7 ms·

Well, one problem that unions have had is that almost every non-monopoly whose workers they successfully organize seems to fall apart. It may just be a correlat

by nickff 7y ago

Well, one problem that unions have had is that almost every non-monopoly whose workers they successfully organize seems to fall apart. It may just be a correlation, but it is also possible that the unions are causing the failures.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
There is an obvious causal chain there. Companies in non-monopoly markets have to price competitively or lose customers. If unions are actually getting anything for their workers then they would be extracting more from the company than companies with non-union workers, but companies in competitive markets don't have thick margins to pay the difference with so they would have to raise prices, which makes them uncompetitive. This is not an argument in favor of monopolies, however, because unions can extract more from a monopoly but so can capitalists, and it all comes at the expense of the consumer, which is also you. It's better to make $2 and spend $2 than to make $3 and then have to spend $4 just to get the same stuff.
- Klinky 7y ago
  Typically it's not make $3 and spend $4, it could even be, make $3 and spend $2.01. Labor rate going up $1 doesn't mean unit price goes up $1.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    The entire price paid either goes to labor or capital, and most of it already goes to labor. If you pay 1% of the workers $3 instead of $2 then the price may only need to rise by $0.01, but then you're just taking $0.01 each from a hundred workers and giving it all to 1% of them. And what happens after you do that a hundred times? Meanwhile, again, introducing a monopoly increases the money that can be extracted from customers by labor but also by capital. So if you introduce a monopoly and it raises prices by $0.01 or $100 or whatever amount, and you're very lucky and labor gets 90% of the increase and capital only 10%, then on average workers have lost 10% of that amount. Because you still pay 100% of the price increase and then get less than 100% of it back. There are also taxes, which make it even worse -- you get paid $1 more, the government takes 25%, you go to buy the thing that costs $1 more (so capital is getting 0% of the money) but then you owe 8% of the $1 in sales tax, and you've now lost a third of the money you used to have to Uncle Sam so they can give it to Bank of America and Halliburton.
    - Klinky 7y ago
      I don't get your toy examples. It seems you're assuming laborers can only consume the products they produce? That's not how an economy works, and affordability also depends on need and scalability. What happens when you don't increase labor rates, but keep increasing prices anyways? Maybe this is less about increasing prices and more about capital needing to decrease their share.
    - benibela 7y ago
      >but then you owe 8% of the $1 in sales tax, and you've now lost a third of the money you used to have to Uncle Sam so they can give it to Bank of America and Halliburton. Sounds like a good argument for universal basic income
- acituan 7y ago
  That causal chain only works in perfect competition where prices are convergent with marginal cost. In real market conditions perfect competition doesn't exist just as perfect monopolies are rare. Google and Apple are competing on selling phones, Google and Facebook are competing on selling ads, yet all sit on billions of dollars of cash. I don't see their workers being able to "extract" more from their companies?
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > That causal chain only works in perfect competition where prices are convergent with marginal cost. In real market conditions perfect competition doesn't exist just as perfect monopolies are rare. Only "close enough" is required, not perfection. Sure, a union could negotiate a 1% raise without destroying most companies, but then they'd eat that amount in union dues and time value of doing paperwork etc. Meanwhile if they demand a 30% raise, that's more than the companies in a lot of industries could absorb. > Google and Apple are competing on selling phones, Google and Facebook are competing on selling ads, yet all sit on billions of dollars of cash. I don't see their workers being able to "extract" more from their companies? Are you not familiar with the level of compensation paid by these employers? They are also hardly exemplars of competitive markets. Think restaurants or farmers.
