come to mind are the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America.
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    Well, at least in the case of SAG and the WGA, those are essentially just white-collar unions. Neither of those groups would describe themselves as pro-organizing, but opposed to unions.
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  To characterize unions-- especially contemporary unions in the United States-- as limited strictly to collective action functions, is factually incomplete and wrong. That unions perform other functions and aim to protect workers in other ways beyond collective action should be a totally uncontroversial statement. Although unions proximately came into existence for the purpose of taking collective action against oppressive employers, it's equally true, and at least as important, to understand that they came into existence in order to fill a regulatory vacuum in labor law. This should prompt some important questions: 1. Should the job of protecting workers from employers properly belong to any entity other than the government? 2. Is filling the regulatory vacuum with regulation theoretically or empirically insufficient to protect workers? 3. Are unions the only means of collective action? 4. Are the functions that unions serve beyond coordinating collective action actually necessary in order to protect workers? Would they still be necessary even if labor law was sufficiently well regulated? My position is this: We should dramatically expand and increase labor regulation and enforcement actions, and we should allow employees to take collective action. Then we should ask ourselves whether unions are still necessary.

coupdetaco 7y ago

Or the unions are composed of reprehensible bigots who support the Vietnam war and are bad on race

arglebarnacle 7y ago
The unions are democratic institutions that represent the self-organization of working people. If the current leadership of a union is bad (and in many cases it is) it should be campaigned against, voted out, and replaced. Giving up on the idea of a union because you don't like who's been elected to run it is self-defeating.
- guerrilla 7y ago
  > unions are democratic institutions Not necessarily, some are quite centralized. For example, LO in Sweden. The US has plenty of examples. Look at Harlan County for an extreme example.
  - coredog64 7y ago
    One of the major differences between US unions and the rest of the world is a ~50 year old legal hangover related to racism. US unions used to be allowed to moderate their support for members (as in “Joe Bag-O-Donuts is a detriment to the company and should never have been hired”). Unfortunately, many unions used that discretionary capacity to refuse to support their African-American members. It went all the way to the USSC, but the upshot is that US unions are required to have a more antagonistic relationship with management because they can’t endorse throwing out dues paying members.
    - gwright 7y ago
      I'm curious, which case are you referring to?
- stale2002 7y ago
  Ok, now what if that is not possible, and the rest of the workers have extremely bad positions, and it is not possible to convince them to change their mind? Do you understand now why decentralization of power can have its uses?

rayiner 7y ago

I’ve spent 30 years in the US, many of those in red states, and I’ve heard the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” canard way more often than I’ve heard anti-union rhetoric. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti- (private sector) union rhetoric. Have you considered that maybe peoples’ reactions are based on bad experiences with unions? In particular, public sector unions. Even liberal areas are pretty anti-union, and with things like the DC and NYC Subways falling apart despite massive funding, who can blame them? With police unions protecting crooked cops and teachers unions protecting bad teachers, who can blame them? (I think it’s also fair to say that the sheer rapaciousness of American public sector unions is the result of an anti-union war that has otherwise receded from the public consciousness. They fight everything tooth and nail, even reasonable reforms, because they’re the outnumbered survivors of anti-union movements.)

anigbrowl 7y ago
In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti- (private sector) union rhetoric. I envy you such selective hearing. You could check out any discussion about the strike against General Motors that's taking place right now and find samplings of both pro- and anti-union rhetoric for comparison, but I wouldn't want you to put your exquisitely tuned eardrums at risk.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Given OP’s reference to anti-union ideology being “inculcated” I was thinking Of authoritative sources. When was the last time you heard an anti union screed from a politician? (Versus anti corporate screeds?)
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump I’ll never get the support of Dues Crazy union leadership, those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune. But the members love Trump. They look at our record economy, tax & reg cuts, military etc. WIN! 7:32 AM - 29 Apr 2019 inb4 'Trump isn't a politician'.

mbostleman 7y ago

Count me in. Inculcated into the backwards ideas that free markets are good and monopolies are their enemy.

