7 ms·

Counter to what you see touted on this website, unions are not solely about securing additional material benefits for workers. They are and have always been abo

Counter to what you see touted on this website, unions are not solely about securing additional material benefits for workers. They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting their relations of power to reflect this reality. So while some tech jobs might be quite cushy, I’ve yet to see any rational or coherent defense of why these (or any) companies should function like dictatorships. It would seems that increasingly, more and more tech workers share this perspective.

friedman23 7y ago
If I buy a sewing machine and hire someone to operate it, outside of basic safety rights why should the employee have any say in what I decide should be created with it?
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Why shouldn’t they? Does owning a sewing machine suddenly bestow upon you dictatorial powers? I’m being a bit hyperbolic here, but it’s funny that the circumstances you cite (sewing, basic safety) actually drove unionization in the early 20th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_... Turns out that if you don’t change the relations of power in your workplace, hold your bosses to account, they have a tendency to not be too concerned about your well-being.
  - ggambetta 7y ago
    > Does owning a sewing machine suddenly bestow upon you dictatorial powers? Why do you insist in throwing the word "dictatorship" around? Owning a sewing machine and paying someone to use it on your behalf should absolutely bestow you the power to choose what that person makes for you, while being paid by you, and while using your machine. How can this be controversial?
    - claudeganon 7y ago
      I would say the premise that owning something gives you unilateral control over the actions of another person has historically and philosophically been quite controversial. Why did peasants revolt over feudal ownership of land? Why did indigenous people revolt against settler colonialism? Why did the American Civil War happen?
      - friedman23 7y ago
        > I would say the premise that owning something gives you unilateral control over the actions of another person has historically and philosophically been quite controversial I disagree. It is not historically controversial for the owner of property to decide what is done with it.
        rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
        >with it. With what, the slaves? /s
        friedman23 7y ago
        I don't know if you are trying to be disingenuous or are mocking people that would think this way. But when someone comes into my house I have some control over what they are allowed to do within my house and I can ask them to leave with the support of the law if they don't obey my wishes. When I enter a voluntary employment agreement and give an employee access to my equipment the same thing applies.
      - civilian 7y ago
        You're conflating ownership of people with ownership of a tool & voluntary employment. That's a pretty bad-faith argument to make.
      - ggambetta 7y ago
        > I would say the premise that owning something gives you unilateral control over the actions of another person You're conveniently ignoring the part in which I'm also paying the other person to do something, after the other person freely agreed to do said thing in exchange for being paid. Would you mind replying to what I'm actually saying?
- glogla 7y ago
  Because they want to be able to defend themselves from you and people like you (who own the means of living) from abusing and exploiting them. Why do you mind if they have a say? If you don't plan on abusing and exploiting them, there's no harm, right? EDIT: to put it into words I would think someone like you might understand better (power and money instead of empathy and solidarity) - because if you don't let them have a say, and exploit them, you might end up in a gulag, on guillotine or in wherever mass grave Mao put landlords.
  - friedman23 7y ago
    I'm paying them, if they don't want to be exploited by me don't accept my money. > because if you don't let them have a say, and exploit them, you might end up in a gulag, on guillotine or in wherever mass grave Mao put landlords It always comes down to violence with you people.
    - whatawaste 7y ago
      If you don’t want to be on the receiving end of violence, how about not exploiting people?
      - friedman23 7y ago
        So let's have a thought experiment. I own a sewing machine and I choose to sew clothes on it myself then sell it. Am I exploiting myself? I own a sewing machine and I choose to not hire anybody to operate it and it sits unused. Someone that could operate it is sitting unemployed and unable to eat even though I could hire them. Am I exploiting someone? I own a sewing machine and offer someone an amount of money if they operate it and produce the clothing I ask them to produce. Am I exploiting them? I'm glad fringe maniacs that consider employment exploitation aren't taken seriously.
    - glogla 7y ago
      > It always comes down to violence with you people. As it should. If they don't accept your power, they starve (or not get healthcare if we're talking about contemporary USA). How is that any less violent? Because when you kill someone by starvation it's less bloody? Your kind are already using violence against us, you're just good at not caring about others or lying to yourself.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  Let's flip the scenario. Someone comes to you and pays you to borrow your sewing machine. Then by your logic, you should not have any say in what they do with the sewing machine. It seems you are claiming that if A pays B, then A has complete say in what happens. From a third party perspective, this is just weird. Society sees two people associating, one providing labor, that other capital, no matter how money is flowing within the association. Weirdly enough our system only allows capital owners to have any say in the running of the system (via shares and the board). Within this system, unions are one way in which the owners of labor get a say in the running of the corporation.
  - friedman23 7y ago
