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Whenever unions are mentioned on HN there always seems to be a coordinated effort to attack them in the comments, very interesting.

alecb 6y ago
A total coincidence that 15 FWD: FWD: UNIon RUInEd My Life stories immediately dominate the conversation whenever a story like this hits the front page.
- wnevets 6y ago
  Yes I too used to belong to a scary union. I was forced pay dues and there was this bad employee that didn't get fired! Now at my non-union job we only have the best employees and managers because we are allowed to fire the bad ones.
csb6 6y ago
Yeah, it’s discouraging. But Hacker News is a place for capitalists (self-identified) or wannabe capitalists to hold discussions, and the site is run by a venture capital firm, so makes sense. Still discouraging to see the lack of education HNers have on unions. Maybe ignorance is a better word.
- umvi 6y ago
  > Still discouraging to see the lack of education HNers have on unions. Maybe ignorance is a better word. In theory unions are great. In practice America's implementation of unions end up as a crappy caricature of the theoretical one and are nothing like their European counterparts.
  - csb6 6y ago
    Maybe recently, with many American unions struggling just to survive, but historically (in the late 1800s to middle 1900s) American unions have been incredibly effective and pioneering.
    - umvi 6y ago
      > but historically (in the late 1800s to middle 1900s) American unions have been incredibly effective So basically unions were good for ~50 years until the Mafia infiltrated the Teamsters?
      - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
        Unions in the western world in the post-war period made historical compromises with industry that helped contribute to 30-40 years of relative labour peace and high middle class prosperity. They purged communists and other radicals from their ranks, took anti-Soviet positions, and adopted cooperative and conciliatory bargaining positions that gained higher pay and job security by dropping some of the more classic demands of shopfloor control and political change. As a result unions started to look more like guilds than classic unions, they became managerial organizations like the businesses they were attached to, and they often lost legitimacy with their own memberships as a result. When the economy started to contract in the 70s they weren't in a good position to fight, and their influence waned. And when the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 80s they lost any kind of bargaining position -- nobody was afraid of the reds anymore, so they didn't need the unions or social democrats or Keynesian liberals to pacify the population and stomp out communist sympathy.
- dencodev 6y ago
  It's less about education, and more about "fuck you got mine" for a website full of engineers whose average salary is probably 6x that of the average American
  - csb6 6y ago
    It’s partially self-interest, true, but speaking for Americans, there really is no widespread, institutional education on what labor unions are or do, and what benefits they can bring. Most people simply don’t think about them or believe whatever their employers’ PSAs tell them to believe because no one else ever talks about labor organizing to them.
    - cactus2093 6y ago
      You're talking about union education as if it's equivalent to mathematics or something, like there is an absolute truth to be learned. Surely even the most pro-union people would acknowledge that not every implementation of a union is equivalent? And that some have caused harm? I would say I'm union agnostic, I'm not against them but I have about the same amount of faith that a union will improve things in a given situation as that the government will. Both are supposed to be a representation of the people, run by the people, and both are often too bogged down by bureaucracy and power seeking to actually do anything constructive. Sure there are great historical examples of unions accomplishing great things, just are there are great historical examples of governments passing landmark laws, but neither of those guarantees that these institutions will do the right thing in any future scenario. And to the extent that I am going to put trust in one of these institutions, I'd rather choose the government. I'd rather see, for instance, healthcare given as a right to every citizen, than healthcare given to employees in just one industry. And in fact, unions have been some of the strongest opponents of medicare for all initiatives in the US in recent years. They've already negotiated good healthcare benefits for their members and they don't want everyone else who's not a member to get it too. This kind of "us vs them" incentive system doesn't appeal to me. And more fundamentally, I strongly believe that a lot of basic things (again, like healthcare, or disability insurance, or the ability to invest in a retirement account) should be much less coupled to employment than they are today, and unions are a force in the opposite direction.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  I think it's maybe a bit more subtle. In our industry there's what I call the "California Ideology" (after the classic essay: https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideo... which is a bit dated but still stands the test of time) At one point this perspective was fairly counter cultural -- computing technology fused with Alvin Toffleresque third wavism, a tinge of libertarianism but without a suit and tie, some LSD, some cyberpunk, wear jeans to work, "change the world", etc. But that sheen is increasingly wearing off. The reality under the surface dressing is we are part of an industry with deep military ties, and it doesn't matter if you wear jeans to work and get vegan treats in the cafe, there's nothing particularly radical about computing technology and while we're "changing the world" it's really not in any egalitarian or progressive way. We're part of a semi-managerial class that is doing on the whole pretty damn well financially, but there's no reason to expect that to last forever. A lot of us ran around saying "information wants to be free" in the 90s and so on, it looked a bit naive to me then, but now it just looks comical and sad.
