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The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may

The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that Police unions may protect bad apples via union. Teachers unions may care more about teachers including bad ones then teaching kids. We had a famously terrible teacher at my school - unfirable - as kids we thought it was hilarious. As a parent now - not so cool. Non unionized schools seem to be coming up with innovate workaround during pandemic (outside / park / hiking classrooms etc). Absolutely horrendously drafted laws that make life miserable even for folks trying to do right (AB5, schools not allowed to keep reserves) that are union drafted, and require endless exceptions and modifications. Google employees unionizing and striking and walking out and otherwise throwing very highly paid fits over things that don't connect with average person. When you call what people have first hand experience of "propaganda" they may immediately will discount everything else you are saying. The real rule should be all poorly compensated folks paid $14/hr or less should automatically be in unions. That's where the real need is.

Frondo 6y ago
Just one comment on this: > Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.
- seibelj 6y ago
  The #1 concern with a school should be the children, not the teachers. Public schools bend-over-backwards to help the teachers over the students. Public schools have remained essentially unchanged for 120 years - one teacher divulging knowledge to a room of kids in silent observation. Nothing will change when unions are in control - they have absolutely no incentive.
  - maya24 6y ago
    That is a failure of the public education system not unions. It is not as if the governments are trying to push innovative teaching methods and investing more in public education especially for the underprivileged.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      There is pretty much zero chance of being elected to the public school board without the union endorsement.
      - Frondo 6y ago
        Untrue and a little absurd. I've personally known three people who got elected to their local school boards without any endorsements at all. They all had big families, literally just a lot of people knocking on doors evening after evening, no prior political experience even.
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    Non-union private schools can innovate at will, but so far it's not clear whether any of them have found a solution that works better than the one in place at public schools, while also satisfying the legal requirements put on public schools to accept all students, etc.
    - rileymat2 6y ago
      And unionized cannot? Maybe my children’s school is unique but the teaching there is radically different than my own. A couple of years ago there was endless complaints about new ways to teach math.
    - worik 6y ago
      Last I heard (twelve months ago) the results for "charter schools" were statistically no different than any other. There are anecdotes to support the point of view they are bad, and anecdotes to support that they are good. The source of funding does not seem to be the problem. The quantity of funding, definitely.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    It's a strange system we live in where teachers get fired at the drop of a hat for seemingly innocuous offenses like teaching evolution or breaking up a fight, while also being absolutely untouchable.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      That's because it's not "a system", schooling in the US is thousands of systems.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    You all realize half the reason we have "bad schools" is that families home lives have been falling apart for decades, and schools are the only government agency (except for maybe the police...) interfacting with those families on regular basis? That and hyperlocal funding. We can't like society as a whole fall part and expect schools to keep on performing well.
  - wrsh07 6y ago
    I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread. The teachers that I know work tirelessly, don't make very much money, and do literally everything they can to help students. This is doubly true during the past year when they've had to re work plans so that they work over zoom or in person. I think perhaps the point of friction is that all of this is true and the city can't afford to pay them more, so they get other concessions. I fundamentally disagree with your claim about lack of innovation - in a public high school 15 years ago your story doesn't ring true, much less seeing my friends who are teachers talking about lesson plans today.
    - moate 6y ago
      >>I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread. I mean, have you seen the American Education system? Millions of people thought Betsy Davos was a good idea. MILLIONS. The DOE under her tenure was basically a full on assault against public education in favor of charters/private schools. I've had hours-long, in-person arguments with people who are CONVINCED teachers have the easiest jobs on the planet and we pay them too much. Not to mention many HN commenters in general tend to strong pro-management stance which pushes them anti-union in general.
- Hickfang 6y ago
  > .. That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members .. That's just it, the union is there to represent the interests of the senior officers and no one else.
- KorematsuFred 6y ago
  > Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... Teachers union is easily one of the worst Unions in USA which has turned public education system into a wasteland of incompetent teachers protected at the expense of competent and unemployed. It has turned our education system into a soviet styled "jobs program for adults" instead of a schooling system for children. If Americans ever wanted an example of how much damage unions can do, look no further than Teachers union.
  - dimitrios1 6y ago
    And if you want the second best example, take a look at the MTA union. Rife with corruption for the union managers at the top, projects delayed by years to decades, cost overruns in the billions, etc. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
- aerosmile 6y ago
  The point that the OP is making is that the negative propaganda against unions is not just entirely made up, but also something that many people with kids in school have experienced first-hand. This does factor in when that same parent then goes to their workplace and is pitched to form/join a union. I am not saying they won't agree to it, but they might remember the negative aspects of dealing with the concept of a union in another aspect of their lives.
  - rileymat2 6y ago