    > Someone comes to you and pays you to borrow your sewing machine. Then by your logic, you should not have any say in what they do with the sewing machine Yes, generally there is a contract that stipulated what can and can't be done with the sewing machine so that the machine is not completely destroyed. Generally employment contracts do not give employees the right to do whatever they want with the sewing machine.
bluejekyll 7y ago
I’m not sure that this is a pro-union stance or not, but I’ve always thought that workers of a public company should be allowed to elect a board representative (number of seats to allocate determined by something associated with the number of employees). Would this help bring that worker view/control to the company?
- claudeganon 7y ago
  What you’re describing is codetermination, was driven as policy by unions in various forms across Europe, most notably in Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
ggambetta 7y ago
I’ve yet to see any rational or coherent defense of why these (or any) companies should function like democracies. Company X offers to pay me to do job Y. My two options, as I see it, are taking the job and doing Y, or refusing to do Y and therefore not taking the job. I don't understand the logic of "I'll take the job but then refuse to do Y", except if I assume ill-intent from the person taking the job.
- deogeo 7y ago
  What about the logic of collective bargaining? Why should workers have to remain divided and alone, against highly organized capital?
- claudeganon 7y ago
  The broader condition of wage-labor is (in the absence of unions) of course though that you agree to some form of top-down power relation or starve and die. Unions contest this broader premise as opposed to your specific one.
  - friedman23 7y ago
    > or starve and die Or start your own business and find your own way to provide for youself outside of the existing system? The broader condition of society is that you need to produce something of value for them if you desire others to provide things of value to you.
  - ggambetta 7y ago
    > or starve and die I reject your strawman argument. FAANG engineers will hardly starve and die if they choose to work somewhere else.
- mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
  It is better for both individuals and society at large if we are able to not only generate material wealth, but also do so within systems of our own design which allow us to generate said wealth through voluntary cooperation. You are of course correct that any person is technically free to reject any particular job, but someone with an interest in both continuing to be able to provide for themselves and their family as well as in bringing about structural shifts that would allow for much truer freedom might refuse to perform a particular function for reasons other than ill intent.
dominotw 7y ago
> workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. Is there is an example of how this works in practise. wondering how they get consensus and do workers really want this.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Check out the “All Things Co-Op” podcast that’s part of the “Democracy at Work” project: https://www.democracyatwork.info/atc https://www.democracyatwork.info/atc They walk through all of this with actual worker cooperatives and people researching and organizing around cooperative economic models.
rayiner 7y ago
> They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting their relations of power to reflect this reality. I’d encourage younger folks who have an idealized view of American unions to check Scorcese’s new movie the Irishman about the Teamsters and Hoffa.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Yes, a Hollywood dramatization of a specific incident in the history of American organized labor is definitely the best place to glean this understanding, as opposed to, you know, reading any of the numerous academic works about the history of US or world labor struggle... Here, by contrast, is a great podcast on the subject spanning many incidents and movements: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/ https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/ And another recent great book by Alex Gourevitch, “From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth: Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century” https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/from-slavery-to-the-cooperative-commonwealth/4E187482423ECEA66EDFFC027AED3DBF https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/from-slavery-to-the-coo... https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/alex-gourevitch-labor-republicans-slavery-cooperative-commonwealth-review https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/alex-gourevitch-labo... “Labor Law for the Rank and Filer” by Staughton Lynd (who has written many great works of labor history) is the book inspiring many tech organizers: https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=325 https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=325 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/business/economy/labor-book.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/business/economy/labor-bo...
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Academic works like this one by an NYU law professor? https://muse.jhu.edu/book/10740 https://muse.jhu.edu/book/10740 > Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated the labor movement as effectively as in the United States. Yet the government, the AFL-CIO, and the civil liberties community all but ignored the situation for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, however, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the federal judiciary have relentlessly battled against labor racketeering, even in some of the nation's most powerful unions. > Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to document organized crime's exploitation of organized labor and the massive federal cleanup effort. A renowned criminologist who for twenty years has been assessing the government's attack on the Mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in the labor movement, then consolidated their power through patronage, fraud, and violence and finally used this power to become part of the political and economic power structure of Twentieth century urban America.

