7 ms·

Unions are not perfect. But they are the only protection individual laborers have left against the unstoppable power of modern corporations. Don't ever fall for

Unions are not perfect. But they are the only protection individual laborers have left against the unstoppable power of modern corporations. Don't ever fall for the endless slandering laid against them by capitalists.

seibelj 7y ago
Employees have the ability to switch jobs, whereas unions make it hard to join a different shop at the same seniority level as before. I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules.
- aphextron 7y ago
  >Employees have the ability to switch jobs Skilled employees, sure. But the vast majority of unskilled labor is completely at the whims of their employer without the protections afforded by unions. People fought and died for the right to create these organizations in the past, and we should be reticent to give that up just because the system isn't perfect.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  This is FUD. There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc. Also, as someone in tech, I constantly hear people talking about downleveling when they change jobs, I hear people talking about unclear promotion criteria, etc.
  - ralph84 7y ago
    This. Some of the highest paid individual contributors in the world are actors and professional athletes. They're represented by unions.
    - mrep 7y ago
      Aren't those industry wide unions whose main purpose is to set wage floors because there are so many people desperately trying to get into the industry that without them, employee conditions would be terrible for those just starting out? I don't think that is a problem for programmers and it is way different than a company specific union. If you want to start an industry wide programmer union, by all means, start one and then try and get people to join it. I'd love to hear what benefits you think I would get by joining an industry wide programmer union.
      - pnutjam 7y ago
        Not a problem, yet...
      - gamblor956 7y ago
        Hollywood unions are not industry-wide. The unions have only negotiated with the major studios and some of the more prolific independent studios. For example, Netflix hasn't (currently) entered into any agreements with the unions, though rumors are that Netflix will become sometime before the end of 2020.
      - Pfhreak 7y ago
        1) Wage floors (this is a problem in some parts of our industry. Game development, for instance. Maybe in other tech related fields like sysadmins? I'm less familiar.) 2) Healthcare benefits 3) Negotiating better IP control. Side projects, open source, etc. are locked down at various companies. There was a front page story about this today. 4) Better treatment for oncall. I know folks who have had to work for 17 consecutive hours for an incident and got nothing. 5) Better treatment for crunch -- tech workers in games have this particularly bad, but it's not limited to just that industry. 6) More control over how the company outsources/contracts with workers 7) All sorts of other side benefits that could be collectively funded -- union libraries, training, networks, publications, resources for new professionals, discounts on union developed software, etc. 8) Parental leave, sick time, and other basic benefits 9) Ensure and oversee processes to protect people who end up on the public stage. If you believe cancel culture is a thing, maybe having a union rep on hand and an established process for managing firings would be in your best interest. 10) Forced arbitration is another thing I'd consider talking with a union about. 11) Having a union rep on hand for HR proceedings
  - stale2002 7y ago
    > Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc. Yes there is. It is the fact that many unions do indeed do this. For whatever reason, people will often democratically choose to have stupid rules, such as seniority rules. The problem with a union is that if people democratically choose the dumb decision, then I am screwed. No thank you!
  - esoterica 7y ago
    All unions are structurally designed to reward tenure. Current members of the union can vote but future members cannot, and current members have more seniority than future members, so union members will always vote to screw over the people who join the union after them.
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      This is FUD, and runs counter to what players' unions in professional sports have actually done...every single time they've negotiated in the past decade.
      - esoterica 7y ago
        Have you never heard of rookie vs veteran contracts? Player unions are incredibly stacked in favor of senior players.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      > All unions are structurally designed to reward tenure. This is objectively false. I agree that some unions are structured this way. Maybe even most. But all is incorrect.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    > There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. In my observation (going by reports from both my own teachers back in the day and from friends and family members who are teachers), teachers' unions are squarely in the former category. Tenured teachers get raises, competent teachers get pink slips.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      So, there are no competent, tenured teachers? And you aren't addressing what I'm saying. I acknowledge unions that promote/pay based on seniority. Those exist, 100%. They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates. While it may be in the best interest for a union to reward people for how long they've been a working member of the union, it isn't the only structure that exists.