    It is very rare that the best propaganda is made up. The best is true but incomplete, anecdotal in this case. To hold up it must be true, but misleading.
    - soperj 6y ago
      What are you basing this on? For years the Nazi went on and on about the Jews being the inferior race, about how it was science based, they indoctrinated the youth.
      - rileymat2 6y ago
        I don't particularly want to go on hate sites to find examples at this moment. But the gist is, there are statements that are not falsifiable, like that "inferior race" that is not fact, it is the conclusion, but it is not falsifiable easily because there is no clear metric being used for that judgment. If you look at U.S. race based hate sites that are easiest to find now, you will see things like accurate references to crime rates and such. The number is true, but it is missing all kinds of context and correlations and such. For example, I have seen many references to lower IQ scores for certain groups. There are many ways to interpret this, but the racists use it as evidence. The "number" is true. Also, the anecdotes they tell are largely true, but to pick and choose emotional one off examples is misleading. By warping "true" things, you maintain credibility. Look at some of the election stuff. For example, if someone said "They were bringing suitcases into the polling place" (I can't remember the exact details) There is video it is true, but it is not nefarious. But it takes a long time to rebuff the implication and explain proper procedure. Now, I may have overstated "best", because the best is emotional, and a lot of that is art, nothing to do with fact, and portrayal of the enemy. You see this in a lot of the Nazi imagery. It has nothing to do with facts, true or false.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  Maybe if student unions weren't a complete joke, the situation would improve. As it stands, teachers unions keep terrible teachers employed, against the interest of the students, while the students have no real representation or organization to provide balance by looking after student interests. My mother was a middleschool teacher when I was in highschool, and drove me to highschool in the morning. Because she was a teacher, she had to get there before the school obstensibly opened, which wasn't a problem for me or my brothers because the administration of the highschool was reasonable and let us sit quietly in the office until the school opened. A handful of other kids had this arrangement too. It worked fine until my junior year, when the teachers union decided to throw a hissy fit. The result of that was all students being made to stand outside in the cold until the school was officially open. The teachers Union said that allowing students into the building before school hours unfairly saddled them with more labor... never mind that we were all quietly sitting in the office receiving compliments from the secretaries for being well behaved.
  - grumple 6y ago
    > teachers unions keep terrible teachers employed Are there a bunch of would-be teachers clamoring for those jobs? I think the lack of desirability is what keeps terrible teachers employed. There also aren't great ways to measure how good someone is at teaching.
    - stretchcat 6y ago
      > Are there a bunch of would-be teachers clamoring for those jobs? Emphatically yes, particularly at nice well funded schools. I have numerous long-term friends who have become school teachers, many of then had to move quite a distance just to find schools with openings. Most states have teacher certification reciprocity with Pennsylvania, which gave them a leg up in this regard. Even so, searching for open positions was clearly stressful for them. But for them it was worth it; the work is rewarding and socially important. They like working with kids, and they like getting several months of vacation every year. There is no other job quite like it.
      - 6y ago
- Aunche 6y ago
  Teachers and police officers are public servants. If they want to bargain, they should be negotiating with the public, not government officials. Otherwise, it's just collusion.
  - dxdm 6y ago
    If not with government officials, i.e. the executive part of the system taking care of public concerns, how should they negotiate with "the public"?
    - Aunche 6y ago
      Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus. Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge, let alone approval. Government workers already have a lot of job security, so I don't think unions should be allowed to affect that. I do think that public servants have a right to negotiate safety and other technical issues without public approval.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus. Generally, they do require a vote of the appropriate governing body, with all the associated public information and opportunity for input that goes along with that. > Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge If true, its because taxpayers don’t actually care. Because if they did, even if they were too lazy to find out themselves, it would be too convenient a lever for opposition to whoever the current majority is in the relevant governing body to use with the public to unseat them to go unused.
        Aunche 6y ago
        > If true, its because taxpayers don’t actually care. They do care when they're forced to pay extra taxes to cover interest. Your average voter doesn't have time to audit their city's finances. Both the unions and public officials knew that public would not agree to tax hikes, so they decided to go with unfunded pensions instead. Even though it's technically transparent, they're still abusing an information asymmetry, much like pyramid schemes.
pwinnski 6y ago
Many/most supporters of unions argue that police should not be able to form or join unions. "Cops are not workers" is a common phrase I've seen.
- opinion-is-bad 6y ago
  Why only cops and not all public sector employees? I don’t see how you can make an argument that police work isn’t work.
  - spiznnx 6y ago
    The argument that cops are not workers, in a Marxist sense, is because they work to protect the interests of capital, rather than do "productive" work that is useful to the rest of the working class. It's not a broadly held view, even among communists.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      What a profoundly disconnected notion of what police do. Stopping violence and reckless behavior (e.g. driving drunk) has nothing to do with protecting the interests of capital.
    - _jal 6y ago