friedman23 7y ago

If I buy a sewing machine and hire someone to operate it, outside of basic safety rights why should the employee have any say in what I decide should be created with it?

claudeganon 7y ago
Why shouldn’t they? Does owning a sewing machine suddenly bestow upon you dictatorial powers? I’m being a bit hyperbolic here, but it’s funny that the circumstances you cite (sewing, basic safety) actually drove unionization in the early 20th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_... Turns out that if you don’t change the relations of power in your workplace, hold your bosses to account, they have a tendency to not be too concerned about your well-being.
- ggambetta 7y ago
  > Does owning a sewing machine suddenly bestow upon you dictatorial powers? Why do you insist in throwing the word "dictatorship" around? Owning a sewing machine and paying someone to use it on your behalf should absolutely bestow you the power to choose what that person makes for you, while being paid by you, and while using your machine. How can this be controversial?
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    I would say the premise that owning something gives you unilateral control over the actions of another person has historically and philosophically been quite controversial. Why did peasants revolt over feudal ownership of land? Why did indigenous people revolt against settler colonialism? Why did the American Civil War happen?
    - friedman23 7y ago
      > I would say the premise that owning something gives you unilateral control over the actions of another person has historically and philosophically been quite controversial I disagree. It is not historically controversial for the owner of property to decide what is done with it.
      - rcMgD2BwE72F 7y ago
        >with it. With what, the slaves? /s
        friedman23 7y ago
        I don't know if you are trying to be disingenuous or are mocking people that would think this way. But when someone comes into my house I have some control over what they are allowed to do within my house and I can ask them to leave with the support of the law if they don't obey my wishes. When I enter a voluntary employment agreement and give an employee access to my equipment the same thing applies.
    - civilian 7y ago
      You're conflating ownership of people with ownership of a tool & voluntary employment. That's a pretty bad-faith argument to make.
    - ggambetta 7y ago
      > I would say the premise that owning something gives you unilateral control over the actions of another person You're conveniently ignoring the part in which I'm also paying the other person to do something, after the other person freely agreed to do said thing in exchange for being paid. Would you mind replying to what I'm actually saying?
glogla 7y ago
Because they want to be able to defend themselves from you and people like you (who own the means of living) from abusing and exploiting them. Why do you mind if they have a say? If you don't plan on abusing and exploiting them, there's no harm, right? EDIT: to put it into words I would think someone like you might understand better (power and money instead of empathy and solidarity) - because if you don't let them have a say, and exploit them, you might end up in a gulag, on guillotine or in wherever mass grave Mao put landlords.
- friedman23 7y ago
  I'm paying them, if they don't want to be exploited by me don't accept my money. > because if you don't let them have a say, and exploit them, you might end up in a gulag, on guillotine or in wherever mass grave Mao put landlords It always comes down to violence with you people.
  - whatawaste 7y ago
    If you don’t want to be on the receiving end of violence, how about not exploiting people?
    - friedman23 7y ago
      So let's have a thought experiment. I own a sewing machine and I choose to sew clothes on it myself then sell it. Am I exploiting myself? I own a sewing machine and I choose to not hire anybody to operate it and it sits unused. Someone that could operate it is sitting unemployed and unable to eat even though I could hire them. Am I exploiting someone? I own a sewing machine and offer someone an amount of money if they operate it and produce the clothing I ask them to produce. Am I exploiting them? I'm glad fringe maniacs that consider employment exploitation aren't taken seriously.
  - glogla 7y ago
    > It always comes down to violence with you people. As it should. If they don't accept your power, they starve (or not get healthcare if we're talking about contemporary USA). How is that any less violent? Because when you kill someone by starvation it's less bloody? Your kind are already using violence against us, you're just good at not caring about others or lying to yourself.
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
Let's flip the scenario. Someone comes to you and pays you to borrow your sewing machine. Then by your logic, you should not have any say in what they do with the sewing machine. It seems you are claiming that if A pays B, then A has complete say in what happens. From a third party perspective, this is just weird. Society sees two people associating, one providing labor, that other capital, no matter how money is flowing within the association. Weirdly enough our system only allows capital owners to have any say in the running of the system (via shares and the board). Within this system, unions are one way in which the owners of labor get a say in the running of the corporation.
- friedman23 7y ago
  > Someone comes to you and pays you to borrow your sewing machine. Then by your logic, you should not have any say in what they do with the sewing machine Yes, generally there is a contract that stipulated what can and can't be done with the sewing machine so that the machine is not completely destroyed. Generally employment contracts do not give employees the right to do whatever they want with the sewing machine.