  - cactus2093 6y ago
    > and while we're "changing the world" it's really not in any egalitarian or progressive way There is a good argument to be made that increasing the GDP is a moral imperative [0]. I know it's increasingly trendy to think all of capitalism is evil and we should tear the whole global economic system down (and to tweet about it from your iPhone while sitting in your air conditioned home, eating your meal delivered by Doordash). As much as it is true that inequality is higher than it should be, and there are lots of things in the world that should be improved, it's also true that for the vast majority of people in the US and around the world, their living conditions today are much better than they would have been at any other time in history. Which is the simple result of compounding economic growth. Talking about "changing the world" by building an app sounds a bit quaint and too self-serious these days, but I really don't think it's true that the average person working in tech contributes nothing positive to society. [0] https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/essays/economic-growth-moral-imperative https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/essays/economic-growth-moral...
    - 6y ago
- Strang 6y ago
  Well-informed, good-faith disagreement is possible on a range of topics, including this one.
  - grecy 6y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly, though I'm not seeing much disagreement or discussion, I'm just seeing downvotes on any comment that even suggests the remote possibility unions might actually be a good thing.
umvi 6y ago
Maybe because a lot of people on HN are small business owners, and unions take power away from business owners and can and will force you to do things to the detriment of your business if they deem it in the best interests of the union members.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  The vast majority of people on HN are people who need to work to eat and keep a roof over their heads, and the companies they work for take power away from them, and will force them to do things to the detriment of themselves if it's deemed in the best interests of the company. A union is a company that represents the interests of workers in the same way that a company is an entity that represents the interests of capitalists. Besides, many people on HN work for tech companies like Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm or eBay, all of which were found guilty of colluding[1] to keep engineer salary below market value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    That lawsuit didn’t require unions, though. If anything, it’s a great example of how our industry can overcome these issues without unionization. People tend to forget that unions represent the existing employees, not aspiring hires. This can actually work to the detriment of juniors and newcomers to the industry. It can also work to the detriment of teams where it becomes intensely difficult to fire people who are legitimately underperforming. The public school unions keeping bad teachers on the payroll but keeping them idle in empty rooms is a prime example. Police unions defending bad cops is another very relevant example. If you’re an aspiring teacher or police officer with motivation to do well, why should those union employees take a spot on the job that you could otherwise occupy and do better? Switching the rules of the game to favor seniority doesn’t benefit people who rank low on the seniority ladder.
    - supercollision 6y ago
      One lawsuit was a Department of Justice antitrust investigation (quickly settled) that required a bunch of lawyers, discovery, and having the conduct run up against the Sherman antitrust act. I think a tech union is very unlikely but would rather things get fixed before they get that far. My understanding is that the related civil class action suit recouped small fractions of estimated lost wages, though there's a lot of hand-waving there and both sides are going to wave their hands differently. I might be mistaken; this didn't affect me too much, and I most mostly just amused how incredibly afraid of Steve Jobs everyone was.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
I doubt it’s a conspiracy or organized comment ring. The popular narrative around unions is one of the employees versus their employer, but ultimately even the business’ customers or adjacent businesses end up paying some of the price. For an example that will probably hit home for many HN users, try asking your trade show team about dealing with unions. The restrictions imposed by unions on trade show attendees are unreal. We had to spend extra to use tool-free fasteners and pre-wire our booths to avoid trigger union regulations that only union employees could use certain tools and do certain wiring jobs on the trade show floor. The union even sent someone to watch us to ensure we weren’t using forbidden tools or wiring one year. If we did, they would send us a bill. Unions have their place, but it’s dishonest to suggest that anyone skeptical of union efforts doesn’t have valid reasons to oppose them.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  I guess you can't let people attach whatever willy nilly and trip the circuits or start a fire. Furthermore, that requirement is set by the trade show not the union right? Surely they take a share from the bills.
  - dantheman 6y ago
    It's clear you've never worked with a union if you think the rules make sense or if you think the tradeshow had any say in this activity.
- Avshalom 6y ago
  Which is to say the company made you guys do all the work instead of paying people to do it for you.
  - chmod600 6y ago