      Voting this down is nonsense. It is useful contextual information explaining why some people make the claims they do. The groupthink runs deep; people who don't even understand what they're downvoting. Sad.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      As a worker I appreciate the fact that when I was burgled a decade ago there was someone to call to inform about the burglary. I also very much appreciate the fact that "having police" (even vaguely, and even ineffective ones) is a pretty good deterrent to (most) random folks murdering other folks[1]. There is a hell of a lot wrong with American policing but they do productive work just like managers (that don't produce anything themselves) and HR and all the other "non-productives" people like to point out. I think it's perfectly fair to question just how much value police (and other "non-productives") are actually producing and a lot of businesses could do with trimming a bit of labour out of middle management - but there are reasons these jobs exist and they can add a lot to team and societal productivity. 1. I don't ascribe to theories on anarchist utopias where if everyone can kill everyone else no one does out of politeness, I've played Rust.
jariel 6y ago
Unions are like corporations - there is good and bad, benefits and drawbacks. One thing I've noticed, is that where 'new unions' are forming, there is' probably a good reason for it.
- underseacables 6y ago
  There is no good reason for it. Employees at top companies are forming unions because they think that will allow them to say whatever they want on the job, and if Google says no don’t talk about politics at work it creates tension and conflict, they will say sorry where are union you have to listen to us now. It’s spoiled, overpaid techies upset they can’t use work time to preach political and social issues.
  - tyre 6y ago
    Read anything about amazon working conditions.
  - jjulius 6y ago
    >There is no good reason for it. Employees at top companies are forming unions because they think that will allow them to say whatever they want on the job... It’s spoiled, overpaid techies upset they can’t use work time to preach political and social issues. ... you do realize you're making those broad, blanket statements in the comment thread of an article that's about the unionization of Amazon's warehouse workers who aren't "spoiled, overpaid techies", yes?
  - frakkingcylons 6y ago
    There are many people working at Google that are not full time employees. They are treated completely differently when it comes to their pay, sick leave, vacation, or even just certainty that they will have a job when their contract expires. The benefits for them from being unionized are a lot more important than you’re making them out to be.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I tend to agree, but the flipside is that we need trust the workers' judgment when a new union doesn't form. I see a troubling tendency among union organizers to assume that anyone who's thinking clearly would want to be in a union - if a unionization vote fails, that can only mean the company must have tricked or bullied people into casting the wrong vote.
underseacables 6y ago
Unions are awful. They come in the guise of protecting people, and protecting employees, but they quickly become a weapon against non union employees - if you don’t join the union can’t work here. Which pressures people to agree with union groupthink in order just to have a job. To hell with unions. All unions are bad.
- Thlom 6y ago
  How can the union stop the employer from hiring non-unionized workers?
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    In most union workplaces, one of the first contract demands is exclusivity, where the employer can only hire members. This is referred to as a " closed shop" [1] When a closed shop forms, works have a choice to join or leave. Some places allow non-union workers, but they must pay part of their salary to the union. This is called and "agency shop" [2] For example, if you become a police officer and do not choose to join the union, you must still pay fees which are spent by the union on political lobbying. I am generally pro union but think that all unions should be optional to the workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_shop https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-rights-book/chapter15-5.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-...
    - Frondo 6y ago
      Well, since the Taft-Hartley act of 1947 banned closed shops, I'm not sure that that's really the first of contract demands anymore, at least in the US.
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        You’re right, I mixed it up with union shop, which is very similar
pmoriarty 6y ago
The problem is when anecdotes about isolated abuses are used to reject unions outright rather than looking at whether unions as a whole would benefit society. You could argue from personal experience that you went to a bad school therefore all schools are bad, or you had a bad experience with <insert skin color, ethnicity, or religion> therefore all people of that sort are bad. It's just not very convincing.
- asdff 6y ago
  For every anecdote of an isolated case of union abuse, there are probably hundreds of unheard cases of corporations abusing their workers. But that doesn't matter for most people, simplistic logic says therefore all unions are bad and capable of corruption, and ignoring that most of the time, the status quo is far, far more exploitative for the average worker. Once again, perfect becomes the enemy of good, and conditions do not improve.
  - quandrum 6y ago
    Wage theft is the most common crime in the US, is estimated to occur to ~20% of all employees and equal tens of billions a year, and no one talks about it. How many union members do you think experience wage theft?
    - stretchcat 6y ago
      The US Department of Labor takes wage theft very seriously. If you report it to them, at no cost to yourself, they will investigate it and almost certainly scare your boss shitless so he'll never try it again. Probably they could do a better job of advertising this to workers. Many workers experiencing wage theft probably are not aware of their options, and that's a problem. But when used, it works. I've seen it work.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > The US Department of Labor takes wage theft very seriously. As, often, do state labor authorities.
ATsch 6y ago
I totally agree with your concerns about people being kept in their job for unjustified reasons. I think it's something we've all had experience with. At my first job, I had a horrible boss. A friend tried to speak up against him and was promptly fired. Turns out he was a relative of the CEO and was thus unfireable. Just a few weeks ago I also spoke to someone who told his experience of reporting someone for sexual harassment at a major tech company, just to learn that they were well aware of it but refused to do anything because of good performance. We should absolutely consider the role uninions can play regarding unfirable employees. Being able to push the company to get rid of them can have a huge impact on the well-being of workers.