    - acituan 7y ago
      > They are also hardly exemplars of competitive markets. Yet in 2013 they found the necessity in colluding in no-poach wage suppression. > but then they'd eat that amount in union dues and time value of doing paperwork etc Finland has several software engineer unions. They still seem to be rather competitive both nationally and internationally.
      - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
        > Yet in 2013 they found the necessity in colluding in no-poach wage suppression. You find it unusual that companies in less competitive markets would collude? They're the only ones who can, because otherwise there are too many entities to coordinate. Yet another disadvantage of uncompetitive markets. > Finland has several software engineer unions. They still seem to be rather competitive both nationally and internationally. Finland has unions all over. They also have a different culture and different labor regulations. They're also not the first country that comes to mind as a place to hire software engineers.
acituan 7y ago
Let's assume your premise is correct. Then it could also mean that there hasn't been any working combination of capital and labor that didn't depend on labor being exploited. I don't believe this to be the case, but your assertion actually validates the necessity of labor unions, not undermines them.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Your assumption is that all non-union labor is being exploited.
  - acituan 7y ago
    That's not my assumption, as I explicitly stated. I wanted to show the possibility of a union-favorable explanation of the OPs premise. In case you are curious about my actual assumption; I think there are a lot of externalities that are not priced-in in the contract, which will naturally favor the more organized side, which happens to be capital than labor most of the time. I don't know if exploitation is necessarily the right adjective for every case, but I believe there is a large potential for asymmetry in untracked disutility an individual can get out a transaction with their employer.
    - creddit 7y ago
      Huh? If you aren't assuming that then how does this fall out: "Then it could also mean that there hasn't been any working combination of capital and labor that didn't depend on labor being exploited." Is it not your assumption because of the so-called weasel words "could mean"??
      - lazyasciiart 7y ago
        No, because they already rejected the premise that came before "Then"
        creddit 7y ago
myspider 7y ago
An obvious problem was offshoring and arguably the unions contributed to that by making US manufacturing more expensive. Every so often someone suggests that software engineers should unionize. Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I think that it would be the best thing that ever happened to Bangalore. I worry about all our jobs ending up in Bangalore eventually, I'm just hoping I can make it to retirement before that happens.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  What about international worker's unions?
  - myspider 7y ago
    That is hard to imagine. If the site I've linked below is accurate, the average salary of a SW engineer in Bangalore is $20k. Glassdoor says the average salary in Silicon Valley is $112. ( which seems low to me ) Even with COL adjustments I'm not sure how you'd get both sides to agree on a 'fair' amount. https://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/bangalore-india https://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/bangalore-india
klyrs 7y ago
I'd like to see some evidence on that because your claim seems baseless. Look at actors, screenwriters, and musicians. These fine folk have been gig workers since before the term "gig workers" was coined. They belong to guilds, not unions, but the difference is semantic. There's no monopoly, and the industry is ticking along just fine. There are tons of unions you've probably never heard of. TAs at your local university -- is your local university a monopoly? No. Costco isn't falling apart -- is it a monopoly? No, they compete with walmart, amazon, etc and show no signs of slowing down. Boeing -- awkward; bad management, not the union, is to blame for that downfall. Longshoremen -- no monopoly there, and no signs of business drying up. I could keep listing examples, but do you have data or just a hunch?
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  How about the UAW? Bad management as well?