    I don't think money is the issue. For one thing, your company is paying you, so it's not like it's free labor. For another thing, it's often just easier to do stuff yourself. For some tiny job it takes less effort to just do it than it does to ask someone else, especially when there are all kinds of union rules. One task leads to another, and then you need to find someone else to do that job.
grecy 6y ago
The same happens whenever anything is discussed that would actually improve the lives of the very vast majority of Americans - healthcare improvements, UBI, tertiary education that isn't crippling debt, unions, better public transport, etc. There are extremely rich and powerful people who will sink hundreds of billions of dollars into making sure those things don't change. America is just so profitable the way it is.
refurb 6y ago
A couple possibilities: 1. There is a conspiracy to bad mouth unions to protect the capitalist class. 2. Unions have problems and people are expressing their opinions about those problems
- ausbah 6y ago
  with just how little power unions have in America, I'd wager it's more likely the former. especially in tech spaces
cscurmudgeon 6y ago
Because not all unions are angelic as they are portrayed in popular culture. I am a 34 year old immigrant from a country where unions are synonymous with both corruption and workers rights. US also has a similar history. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5181842 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=518184... Edit: downvoted for pointing out facts. Your downvotes won't change reality, as much as you think it does.
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  I don't understand this sentiment. Why is 1. an allegedly corrupt democratic institution that you personally have influence over which exists to fight for your rights a bigger problem than 2. a definitely corrupt authoritarian institution run by self-interested plutocrats that exists to squeeze as much free work out of you as possible?
ardy42 6y ago
> Whenever unions are mentioned on HN there always seems to be a coordinated effort to attack them in the comments, very interesting. I doubt it's a coordinated effort, it's just resident libertarians getting agitated by a concept they've been conditioned to fight against. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology
yibg 6y ago
Maybe a lot of people just have had negative interactions with unions.
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  Maybe a lot of people have been told nebulous negative union stories repeated over and over by big business.
  - yibg 6y ago
    Can't speak for other people, but my views are from personal experience. Granted low sample size of 2, but that's what I have to judge by.
- jackvalentine 6y ago
  Entirely possible, but also maybe people who have positive experiences with unions can't be bothered talking about them when the popular narrative of 'unions are bad' means they're inevitably going to have to defend them and explain every bad thing that has ever happened at or adjacent to a union. I'm a union member, but man do I think twice about ever commenting on anything to do with a union because of the huge negative wave that comes your way.
  - yibg 6y ago
    I for one would like to hear more about the positive experience. The narrative in the US tend to be polarized, and I do wish we can have a civil discussion on the merits and perspectives from both ends.
    - jackvalentine 6y ago
      The positive experience isn't drama filled :) We, along with other unions, negotiate a collective agreement with my employer and then do our jobs. The agreement is renegotiated every 3 years or so. If that's the end of it then we're happy. Industrial relations doesn't _have_ to be a fight to the death.
notJim 6y ago
I don't think there's coordination happening on HN necessarily. There is a very high degree of anti-union propaganda in the broader culture, and many have taken that propaganda on without considering or hearing much from the other side. None of the stuff people say about unions on HN is anything I haven't heard a million times in casual conversation with others.
DenisM 6y ago
From HN guidelines: Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 6y ago
There is lots of support for unions in HN comments. It may even be the majority position by a slight margin. (Police unions are an inverted special case right now.) https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=unions&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Of course it's not a coordinated effort, any more than the pro-union comments are coordinated. This is just a classic issue on which the community is divided. The temptation to see opposing views as inauthentic and manipulated is somehow irresistible to most people on the internet. I just wrote about this in a completely different context, but the same argument applies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24356300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24356300. This is why we have this site guideline: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- wnevets 6y ago
  After post has been out for a while there probably is a majority in support. However every single time I read the comments of these kind of threads the first several highly upvoted comments are almost always anti-union. Its not until the post has been on the front page for a while before the comments begin to turn. Do I have sciencily evidence? Nope. Could it be a confirmation bias or just a coincidence? Sure. However it seems to happen a lot.
  - dang 6y ago
    You may be running into the contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22%20objecti%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... If an article is about unions, the first round of objections is probably going to come from the "boo unions" contingent. Once those comments appear, a second wave of objections saying "wait a minute, unions have done good things" (or "I can't believe how anti-union these comments are!") would be expected. I don't know for sure if that's what's happening in the threads you're talking about but it kinda sounds like it might be.