- bluGill 6y ago
  If sexual harassment really exists a lawyer will be glad to help. Companies that don't take care of it end up in big trouble - to your lawyers advantage. Sexual harassment is one of several things that the legal system takes seriously.
  - ATsch 6y ago
    I think the fact that you read that message and this was your conclusion is kind of concerning. Either way getting a restraining order or whatever on someone you work with is definitely not going to improve your situation, if you can even prove it in the first place.
    - stretchcat 6y ago
      Surely the lawyer would be for pursuing a lawsuit, not a restraining order.
  - coffeemaniac 6y ago
    This is bad information. Certainly it can work out like this, but suing your employer in the US is very very difficult. Most tech workers have even signed away their right to do so via forced arbitration agreements. And even if you do, you're more likely to just waste your money pursuing the case (which a good attorney will tell you beforehand).
omegaworks 6y ago
Google employees walked out to protest the golden parachute offered to two serial sexual harassers on their executive team and the conditions that allowed people like them to rise consequence-free through the ranks at the company. That you believe it's a "fit" thrown for causes that "don't connect with the average person" is reflecting pretty poorly on your priorities. Nobody wants to believe your boss is skipping over you for promotions because you rejected their sexual advances.
- kortilla 6y ago
  The most recent drama was about a researcher having her quitting ultimatum called by a manager. It wasn’t anything to do with sexual harassment or anything about underpaid or unsafe workplaces.
  - omegaworks 6y ago
    Google has a white supremacy problem. The James Damore incident was a highly public display of that internal tension. It's a sign they have made little progress resolving it with the firing of Timnit Gebru, an eminently qualified data scientist that focused her work on that exact issue. A union is not just about how "highly paid" employees are, it can help protect employees from those kinds of institutional deficiencies.
    - tenpies 6y ago
      And this is the problem with the Google Union. The ideologies already commanding way too much of the discussion are going to be hyper-empowered by the union. By 2025 I imagine that if you Google "conservative" you'll instantly have all your Google Services wiped, get banned from the platform, and be reported to the Progressive Thought Technology Alliance Union, so that Twitter and AWS can do the same to you.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The most recent drama was about a researcher having her quitting ultimatum called by a manager. No, it wasn’t. Even to the extent that might be considered a superficially correct description of part of what happened, its not the center of the “drama”, which is more centrally about the treatment which led up to that.
deeeeplearning 6y ago
Ironically or perhaps not your entire comment reads like pure anti-union propaganda. Sure unions protect bad apples but it also protects decent people from being treated unfairly by employers who in this country have overwhelming power over their lives. Would you also throw out all welfare systems because a handful of people abuse the system?
biztos 6y ago
> Police unions may protect bad apples via union. I think it's pretty clear that at least some police unions work strongly against the interests of society -- but I haven't seen any evidence that they work against the interests of their members. Sure, if you're an honest cop it probably stings that a murderer can collect his pension like nothing happened; but on the other hand, you know the same protection would be available to you if you were accused. Or consider that, famously, the NYPD doesn't consider itself beholden to the Mayor. I can't believe that attitude would work without the union. And the unions can also very publicly take political positions that are contrary to their employers' or even the majority of the citizenry -- which looks to me like a serious demonstration of power. At least in the case of police unions in the US, I can't see how they are a negative example from the point of view of people who might end up as union members.
konjin 6y ago
How are any of those things bad? You need to look after your interests first. Your anecdotes do that. It's not your job to make sure everyone has a "fair" life. You job is to make sure you get as much as you can. That's what capitalism is.
conanbatt 6y ago
> The real rule should be all poorly compensated folks paid $14/hr or less should automatically be in unions. That's where the real need is. This way they get to be compensated at 12/hr
tehjoker 6y ago
All workers should be in unions. With few exceptions, workers collaborating forms the basis of their power vs management. Management has money and the ability to wait out vs an individual that needs a job. Only groups of employees can successfully negotiate for major concessions outside of rare circumstances. An older tradition that would be even better is unionization on an industrial/sectoral scale so you don't even need to unionize your current workplace and workers across the industry can enforce demands. Your politicians do nothing, your bosses do nothing. What do you have to lose? Fight for what you need together.
- dumbfoundded 6y ago
  Unions are absolutely necessary but I think the situation is more complicated. From the perspective of the company, dealing with unions is expensive and time consuming. It'd be better just to give employees fair benefits and pay without dealing with a union. But if there's no union, only the threat of unionization incentivizes actually following through. Similarly for workers, no one wants to have to work harder to be treated fairly along with paying the overhead of unionization. What you end up with is an unstable equilibrium for the creation and destruction of unions.
- slantaclaus 6y ago
  “All workers should be in unions”: as the owner of a business with 2 employees, I respectfully disagree.
ardy42 6y ago
> The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that That's like arguing against private business by citing anecdotes about people's direct experiences with car dealerships and Comcast.
Dma54rhs 6y ago
Schools have been kept and are largely opened during the pandemic in Europe. I think the common understand is that kids need to go to school, there's no way around it.
galfarragem 6y ago
After summing all factors unions are still a positive influence. It's undeniable that sectors with strong unions provide better working conditions to employees than comparable sectors without unions.

