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That’s already illegal without unions, so it’s not something that unionizing would fix.
by lawnchair_larry 7y ago
That’s already illegal without unions, so it’s not something that unionizing would fix.
- shadowgovt 7y agoIt's something that a union would notice and blow the whistle on much sooner than individual employees talking to each other.
- HarryHirsch 7y agoWhen it comes to large corporations the law has no teeth. Organized labour is a different way of power, at least it can't lead to worse outcomes.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoBoth the DOJ antitrust action under the Sherman act as well as the civil class action prevailed in the tech workers wages case, so that seems to indicate ample teeth on that particular issue. And they didn’t even require union dues to fund another giant political bureaucracy, deducted from all of our paychecks in perpetuity, to do it. Also, organized labor only gains it’s power through contract law and state law (especially in non-right-to-work states, where it’s illegal to opt out of a union and cross the picket line), so this argument doesn’t really work.
- gamblor956 7y agoUnions get most of their power from their ability to organize mass collective action. Their leverage in contract negotiations comes entirely from their ability to organize mass action. Their rights under state law are derived entirely from their political power arising from their ability to organize mass action. And notably, with respect to the SV anti poaching case: the companies won that case because they ended up paying only a few thousand dollars to each affected worker instead of the hundreds of thousands per employee they would have owed if the case hadn't settled for pennies on the dollar. A union absolutely would have protected its employees from being exploited so badly. (And note--unions can be organized to respect individual bargaining power, like they are with the SAG, where they set minimum pay scales and benefits but not maximums.)