alecb 6y ago

A total coincidence that 15 FWD: FWD: UNIon RUInEd My Life stories immediately dominate the conversation whenever a story like this hits the front page.

wnevets 6y ago
Yes I too used to belong to a scary union. I was forced pay dues and there was this bad employee that didn't get fired! Now at my non-union job we only have the best employees and managers because we are allowed to fire the bad ones.

csb6 6y ago

Yeah, it’s discouraging. But Hacker News is a place for capitalists (self-identified) or wannabe capitalists to hold discussions, and the site is run by a venture capital firm, so makes sense. Still discouraging to see the lack of education HNers have on unions. Maybe ignorance is a better word.

umvi 6y ago
> Still discouraging to see the lack of education HNers have on unions. Maybe ignorance is a better word. In theory unions are great. In practice America's implementation of unions end up as a crappy caricature of the theoretical one and are nothing like their European counterparts.
- csb6 6y ago
  Maybe recently, with many American unions struggling just to survive, but historically (in the late 1800s to middle 1900s) American unions have been incredibly effective and pioneering.
  - umvi 6y ago
    > but historically (in the late 1800s to middle 1900s) American unions have been incredibly effective So basically unions were good for ~50 years until the Mafia infiltrated the Teamsters?
    - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
      Unions in the western world in the post-war period made historical compromises with industry that helped contribute to 30-40 years of relative labour peace and high middle class prosperity. They purged communists and other radicals from their ranks, took anti-Soviet positions, and adopted cooperative and conciliatory bargaining positions that gained higher pay and job security by dropping some of the more classic demands of shopfloor control and political change. As a result unions started to look more like guilds than classic unions, they became managerial organizations like the businesses they were attached to, and they often lost legitimacy with their own memberships as a result. When the economy started to contract in the 70s they weren't in a good position to fight, and their influence waned. And when the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 80s they lost any kind of bargaining position -- nobody was afraid of the reds anymore, so they didn't need the unions or social democrats or Keynesian liberals to pacify the population and stomp out communist sympathy.
dencodev 6y ago
It's less about education, and more about "fuck you got mine" for a website full of engineers whose average salary is probably 6x that of the average American
- csb6 6y ago
  It’s partially self-interest, true, but speaking for Americans, there really is no widespread, institutional education on what labor unions are or do, and what benefits they can bring. Most people simply don’t think about them or believe whatever their employers’ PSAs tell them to believe because no one else ever talks about labor organizing to them.
  - cactus2093 6y ago
    You're talking about union education as if it's equivalent to mathematics or something, like there is an absolute truth to be learned. Surely even the most pro-union people would acknowledge that not every implementation of a union is equivalent? And that some have caused harm? I would say I'm union agnostic, I'm not against them but I have about the same amount of faith that a union will improve things in a given situation as that the government will. Both are supposed to be a representation of the people, run by the people, and both are often too bogged down by bureaucracy and power seeking to actually do anything constructive. Sure there are great historical examples of unions accomplishing great things, just are there are great historical examples of governments passing landmark laws, but neither of those guarantees that these institutions will do the right thing in any future scenario. And to the extent that I am going to put trust in one of these institutions, I'd rather choose the government. I'd rather see, for instance, healthcare given as a right to every citizen, than healthcare given to employees in just one industry. And in fact, unions have been some of the strongest opponents of medicare for all initiatives in the US in recent years. They've already negotiated good healthcare benefits for their members and they don't want everyone else who's not a member to get it too. This kind of "us vs them" incentive system doesn't appeal to me. And more fundamentally, I strongly believe that a lot of basic things (again, like healthcare, or disability insurance, or the ability to invest in a retirement account) should be much less coupled to employment than they are today, and unions are a force in the opposite direction.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
I think it's maybe a bit more subtle. In our industry there's what I call the "California Ideology" (after the classic essay: https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideo... which is a bit dated but still stands the test of time) At one point this perspective was fairly counter cultural -- computing technology fused with Alvin Toffleresque third wavism, a tinge of libertarianism but without a suit and tie, some LSD, some cyberpunk, wear jeans to work, "change the world", etc. But that sheen is increasingly wearing off. The reality under the surface dressing is we are part of an industry with deep military ties, and it doesn't matter if you wear jeans to work and get vegan treats in the cafe, there's nothing particularly radical about computing technology and while we're "changing the world" it's really not in any egalitarian or progressive way. We're part of a semi-managerial class that is doing on the whole pretty damn well financially, but there's no reason to expect that to last forever. A lot of us ran around saying "information wants to be free" in the 90s and so on, it looked a bit naive to me then, but now it just looks comical and sad.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  > and while we're "changing the world" it's really not in any egalitarian or progressive way There is a good argument to be made that increasing the GDP is a moral imperative [0]. I know it's increasingly trendy to think all of capitalism is evil and we should tear the whole global economic system down (and to tweet about it from your iPhone while sitting in your air conditioned home, eating your meal delivered by Doordash). As much as it is true that inequality is higher than it should be, and there are lots of things in the world that should be improved, it's also true that for the vast majority of people in the US and around the world, their living conditions today are much better than they would have been at any other time in history. Which is the simple result of compounding economic growth. Talking about "changing the world" by building an app sounds a bit quaint and too self-serious these days, but I really don't think it's true that the average person working in tech contributes nothing positive to society. [0] https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/essays/economic-growth-moral-imperative https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/essays/economic-growth-moral...
  - 6y ago
Strang 6y ago
Well-informed, good-faith disagreement is possible on a range of topics, including this one.
- grecy 6y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly, though I'm not seeing much disagreement or discussion, I'm just seeing downvotes on any comment that even suggests the remote possibility unions might actually be a good thing.