Frondo 6y ago

Just one comment on this: > Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.

seibelj 6y ago
The #1 concern with a school should be the children, not the teachers. Public schools bend-over-backwards to help the teachers over the students. Public schools have remained essentially unchanged for 120 years - one teacher divulging knowledge to a room of kids in silent observation. Nothing will change when unions are in control - they have absolutely no incentive.
- maya24 6y ago
  That is a failure of the public education system not unions. It is not as if the governments are trying to push innovative teaching methods and investing more in public education especially for the underprivileged.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    There is pretty much zero chance of being elected to the public school board without the union endorsement.
    - Frondo 6y ago
      Untrue and a little absurd. I've personally known three people who got elected to their local school boards without any endorsements at all. They all had big families, literally just a lot of people knocking on doors evening after evening, no prior political experience even.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  Non-union private schools can innovate at will, but so far it's not clear whether any of them have found a solution that works better than the one in place at public schools, while also satisfying the legal requirements put on public schools to accept all students, etc.
  - rileymat2 6y ago
    And unionized cannot? Maybe my children’s school is unique but the teaching there is radically different than my own. A couple of years ago there was endless complaints about new ways to teach math.
  - worik 6y ago
    Last I heard (twelve months ago) the results for "charter schools" were statistically no different than any other. There are anecdotes to support the point of view they are bad, and anecdotes to support that they are good. The source of funding does not seem to be the problem. The quantity of funding, definitely.
- jandrese 6y ago
  It's a strange system we live in where teachers get fired at the drop of a hat for seemingly innocuous offenses like teaching evolution or breaking up a fight, while also being absolutely untouchable.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    That's because it's not "a system", schooling in the US is thousands of systems.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  You all realize half the reason we have "bad schools" is that families home lives have been falling apart for decades, and schools are the only government agency (except for maybe the police...) interfacting with those families on regular basis? That and hyperlocal funding. We can't like society as a whole fall part and expect schools to keep on performing well.
- wrsh07 6y ago
  I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread. The teachers that I know work tirelessly, don't make very much money, and do literally everything they can to help students. This is doubly true during the past year when they've had to re work plans so that they work over zoom or in person. I think perhaps the point of friction is that all of this is true and the city can't afford to pay them more, so they get other concessions. I fundamentally disagree with your claim about lack of innovation - in a public high school 15 years ago your story doesn't ring true, much less seeing my friends who are teachers talking about lesson plans today.
  - moate 6y ago
    >>I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread. I mean, have you seen the American Education system? Millions of people thought Betsy Davos was a good idea. MILLIONS. The DOE under her tenure was basically a full on assault against public education in favor of charters/private schools. I've had hours-long, in-person arguments with people who are CONVINCED teachers have the easiest jobs on the planet and we pay them too much. Not to mention many HN commenters in general tend to strong pro-management stance which pushes them anti-union in general.
Hickfang 6y ago
> .. That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members .. That's just it, the union is there to represent the interests of the senior officers and no one else.
KorematsuFred 6y ago
> Teachers unions may care more about teachers ... Teachers union is easily one of the worst Unions in USA which has turned public education system into a wasteland of incompetent teachers protected at the expense of competent and unemployed. It has turned our education system into a soviet styled "jobs program for adults" instead of a schooling system for children. If Americans ever wanted an example of how much damage unions can do, look no further than Teachers union.
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  And if you want the second best example, take a look at the MTA union. Rife with corruption for the union managers at the top, projects delayed by years to decades, cost overruns in the billions, etc. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
aerosmile 6y ago
The point that the OP is making is that the negative propaganda against unions is not just entirely made up, but also something that many people with kids in school have experienced first-hand. This does factor in when that same parent then goes to their workplace and is pitched to form/join a union. I am not saying they won't agree to it, but they might remember the negative aspects of dealing with the concept of a union in another aspect of their lives.
- rileymat2 6y ago
  It is very rare that the best propaganda is made up. The best is true but incomplete, anecdotal in this case. To hold up it must be true, but misleading.
  - soperj 6y ago
    What are you basing this on? For years the Nazi went on and on about the Jews being the inferior race, about how it was science based, they indoctrinated the youth.
    - rileymat2 6y ago
      I don't particularly want to go on hate sites to find examples at this moment. But the gist is, there are statements that are not falsifiable, like that "inferior race" that is not fact, it is the conclusion, but it is not falsifiable easily because there is no clear metric being used for that judgment. If you look at U.S. race based hate sites that are easiest to find now, you will see things like accurate references to crime rates and such. The number is true, but it is missing all kinds of context and correlations and such. For example, I have seen many references to lower IQ scores for certain groups. There are many ways to interpret this, but the racists use it as evidence. The "number" is true. Also, the anecdotes they tell are largely true, but to pick and choose emotional one off examples is misleading. By warping "true" things, you maintain credibility. Look at some of the election stuff. For example, if someone said "They were bringing suitcases into the polling place" (I can't remember the exact details) There is video it is true, but it is not nefarious. But it takes a long time to rebuff the implication and explain proper procedure. Now, I may have overstated "best", because the best is emotional, and a lot of that is art, nothing to do with fact, and portrayal of the enemy. You see this in a lot of the Nazi imagery. It has nothing to do with facts, true or false.
stretchcat 6y ago
Maybe if student unions weren't a complete joke, the situation would improve. As it stands, teachers unions keep terrible teachers employed, against the interest of the students, while the students have no real representation or organization to provide balance by looking after student interests. My mother was a middleschool teacher when I was in highschool, and drove me to highschool in the morning. Because she was a teacher, she had to get there before the school obstensibly opened, which wasn't a problem for me or my brothers because the administration of the highschool was reasonable and let us sit quietly in the office until the school opened. A handful of other kids had this arrangement too. It worked fine until my junior year, when the teachers union decided to throw a hissy fit. The result of that was all students being made to stand outside in the cold until the school was officially open. The teachers Union said that allowing students into the building before school hours unfairly saddled them with more labor... never mind that we were all quietly sitting in the office receiving compliments from the secretaries for being well behaved.
- grumple 6y ago
  > teachers unions keep terrible teachers employed Are there a bunch of would-be teachers clamoring for those jobs? I think the lack of desirability is what keeps terrible teachers employed. There also aren't great ways to measure how good someone is at teaching.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    > Are there a bunch of would-be teachers clamoring for those jobs? Emphatically yes, particularly at nice well funded schools. I have numerous long-term friends who have become school teachers, many of then had to move quite a distance just to find schools with openings. Most states have teacher certification reciprocity with Pennsylvania, which gave them a leg up in this regard. Even so, searching for open positions was clearly stressful for them. But for them it was worth it; the work is rewarding and socially important. They like working with kids, and they like getting several months of vacation every year. There is no other job quite like it.
    - 6y ago
Aunche 6y ago
Teachers and police officers are public servants. If they want to bargain, they should be negotiating with the public, not government officials. Otherwise, it's just collusion.
- dxdm 6y ago
  If not with government officials, i.e. the executive part of the system taking care of public concerns, how should they negotiate with "the public"?
  - Aunche 6y ago
    Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus. Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge, let alone approval. Government workers already have a lot of job security, so I don't think unions should be allowed to affect that. I do think that public servants have a right to negotiate safety and other technical issues without public approval.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus. Generally, they do require a vote of the appropriate governing body, with all the associated public information and opportunity for input that goes along with that. > Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge If true, its because taxpayers don’t actually care. Because if they did, even if they were too lazy to find out themselves, it would be too convenient a lever for opposition to whoever the current majority is in the relevant governing body to use with the public to unseat them to go unused.
      - Aunche 6y ago
        > If true, its because taxpayers don’t actually care. They do care when they're forced to pay extra taxes to cover interest. Your average voter doesn't have time to audit their city's finances. Both the unions and public officials knew that public would not agree to tax hikes, so they decided to go with unfunded pensions instead. Even though it's technically transparent, they're still abusing an information asymmetry, much like pyramid schemes.