oh_sigh 7y ago

I'm fine with unions if they are voluntary, but not if I'm forced to join, forced to strike, forced to pay dues even if I'm not involved, and forced to not seek employment at a place under strike through threats of violence.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
puzzledobserver 7y ago
Just to clarify, are you saying, "I would like the collective to bargain on my behalf, but I just don't want to be part of that collective"? Isn't mandatory membership a simple corollary of unionization efforts?
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  I'm not in favor of mandatory membership, but on the other hand if someone chooses not to be a member and is subsequently mistreated by management, there's no reason for the union to assist them and they shouldn't receive any benefits established through collective bargaining agreements.
  - username90 7y ago
    > they shouldn't receive any benefits established through collective bargaining agreements. Why not? I can just demand that my contract looks the same as the unions, anything wrong with that?
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      You can demand all you want, and your manager can respond with 'LOL no you're not worth that much'.
      - oh_sigh 7y ago
        Then if you think you are worth that much, you can call their bluff and go somewhere else. And what happens in the union scenario? The manager hires an unproductive person for exactly the same wages?

ThrowawayR2 7y ago

> When people have been inculcated all their lives with the idea that labor organizing is bad, they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs, it doesn’t take too much to push them back towards this baseline. Okay, everyone, think carefully about what the trite "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" quote implies. The underlying meaning is "These people are too ignorant/foolish/some other pejorative to recognize that they are not, in fact, 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', LOL." It also has a implication of "I, however, do recognize this because I am wiser/smarter/etc. than them and I know what's good for them better than they do themselves." If the people who repeat these kinds of things think that ordinary folk are not bright enough to pick up on these subtexts and resent the hell out of them for it, maybe they are not a tenth as smart as they think they are. Maybe it's time to stop parroting Wright's stupid quote and stop looking down on these people if you all actually want to, like, win elections or something.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs I've always found this condemnation odd given how often it's actually true. If you break down salaries by demographics, one of the biggest correlations with salary is age. Senior positions pay more than junior ones. It's an extremely common career path to start off in an entry level job and ultimately end up in management by the end of your career. So the reason people think they'll be making more money in ten years is that most of them will be. You may not be Warren Buffet but you could easily be the manager of your branch office and making two or three times your current entry-level compensation.

hrktb 7y ago
How does it work for a 10 people team for instance ? One of them will be a team leader at some point. A second one might follow and become a team leader while the firth one goes higher. Will they go up one more level ? let’s say yes. That makes e of them climbing the ladder. Will there be a fourth ? probably not. That leaves 6 people not going up, and only earning marginally more. That’s less than half will see significant change in their 10 yers next.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  This seems okay to me. What’s wrong with this? Not everyone deserves further compensation. And others value the work of these employees only so much, so rewards have to be distributed either those bounds.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > How does it work for a 10 people team for instance ? Large organization graphs are shaped like pyramids, but the thing about a pyramid is that the combination of the top and the middle is as big as the bottom. The organizations large enough for unions to come into play have multiple layers of middle management. But let's suppose the company is less than 50% managers. That still doesn't mean the typical person won't ever be a manager, it only means they're an employee for more time than they are a manager. Also remember that small businesses employ the most people and don't have that sort of tree structure. In that case you typically have the owner and the apprentice who is expected to buy out the owner when they retire and ten person teams are not a thing. And you will often have some workers in larger organizations who don't move into management in the same company they started in but who do leave to strike out on their own, i.e. become a founder/manager of a new small business once they have sufficient industry experience.

CryptoPunk 7y ago

I would say that there is a pervasive anti-free-market ideology in the US. Otherwise there's no way the laws that blatantly violate people's contract rights in order to empower union action would be tolerated by society.

kortilla 7y ago

But the view you’re espousing is basically propaganda as well. Corporate execs + all of the management layers below them are frequently promoted from within. Viewing employment as a collaborative endeavor rather than a hostile negotiation goes a long ways towards improving both sides. Finally, part of the issue is that basically none of the innovative companies in the US are union shops. Because of the ham-fisted salary control most US unions are known for, they are just seen as a way to get a company to pay more than the market price for a skill by forming a cartel.