by nickff 7y ago

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

There is an obvious causal chain there. Companies in non-monopoly markets have to price competitively or lose customers. If unions are actually getting anything for their workers then they would be extracting more from the company than companies with non-union workers, but companies in competitive markets don't have thick margins to pay the difference with so they would have to raise prices, which makes them uncompetitive. This is not an argument in favor of monopolies, however, because unions can extract more from a monopoly but so can capitalists, and it all comes at the expense of the consumer, which is also you. It's better to make $2 and spend $2 than to make $3 and then have to spend $4 just to get the same stuff.

Klinky 7y ago
Typically it's not make $3 and spend $4, it could even be, make $3 and spend $2.01. Labor rate going up $1 doesn't mean unit price goes up $1.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  The entire price paid either goes to labor or capital, and most of it already goes to labor. If you pay 1% of the workers $3 instead of $2 then the price may only need to rise by $0.01, but then you're just taking $0.01 each from a hundred workers and giving it all to 1% of them. And what happens after you do that a hundred times? Meanwhile, again, introducing a monopoly increases the money that can be extracted from customers by labor but also by capital. So if you introduce a monopoly and it raises prices by $0.01 or $100 or whatever amount, and you're very lucky and labor gets 90% of the increase and capital only 10%, then on average workers have lost 10% of that amount. Because you still pay 100% of the price increase and then get less than 100% of it back. There are also taxes, which make it even worse -- you get paid $1 more, the government takes 25%, you go to buy the thing that costs $1 more (so capital is getting 0% of the money) but then you owe 8% of the $1 in sales tax, and you've now lost a third of the money you used to have to Uncle Sam so they can give it to Bank of America and Halliburton.
  - Klinky 7y ago
    I don't get your toy examples. It seems you're assuming laborers can only consume the products they produce? That's not how an economy works, and affordability also depends on need and scalability. What happens when you don't increase labor rates, but keep increasing prices anyways? Maybe this is less about increasing prices and more about capital needing to decrease their share.
  - benibela 7y ago
    >but then you owe 8% of the $1 in sales tax, and you've now lost a third of the money you used to have to Uncle Sam so they can give it to Bank of America and Halliburton. Sounds like a good argument for universal basic income
acituan 7y ago
That causal chain only works in perfect competition where prices are convergent with marginal cost. In real market conditions perfect competition doesn't exist just as perfect monopolies are rare. Google and Apple are competing on selling phones, Google and Facebook are competing on selling ads, yet all sit on billions of dollars of cash. I don't see their workers being able to "extract" more from their companies?
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > That causal chain only works in perfect competition where prices are convergent with marginal cost. In real market conditions perfect competition doesn't exist just as perfect monopolies are rare. Only "close enough" is required, not perfection. Sure, a union could negotiate a 1% raise without destroying most companies, but then they'd eat that amount in union dues and time value of doing paperwork etc. Meanwhile if they demand a 30% raise, that's more than the companies in a lot of industries could absorb. > Google and Apple are competing on selling phones, Google and Facebook are competing on selling ads, yet all sit on billions of dollars of cash. I don't see their workers being able to "extract" more from their companies? Are you not familiar with the level of compensation paid by these employers? They are also hardly exemplars of competitive markets. Think restaurants or farmers.
  - acituan 7y ago
    > They are also hardly exemplars of competitive markets. Yet in 2013 they found the necessity in colluding in no-poach wage suppression. > but then they'd eat that amount in union dues and time value of doing paperwork etc Finland has several software engineer unions. They still seem to be rather competitive both nationally and internationally.
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > Yet in 2013 they found the necessity in colluding in no-poach wage suppression. You find it unusual that companies in less competitive markets would collude? They're the only ones who can, because otherwise there are too many entities to coordinate. Yet another disadvantage of uncompetitive markets. > Finland has several software engineer unions. They still seem to be rather competitive both nationally and internationally. Finland has unions all over. They also have a different culture and different labor regulations. They're also not the first country that comes to mind as a place to hire software engineers.

acituan 7y ago

Let's assume your premise is correct. Then it could also mean that there hasn't been any working combination of capital and labor that didn't depend on labor being exploited. I don't believe this to be the case, but your assertion actually validates the necessity of labor unions, not undermines them.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
Your assumption is that all non-union labor is being exploited.
- acituan 7y ago
  That's not my assumption, as I explicitly stated. I wanted to show the possibility of a union-favorable explanation of the OPs premise. In case you are curious about my actual assumption; I think there are a lot of externalities that are not priced-in in the contract, which will naturally favor the more organized side, which happens to be capital than labor most of the time. I don't know if exploitation is necessarily the right adjective for every case, but I believe there is a large potential for asymmetry in untracked disutility an individual can get out a transaction with their employer.
  - creddit 7y ago
    Huh? If you aren't assuming that then how does this fall out: "Then it could also mean that there hasn't been any working combination of capital and labor that didn't depend on labor being exploited." Is it not your assumption because of the so-called weasel words "could mean"??
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      No, because they already rejected the premise that came before "Then"
      - creddit 7y ago

myspider 7y ago

An obvious problem was offshoring and arguably the unions contributed to that by making US manufacturing more expensive. Every so often someone suggests that software engineers should unionize. Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I think that it would be the best thing that ever happened to Bangalore. I worry about all our jobs ending up in Bangalore eventually, I'm just hoping I can make it to retirement before that happens.

Apocryphon 7y ago
What about international worker's unions?
- myspider 7y ago
  That is hard to imagine. If the site I've linked below is accurate, the average salary of a SW engineer in Bangalore is $20k. Glassdoor says the average salary in Silicon Valley is $112. ( which seems low to me ) Even with COL adjustments I'm not sure how you'd get both sides to agree on a 'fair' amount. https://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/bangalore-india https://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/bangalore-india

klyrs 7y ago

I'd like to see some evidence on that because your claim seems baseless. Look at actors, screenwriters, and musicians. These fine folk have been gig workers since before the term "gig workers" was coined. They belong to guilds, not unions, but the difference is semantic. There's no monopoly, and the industry is ticking along just fine. There are tons of unions you've probably never heard of. TAs at your local university -- is your local university a monopoly? No. Costco isn't falling apart -- is it a monopoly? No, they compete with walmart, amazon, etc and show no signs of slowing down. Boeing -- awkward; bad management, not the union, is to blame for that downfall. Longshoremen -- no monopoly there, and no signs of business drying up. I could keep listing examples, but do you have data or just a hunch?

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
How about the UAW? Bad management as well?