pwinnski 6y ago

Many/most supporters of unions argue that police should not be able to form or join unions. "Cops are not workers" is a common phrase I've seen.

opinion-is-bad 6y ago
Why only cops and not all public sector employees? I don’t see how you can make an argument that police work isn’t work.
- spiznnx 6y ago
  The argument that cops are not workers, in a Marxist sense, is because they work to protect the interests of capital, rather than do "productive" work that is useful to the rest of the working class. It's not a broadly held view, even among communists.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    What a profoundly disconnected notion of what police do. Stopping violence and reckless behavior (e.g. driving drunk) has nothing to do with protecting the interests of capital.
  - _jal 6y ago
    Voting this down is nonsense. It is useful contextual information explaining why some people make the claims they do. The groupthink runs deep; people who don't even understand what they're downvoting. Sad.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    As a worker I appreciate the fact that when I was burgled a decade ago there was someone to call to inform about the burglary. I also very much appreciate the fact that "having police" (even vaguely, and even ineffective ones) is a pretty good deterrent to (most) random folks murdering other folks[1]. There is a hell of a lot wrong with American policing but they do productive work just like managers (that don't produce anything themselves) and HR and all the other "non-productives" people like to point out. I think it's perfectly fair to question just how much value police (and other "non-productives") are actually producing and a lot of businesses could do with trimming a bit of labour out of middle management - but there are reasons these jobs exist and they can add a lot to team and societal productivity. 1. I don't ascribe to theories on anarchist utopias where if everyone can kill everyone else no one does out of politeness, I've played Rust.