      - yellowapple 7y ago
        > So, there are no competent, tenured teachers? My middle/high school teachers certainly seemed to have an inverse relationship between tenure and effectiveness, with maybe two exceptions. > They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates. And you aren't addressing what I'm saying: sure, meritocratic unions might exist, but given that this is about teachers' unions specifically, and given that (at least in my observation, as anecdotal and therefore flawed as it may be) teachers' unions seem to very rarely (if ever) be meritocratic, any mention of "oh but unions can be meritocratic" without even so much as providing an example seems off-topic and irrelevant. Realistically, merit is much harder to measure than tenure. No surprise that tenure is consequently the more common metric by which teachers' unions measure the teachers thereof.
- dvdhnt 7y ago
  > I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules What do you think society is? We live in a giant union of citizens. The point of the union is to protect labor from capital; and protect the rest of us from selfish attitudes.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    The thing is that pretense is cheap - everyone and their dog has claimed some sort of grand pretense from the Aztec priests keeping the sun shining to every bandit, warlord, or mobster claiming "protection" when they rob people. Trusting anyone at their face value is being dangerously naive. Look at actual incentives and actions. You may find some organizations or individuals whose actions actually align with or are consistent with professed values in more than a post hoc rationalization but that is very much not the default.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Different unions work differently. In Hollywood, for example, the unions are not an impediment to job-switching. In fact, they've enabled a sort of frictionless job switching that even tech is decades behind. I have friends in Hollywood unions that have worked for multiple studios in the past month. No need to interview, or prove their chops. They just showed up for the job, worked, got paid, and moved on to the next shoot. And because of their union membership, they didn't have to worry about health insurance, or whether the checks would clear. And I'm not even talking about SAG or the other guilds. I'm referring to the actual unions of all the people who work behind the camera, from the camera operators to the makeup artists.
sseveran 7y ago
Most teachers work for local/state governments not unstoppable modern corporations.
ummonk 7y ago
Unions are often rent-seeking monopolies. Labor organization is important, but that doesn't mean those claiming to organize labor are actually always doing what is in labor's best interests.
- aphextron 7y ago
  >Unions are often rent-seeking monopolies. And so are corporations. Unions at least have the interest of employees as their central (espoused) tenant. There is and always has been a concerted effort between capital and the media to undermine that fact in the mind of the public. This is a huge contributing factor to the falling bargaining power of labor over the last 50 years. Don't fall for it.
  - aianus 7y ago
    Don't condescend to me. The only bargaining power is the ability to switch jobs easily -- something unions specifically fight against.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      A seller gains bargaining power by increasing the number of buyers, and/or decreasing the number of sellers. Therefore, there is an increase in bargaining power by unionizing, since it reduces the number of sellers.
    - pnutjam 7y ago
      For an educated and specialized workforce, changing employers can result in huge wage gains, I know, I've benefited from this too. However, much of this is due to the present economy and who knows how long it will last. For an average worker, the path to higher wages is through seniority and institutional knowledge that makes them more valuable. When they change jobs, they are often right back at the bottom, union or no union. They are also competing against young, fresh workers.
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    This morning I was thinking of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". If you've read it (and you should, it's a good novel) you know it's about worker rights and the story follows a guy who happens to work at a meat packing plant for awhile. If you haven't read it, you've probably been taught it is about the bad practices of food producers in that era. Nevermind that part is ancillary to the central story. Just pointing out that this warping of views to suit the wealthy has been going on a long time.
kaonashi 7y ago
Biggest problem with unions in the US is they lack seats at the board, which allows management to treat them in a very adversarial manner with no formal means for pushback.