umvi 6y ago

Maybe because a lot of people on HN are small business owners, and unions take power away from business owners and can and will force you to do things to the detriment of your business if they deem it in the best interests of the union members.

heavyset_go 6y ago
The vast majority of people on HN are people who need to work to eat and keep a roof over their heads, and the companies they work for take power away from them, and will force them to do things to the detriment of themselves if it's deemed in the best interests of the company. A union is a company that represents the interests of workers in the same way that a company is an entity that represents the interests of capitalists. Besides, many people on HN work for tech companies like Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm or eBay, all of which were found guilty of colluding[1] to keep engineer salary below market value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  That lawsuit didn’t require unions, though. If anything, it’s a great example of how our industry can overcome these issues without unionization. People tend to forget that unions represent the existing employees, not aspiring hires. This can actually work to the detriment of juniors and newcomers to the industry. It can also work to the detriment of teams where it becomes intensely difficult to fire people who are legitimately underperforming. The public school unions keeping bad teachers on the payroll but keeping them idle in empty rooms is a prime example. Police unions defending bad cops is another very relevant example. If you’re an aspiring teacher or police officer with motivation to do well, why should those union employees take a spot on the job that you could otherwise occupy and do better? Switching the rules of the game to favor seniority doesn’t benefit people who rank low on the seniority ladder.
  - supercollision 6y ago
    One lawsuit was a Department of Justice antitrust investigation (quickly settled) that required a bunch of lawyers, discovery, and having the conduct run up against the Sherman antitrust act. I think a tech union is very unlikely but would rather things get fixed before they get that far. My understanding is that the related civil class action suit recouped small fractions of estimated lost wages, though there's a lot of hand-waving there and both sides are going to wave their hands differently. I might be mistaken; this didn't affect me too much, and I most mostly just amused how incredibly afraid of Steve Jobs everyone was.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

I doubt it’s a conspiracy or organized comment ring. The popular narrative around unions is one of the employees versus their employer, but ultimately even the business’ customers or adjacent businesses end up paying some of the price. For an example that will probably hit home for many HN users, try asking your trade show team about dealing with unions. The restrictions imposed by unions on trade show attendees are unreal. We had to spend extra to use tool-free fasteners and pre-wire our booths to avoid trigger union regulations that only union employees could use certain tools and do certain wiring jobs on the trade show floor. The union even sent someone to watch us to ensure we weren’t using forbidden tools or wiring one year. If we did, they would send us a bill. Unions have their place, but it’s dishonest to suggest that anyone skeptical of union efforts doesn’t have valid reasons to oppose them.

rightbyte 6y ago
I guess you can't let people attach whatever willy nilly and trip the circuits or start a fire. Furthermore, that requirement is set by the trade show not the union right? Surely they take a share from the bills.
- dantheman 6y ago
  It's clear you've never worked with a union if you think the rules make sense or if you think the tradeshow had any say in this activity.
Avshalom 6y ago
Which is to say the company made you guys do all the work instead of paying people to do it for you.
- chmod600 6y ago
  I don't think money is the issue. For one thing, your company is paying you, so it's not like it's free labor. For another thing, it's often just easier to do stuff yourself. For some tiny job it takes less effort to just do it than it does to ask someone else, especially when there are all kinds of union rules. One task leads to another, and then you need to find someone else to do that job.