jariel 6y ago

Unions are like corporations - there is good and bad, benefits and drawbacks. One thing I've noticed, is that where 'new unions' are forming, there is' probably a good reason for it.

underseacables 6y ago
There is no good reason for it. Employees at top companies are forming unions because they think that will allow them to say whatever they want on the job, and if Google says no don’t talk about politics at work it creates tension and conflict, they will say sorry where are union you have to listen to us now. It’s spoiled, overpaid techies upset they can’t use work time to preach political and social issues.
- tyre 6y ago
  Read anything about amazon working conditions.
- jjulius 6y ago
  >There is no good reason for it. Employees at top companies are forming unions because they think that will allow them to say whatever they want on the job... It’s spoiled, overpaid techies upset they can’t use work time to preach political and social issues. ... you do realize you're making those broad, blanket statements in the comment thread of an article that's about the unionization of Amazon's warehouse workers who aren't "spoiled, overpaid techies", yes?
- frakkingcylons 6y ago
  There are many people working at Google that are not full time employees. They are treated completely differently when it comes to their pay, sick leave, vacation, or even just certainty that they will have a job when their contract expires. The benefits for them from being unionized are a lot more important than you’re making them out to be.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I tend to agree, but the flipside is that we need trust the workers' judgment when a new union doesn't form. I see a troubling tendency among union organizers to assume that anyone who's thinking clearly would want to be in a union - if a unionization vote fails, that can only mean the company must have tricked or bullied people into casting the wrong vote.

underseacables 6y ago

Unions are awful. They come in the guise of protecting people, and protecting employees, but they quickly become a weapon against non union employees - if you don’t join the union can’t work here. Which pressures people to agree with union groupthink in order just to have a job. To hell with unions. All unions are bad.

Thlom 6y ago
How can the union stop the employer from hiring non-unionized workers?
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  In most union workplaces, one of the first contract demands is exclusivity, where the employer can only hire members. This is referred to as a " closed shop" [1] When a closed shop forms, works have a choice to join or leave. Some places allow non-union workers, but they must pay part of their salary to the union. This is called and "agency shop" [2] For example, if you become a police officer and do not choose to join the union, you must still pay fees which are spent by the union on political lobbying. I am generally pro union but think that all unions should be optional to the workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_shop https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-rights-book/chapter15-5.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-...
  - Frondo 6y ago
    Well, since the Taft-Hartley act of 1947 banned closed shops, I'm not sure that that's really the first of contract demands anymore, at least in the US.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      You’re right, I mixed it up with union shop, which is very similar

pmoriarty 6y ago

The problem is when anecdotes about isolated abuses are used to reject unions outright rather than looking at whether unions as a whole would benefit society. You could argue from personal experience that you went to a bad school therefore all schools are bad, or you had a bad experience with <insert skin color, ethnicity, or religion> therefore all people of that sort are bad. It's just not very convincing.

asdff 6y ago
For every anecdote of an isolated case of union abuse, there are probably hundreds of unheard cases of corporations abusing their workers. But that doesn't matter for most people, simplistic logic says therefore all unions are bad and capable of corruption, and ignoring that most of the time, the status quo is far, far more exploitative for the average worker. Once again, perfect becomes the enemy of good, and conditions do not improve.
- quandrum 6y ago
  Wage theft is the most common crime in the US, is estimated to occur to ~20% of all employees and equal tens of billions a year, and no one talks about it. How many union members do you think experience wage theft?
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    The US Department of Labor takes wage theft very seriously. If you report it to them, at no cost to yourself, they will investigate it and almost certainly scare your boss shitless so he'll never try it again. Probably they could do a better job of advertising this to workers. Many workers experiencing wage theft probably are not aware of their options, and that's a problem. But when used, it works. I've seen it work.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > The US Department of Labor takes wage theft very seriously. As, often, do state labor authorities.

ATsch 6y ago

I totally agree with your concerns about people being kept in their job for unjustified reasons. I think it's something we've all had experience with. At my first job, I had a horrible boss. A friend tried to speak up against him and was promptly fired. Turns out he was a relative of the CEO and was thus unfireable. Just a few weeks ago I also spoke to someone who told his experience of reporting someone for sexual harassment at a major tech company, just to learn that they were well aware of it but refused to do anything because of good performance. We should absolutely consider the role uninions can play regarding unfirable employees. Being able to push the company to get rid of them can have a huge impact on the well-being of workers.