seibelj 7y ago

Employees have the ability to switch jobs, whereas unions make it hard to join a different shop at the same seniority level as before. I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules.

aphextron 7y ago
>Employees have the ability to switch jobs Skilled employees, sure. But the vast majority of unskilled labor is completely at the whims of their employer without the protections afforded by unions. People fought and died for the right to create these organizations in the past, and we should be reticent to give that up just because the system isn't perfect.
Pfhreak 7y ago
This is FUD. There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc. Also, as someone in tech, I constantly hear people talking about downleveling when they change jobs, I hear people talking about unclear promotion criteria, etc.
- ralph84 7y ago
  This. Some of the highest paid individual contributors in the world are actors and professional athletes. They're represented by unions.
  - mrep 7y ago
    Aren't those industry wide unions whose main purpose is to set wage floors because there are so many people desperately trying to get into the industry that without them, employee conditions would be terrible for those just starting out? I don't think that is a problem for programmers and it is way different than a company specific union. If you want to start an industry wide programmer union, by all means, start one and then try and get people to join it. I'd love to hear what benefits you think I would get by joining an industry wide programmer union.
    - pnutjam 7y ago
      Not a problem, yet...
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      Hollywood unions are not industry-wide. The unions have only negotiated with the major studios and some of the more prolific independent studios. For example, Netflix hasn't (currently) entered into any agreements with the unions, though rumors are that Netflix will become sometime before the end of 2020.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      1) Wage floors (this is a problem in some parts of our industry. Game development, for instance. Maybe in other tech related fields like sysadmins? I'm less familiar.) 2) Healthcare benefits 3) Negotiating better IP control. Side projects, open source, etc. are locked down at various companies. There was a front page story about this today. 4) Better treatment for oncall. I know folks who have had to work for 17 consecutive hours for an incident and got nothing. 5) Better treatment for crunch -- tech workers in games have this particularly bad, but it's not limited to just that industry. 6) More control over how the company outsources/contracts with workers 7) All sorts of other side benefits that could be collectively funded -- union libraries, training, networks, publications, resources for new professionals, discounts on union developed software, etc. 8) Parental leave, sick time, and other basic benefits 9) Ensure and oversee processes to protect people who end up on the public stage. If you believe cancel culture is a thing, maybe having a union rep on hand and an established process for managing firings would be in your best interest. 10) Forced arbitration is another thing I'd consider talking with a union about. 11) Having a union rep on hand for HR proceedings
- stale2002 7y ago
  > Nothing about a union means you can't negotiate, have merit based promotion, etc. Yes there is. It is the fact that many unions do indeed do this. For whatever reason, people will often democratically choose to have stupid rules, such as seniority rules. The problem with a union is that if people democratically choose the dumb decision, then I am screwed. No thank you!
- esoterica 7y ago
  All unions are structurally designed to reward tenure. Current members of the union can vote but future members cannot, and current members have more seniority than future members, so union members will always vote to screw over the people who join the union after them.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    This is FUD, and runs counter to what players' unions in professional sports have actually done...every single time they've negotiated in the past decade.
    - esoterica 7y ago
      Have you never heard of rookie vs veteran contracts? Player unions are incredibly stacked in favor of senior players.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    > All unions are structurally designed to reward tenure. This is objectively false. I agree that some unions are structured this way. Maybe even most. But all is incorrect.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  > There are seniority based unions, and there are merit based unions. In my observation (going by reports from both my own teachers back in the day and from friends and family members who are teachers), teachers' unions are squarely in the former category. Tenured teachers get raises, competent teachers get pink slips.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    So, there are no competent, tenured teachers? And you aren't addressing what I'm saying. I acknowledge unions that promote/pay based on seniority. Those exist, 100%. They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates. While it may be in the best interest for a union to reward people for how long they've been a working member of the union, it isn't the only structure that exists.
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      > So, there are no competent, tenured teachers? My middle/high school teachers certainly seemed to have an inverse relationship between tenure and effectiveness, with maybe two exceptions. > They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates. And you aren't addressing what I'm saying: sure, meritocratic unions might exist, but given that this is about teachers' unions specifically, and given that (at least in my observation, as anecdotal and therefore flawed as it may be) teachers' unions seem to very rarely (if ever) be meritocratic, any mention of "oh but unions can be meritocratic" without even so much as providing an example seems off-topic and irrelevant. Realistically, merit is much harder to measure than tenure. No surprise that tenure is consequently the more common metric by which teachers' unions measure the teachers thereof.
dvdhnt 7y ago
> I would rather be able to switch jobs easily than have to follow union rules What do you think society is? We live in a giant union of citizens. The point of the union is to protect labor from capital; and protect the rest of us from selfish attitudes.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  The thing is that pretense is cheap - everyone and their dog has claimed some sort of grand pretense from the Aztec priests keeping the sun shining to every bandit, warlord, or mobster claiming "protection" when they rob people. Trusting anyone at their face value is being dangerously naive. Look at actual incentives and actions. You may find some organizations or individuals whose actions actually align with or are consistent with professed values in more than a post hoc rationalization but that is very much not the default.
gamblor956 7y ago
Different unions work differently. In Hollywood, for example, the unions are not an impediment to job-switching. In fact, they've enabled a sort of frictionless job switching that even tech is decades behind. I have friends in Hollywood unions that have worked for multiple studios in the past month. No need to interview, or prove their chops. They just showed up for the job, worked, got paid, and moved on to the next shoot. And because of their union membership, they didn't have to worry about health insurance, or whether the checks would clear. And I'm not even talking about SAG or the other guilds. I'm referring to the actual unions of all the people who work behind the camera, from the camera operators to the makeup artists.

sseveran 7y ago

Most teachers work for local/state governments not unstoppable modern corporations.

ummonk 7y ago

Unions are often rent-seeking monopolies. Labor organization is important, but that doesn't mean those claiming to organize labor are actually always doing what is in labor's best interests.

aphextron 7y ago
>Unions are often rent-seeking monopolies. And so are corporations. Unions at least have the interest of employees as their central (espoused) tenant. There is and always has been a concerted effort between capital and the media to undermine that fact in the mind of the public. This is a huge contributing factor to the falling bargaining power of labor over the last 50 years. Don't fall for it.
- aianus 7y ago
  Don't condescend to me. The only bargaining power is the ability to switch jobs easily -- something unions specifically fight against.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    A seller gains bargaining power by increasing the number of buyers, and/or decreasing the number of sellers. Therefore, there is an increase in bargaining power by unionizing, since it reduces the number of sellers.
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    For an educated and specialized workforce, changing employers can result in huge wage gains, I know, I've benefited from this too. However, much of this is due to the present economy and who knows how long it will last. For an average worker, the path to higher wages is through seniority and institutional knowledge that makes them more valuable. When they change jobs, they are often right back at the bottom, union or no union. They are also competing against young, fresh workers.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  This morning I was thinking of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". If you've read it (and you should, it's a good novel) you know it's about worker rights and the story follows a guy who happens to work at a meat packing plant for awhile. If you haven't read it, you've probably been taught it is about the bad practices of food producers in that era. Nevermind that part is ancillary to the central story. Just pointing out that this warping of views to suit the wealthy has been going on a long time.

kaonashi 7y ago

Biggest problem with unions in the US is they lack seats at the board, which allows management to treat them in a very adversarial manner with no formal means for pushback.