grecy 6y ago

The same happens whenever anything is discussed that would actually improve the lives of the very vast majority of Americans - healthcare improvements, UBI, tertiary education that isn't crippling debt, unions, better public transport, etc. There are extremely rich and powerful people who will sink hundreds of billions of dollars into making sure those things don't change. America is just so profitable the way it is.

refurb 6y ago

A couple possibilities: 1. There is a conspiracy to bad mouth unions to protect the capitalist class. 2. Unions have problems and people are expressing their opinions about those problems

ausbah 6y ago
with just how little power unions have in America, I'd wager it's more likely the former. especially in tech spaces

cscurmudgeon 6y ago

Because not all unions are angelic as they are portrayed in popular culture. I am a 34 year old immigrant from a country where unions are synonymous with both corruption and workers rights. US also has a similar history. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5181842 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=518184... Edit: downvoted for pointing out facts. Your downvotes won't change reality, as much as you think it does.

hannasanarion 6y ago
I don't understand this sentiment. Why is 1. an allegedly corrupt democratic institution that you personally have influence over which exists to fight for your rights a bigger problem than 2. a definitely corrupt authoritarian institution run by self-interested plutocrats that exists to squeeze as much free work out of you as possible?

ardy42 6y ago

> Whenever unions are mentioned on HN there always seems to be a coordinated effort to attack them in the comments, very interesting. I doubt it's a coordinated effort, it's just resident libertarians getting agitated by a concept they've been conditioned to fight against. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology

yibg 6y ago

Maybe a lot of people just have had negative interactions with unions.

hannasanarion 6y ago
Maybe a lot of people have been told nebulous negative union stories repeated over and over by big business.
- yibg 6y ago
  Can't speak for other people, but my views are from personal experience. Granted low sample size of 2, but that's what I have to judge by.
jackvalentine 6y ago
Entirely possible, but also maybe people who have positive experiences with unions can't be bothered talking about them when the popular narrative of 'unions are bad' means they're inevitably going to have to defend them and explain every bad thing that has ever happened at or adjacent to a union. I'm a union member, but man do I think twice about ever commenting on anything to do with a union because of the huge negative wave that comes your way.
- yibg 6y ago
  I for one would like to hear more about the positive experience. The narrative in the US tend to be polarized, and I do wish we can have a civil discussion on the merits and perspectives from both ends.
  - jackvalentine 6y ago
    The positive experience isn't drama filled :) We, along with other unions, negotiate a collective agreement with my employer and then do our jobs. The agreement is renegotiated every 3 years or so. If that's the end of it then we're happy. Industrial relations doesn't _have_ to be a fight to the death.

notJim 6y ago

I don't think there's coordination happening on HN necessarily. There is a very high degree of anti-union propaganda in the broader culture, and many have taken that propaganda on without considering or hearing much from the other side. None of the stuff people say about unions on HN is anything I haven't heard a million times in casual conversation with others.

DenisM 6y ago

From HN guidelines: Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang 6y ago

There is lots of support for unions in HN comments. It may even be the majority position by a slight margin. (Police unions are an inverted special case right now.) https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=unions&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Of course it's not a coordinated effort, any more than the pro-union comments are coordinated. This is just a classic issue on which the community is divided. The temptation to see opposing views as inauthentic and manipulated is somehow irresistible to most people on the internet. I just wrote about this in a completely different context, but the same argument applies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24356300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24356300. This is why we have this site guideline: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

wnevets 6y ago
After post has been out for a while there probably is a majority in support. However every single time I read the comments of these kind of threads the first several highly upvoted comments are almost always anti-union. Its not until the post has been on the front page for a while before the comments begin to turn. Do I have sciencily evidence? Nope. Could it be a confirmation bias or just a coincidence? Sure. However it seems to happen a lot.
- dang 6y ago
  You may be running into the contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22%20objecti%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... If an article is about unions, the first round of objections is probably going to come from the "boo unions" contingent. Once those comments appear, a second wave of objections saying "wait a minute, unions have done good things" (or "I can't believe how anti-union these comments are!") would be expected. I don't know for sure if that's what's happening in the threads you're talking about but it kinda sounds like it might be.