bluejekyll 7y ago

I’m not sure that this is a pro-union stance or not, but I’ve always thought that workers of a public company should be allowed to elect a board representative (number of seats to allocate determined by something associated with the number of employees). Would this help bring that worker view/control to the company?

claudeganon 7y ago
What you’re describing is codetermination, was driven as policy by unions in various forms across Europe, most notably in Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

ggambetta 7y ago

I’ve yet to see any rational or coherent defense of why these (or any) companies should function like democracies. Company X offers to pay me to do job Y. My two options, as I see it, are taking the job and doing Y, or refusing to do Y and therefore not taking the job. I don't understand the logic of "I'll take the job but then refuse to do Y", except if I assume ill-intent from the person taking the job.

deogeo 7y ago
What about the logic of collective bargaining? Why should workers have to remain divided and alone, against highly organized capital?
claudeganon 7y ago
The broader condition of wage-labor is (in the absence of unions) of course though that you agree to some form of top-down power relation or starve and die. Unions contest this broader premise as opposed to your specific one.
- friedman23 7y ago
  > or starve and die Or start your own business and find your own way to provide for youself outside of the existing system? The broader condition of society is that you need to produce something of value for them if you desire others to provide things of value to you.
- ggambetta 7y ago
  > or starve and die I reject your strawman argument. FAANG engineers will hardly starve and die if they choose to work somewhere else.
mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
It is better for both individuals and society at large if we are able to not only generate material wealth, but also do so within systems of our own design which allow us to generate said wealth through voluntary cooperation. You are of course correct that any person is technically free to reject any particular job, but someone with an interest in both continuing to be able to provide for themselves and their family as well as in bringing about structural shifts that would allow for much truer freedom might refuse to perform a particular function for reasons other than ill intent.

dominotw 7y ago

> workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. Is there is an example of how this works in practise. wondering how they get consensus and do workers really want this.

claudeganon 7y ago
Check out the “All Things Co-Op” podcast that’s part of the “Democracy at Work” project: https://www.democracyatwork.info/atc https://www.democracyatwork.info/atc They walk through all of this with actual worker cooperatives and people researching and organizing around cooperative economic models.

rayiner 7y ago

> They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting their relations of power to reflect this reality. I’d encourage younger folks who have an idealized view of American unions to check Scorcese’s new movie the Irishman about the Teamsters and Hoffa.

claudeganon 7y ago
Yes, a Hollywood dramatization of a specific incident in the history of American organized labor is definitely the best place to glean this understanding, as opposed to, you know, reading any of the numerous academic works about the history of US or world labor struggle... Here, by contrast, is a great podcast on the subject spanning many incidents and movements: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/ https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/ And another recent great book by Alex Gourevitch, “From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth: Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century” https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/from-slavery-to-the-cooperative-commonwealth/4E187482423ECEA66EDFFC027AED3DBF https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/from-slavery-to-the-coo... https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/alex-gourevitch-labor-republicans-slavery-cooperative-commonwealth-review https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/alex-gourevitch-labo... “Labor Law for the Rank and Filer” by Staughton Lynd (who has written many great works of labor history) is the book inspiring many tech organizers: https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=325 https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=325 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/business/economy/labor-book.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/business/economy/labor-bo...
- rayiner 7y ago
  Academic works like this one by an NYU law professor? https://muse.jhu.edu/book/10740 https://muse.jhu.edu/book/10740 > Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated the labor movement as effectively as in the United States. Yet the government, the AFL-CIO, and the civil liberties community all but ignored the situation for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, however, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the federal judiciary have relentlessly battled against labor racketeering, even in some of the nation's most powerful unions. > Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to document organized crime's exploitation of organized labor and the massive federal cleanup effort. A renowned criminologist who for twenty years has been assessing the government's attack on the Mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in the labor movement, then consolidated their power through patronage, fraud, and violence and finally used this power to become part of the political and economic power structure of Twentieth century urban America.