bluGill 6y ago
If sexual harassment really exists a lawyer will be glad to help. Companies that don't take care of it end up in big trouble - to your lawyers advantage. Sexual harassment is one of several things that the legal system takes seriously.
- ATsch 6y ago
  I think the fact that you read that message and this was your conclusion is kind of concerning. Either way getting a restraining order or whatever on someone you work with is definitely not going to improve your situation, if you can even prove it in the first place.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    Surely the lawyer would be for pursuing a lawsuit, not a restraining order.
- coffeemaniac 6y ago
  This is bad information. Certainly it can work out like this, but suing your employer in the US is very very difficult. Most tech workers have even signed away their right to do so via forced arbitration agreements. And even if you do, you're more likely to just waste your money pursuing the case (which a good attorney will tell you beforehand).

omegaworks 6y ago

Google employees walked out to protest the golden parachute offered to two serial sexual harassers on their executive team and the conditions that allowed people like them to rise consequence-free through the ranks at the company. That you believe it's a "fit" thrown for causes that "don't connect with the average person" is reflecting pretty poorly on your priorities. Nobody wants to believe your boss is skipping over you for promotions because you rejected their sexual advances.

kortilla 6y ago
The most recent drama was about a researcher having her quitting ultimatum called by a manager. It wasn’t anything to do with sexual harassment or anything about underpaid or unsafe workplaces.
- omegaworks 6y ago
  Google has a white supremacy problem. The James Damore incident was a highly public display of that internal tension. It's a sign they have made little progress resolving it with the firing of Timnit Gebru, an eminently qualified data scientist that focused her work on that exact issue. A union is not just about how "highly paid" employees are, it can help protect employees from those kinds of institutional deficiencies.
  - tenpies 6y ago
    And this is the problem with the Google Union. The ideologies already commanding way too much of the discussion are going to be hyper-empowered by the union. By 2025 I imagine that if you Google "conservative" you'll instantly have all your Google Services wiped, get banned from the platform, and be reported to the Progressive Thought Technology Alliance Union, so that Twitter and AWS can do the same to you.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The most recent drama was about a researcher having her quitting ultimatum called by a manager. No, it wasn’t. Even to the extent that might be considered a superficially correct description of part of what happened, its not the center of the “drama”, which is more centrally about the treatment which led up to that.

deeeeplearning 6y ago

Ironically or perhaps not your entire comment reads like pure anti-union propaganda. Sure unions protect bad apples but it also protects decent people from being treated unfairly by employers who in this country have overwhelming power over their lives. Would you also throw out all welfare systems because a handful of people abuse the system?

biztos 6y ago

> Police unions may protect bad apples via union. I think it's pretty clear that at least some police unions work strongly against the interests of society -- but I haven't seen any evidence that they work against the interests of their members. Sure, if you're an honest cop it probably stings that a murderer can collect his pension like nothing happened; but on the other hand, you know the same protection would be available to you if you were accused. Or consider that, famously, the NYPD doesn't consider itself beholden to the Mayor. I can't believe that attitude would work without the union. And the unions can also very publicly take political positions that are contrary to their employers' or even the majority of the citizenry -- which looks to me like a serious demonstration of power. At least in the case of police unions in the US, I can't see how they are a negative example from the point of view of people who might end up as union members.

konjin 6y ago

How are any of those things bad? You need to look after your interests first. Your anecdotes do that. It's not your job to make sure everyone has a "fair" life. You job is to make sure you get as much as you can. That's what capitalism is.

conanbatt 6y ago

> The real rule should be all poorly compensated folks paid $14/hr or less should automatically be in unions. That's where the real need is. This way they get to be compensated at 12/hr

tehjoker 6y ago

All workers should be in unions. With few exceptions, workers collaborating forms the basis of their power vs management. Management has money and the ability to wait out vs an individual that needs a job. Only groups of employees can successfully negotiate for major concessions outside of rare circumstances. An older tradition that would be even better is unionization on an industrial/sectoral scale so you don't even need to unionize your current workplace and workers across the industry can enforce demands. Your politicians do nothing, your bosses do nothing. What do you have to lose? Fight for what you need together.

dumbfoundded 6y ago
Unions are absolutely necessary but I think the situation is more complicated. From the perspective of the company, dealing with unions is expensive and time consuming. It'd be better just to give employees fair benefits and pay without dealing with a union. But if there's no union, only the threat of unionization incentivizes actually following through. Similarly for workers, no one wants to have to work harder to be treated fairly along with paying the overhead of unionization. What you end up with is an unstable equilibrium for the creation and destruction of unions.
slantaclaus 6y ago
“All workers should be in unions”: as the owner of a business with 2 employees, I respectfully disagree.

ardy42 6y ago

> The propaganda unfortunately also comes from folks direct experience with unions. In the US, most unions are public sector. So folks see that That's like arguing against private business by citing anecdotes about people's direct experiences with car dealerships and Comcast.

Dma54rhs 6y ago

Schools have been kept and are largely opened during the pandemic in Europe. I think the common understand is that kids need to go to school, there's no way around it.

galfarragem 6y ago

After summing all factors unions are still a positive influence. It's undeniable that sectors with strong unions provide better working conditions to employees than comparable sectors without unions.