4 ms·

Oddly, one complaint workers have about unions is they keep on workers who don't work or are lazy. Interestingly OTHER WORKERS are annoyed by this.

pydry 6y ago
People complain about lazy workers and favoritism in every workplace. The boss is only interested when they don't have unilateral control over who gets fired and why.
- random5634 6y ago
  Generally a super lazy worker does eventually get fired by the boss - because there is an overlap of interests. Saying the boss is not interested is totally not true. When I went to school we ALL knew (even the kids) that one teacher simply basically did not teach. It didn't matter they were totally protected. Principle would have fired them in a minute. Old white dude, massive seniority, union officer I think so he also may have gotten time off teaching for that ? Anyways, the rest of the teachers were amazing, but imagine you are a female minority teacher having to deal with extra class sizes because of this dufus. At least when I was growing up the union officers was an old boys club situation.
  - pydry 6y ago
    >Generally a super lazy worker does eventually get fired by the boss I can recall so many counter examples. Relatives, drinking buddies, snitches, people whom the boss was somewhat in awe of because they saw them as "rock stars", people for whom firing would have reflected badly on the boss, people who were good at pulling the wool over his eyes. Generally the people I've seen fired were for insubordination not laziness - often they worked much harder than other workers.
    - random5634 6y ago
      Fantastic - then the business goes under. I've seen that happen to, and there is a natural result - good workers leave and the business dies. If you think Amazon is hiring based on this - fantastic, they are doomed by only hiring lazy drinking buddies and relatives. Reality? Amazon has probably a very driven workforce and working culture. But maybe you are right it's all just a bunch of drinking buddies.
      - KittenInABox 6y ago
        > Fantastic - then the business goes under. I've seen that happen to, and there is a natural result - good workers leave and the business dies. No different than if a union doesn't kick out shitty union members no? The same still holds true. Anything a bad union does, a bad boss can do, at least with a union you have a vote.
        random5634 6y ago
        This has already happened in America - many union based orgs become totally noncompetitive and had bankruptcies and layoffs rather than blowing away the "drinking buddies" businesses. In the private sector unions now only have a small fraction of jobs (I think < 10% now?) Unions work much better in public sector where they can't go out of business. Police unions, prison guard unions, teacher unions etc. I wouldn't say service or accountability is that great in these systems.
        pydry 6y ago
        Union based orgs typically went under because competitor labor was offshored or just cheaper (e.g. new airlines hiring pilots for $16k/year). When you're competing with a Mexican, a Bangladeshi or a slave in Thailand all working for a pittance it doesn't necessarily matter how hard you work. Unemployment or poverty wages are your two choices. Police unions and prison worker unions are more effective because they tend to aid rather than threaten capital. Teachers unions by contrast are not, which is why most governors declare outright war on them.
      - bumby 6y ago
whatshisface 6y ago
Oddly? Have you ever been on a team with a few people who were just phoning it in, while you weren't? It's pretty annoying.
- random5634 6y ago
  Yes, but after a while if it's not getting fixed I just quit! The pay differences are usually token - one of my earlier jobs this happened, and when I found out the other person was getting paid more than me I was super bothered!
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Yeah, but the argument is that in a unionized workforce people are incentivized to 'phone it in' because it's hard to fire them. Unions and collective bargaining at their best give the employees leverage for better pay and profit share. They do create bad incentives around making it hard to fire bad employees and making things slow.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - meepmorp 6y ago
    >Yes, but after a while if it's not getting fixed I just quit! Unionization doesn't remove this ability, you know.
david-cako 6y ago
Amazon is super metric-driven. It would be interesting to see unions come back with a metric-driven approach that helps workers, gives power to individual warehouses, comes across as "Amazonian", and makes corporate cream.
- random5634 6y ago
  Didn't the new york teachers union start a charter school in new york to show that they could operate something effectively? Anyone know how that worked. That might be a good example for union success?

pydry 6y ago

People complain about lazy workers and favoritism in every workplace. The boss is only interested when they don't have unilateral control over who gets fired and why.

random5634 6y ago
Generally a super lazy worker does eventually get fired by the boss - because there is an overlap of interests. Saying the boss is not interested is totally not true. When I went to school we ALL knew (even the kids) that one teacher simply basically did not teach. It didn't matter they were totally protected. Principle would have fired them in a minute. Old white dude, massive seniority, union officer I think so he also may have gotten time off teaching for that ? Anyways, the rest of the teachers were amazing, but imagine you are a female minority teacher having to deal with extra class sizes because of this dufus. At least when I was growing up the union officers was an old boys club situation.
- pydry 6y ago
  >Generally a super lazy worker does eventually get fired by the boss I can recall so many counter examples. Relatives, drinking buddies, snitches, people whom the boss was somewhat in awe of because they saw them as "rock stars", people for whom firing would have reflected badly on the boss, people who were good at pulling the wool over his eyes. Generally the people I've seen fired were for insubordination not laziness - often they worked much harder than other workers.
  - random5634 6y ago
    Fantastic - then the business goes under. I've seen that happen to, and there is a natural result - good workers leave and the business dies. If you think Amazon is hiring based on this - fantastic, they are doomed by only hiring lazy drinking buddies and relatives. Reality? Amazon has probably a very driven workforce and working culture. But maybe you are right it's all just a bunch of drinking buddies.
    - KittenInABox 6y ago
      > Fantastic - then the business goes under. I've seen that happen to, and there is a natural result - good workers leave and the business dies. No different than if a union doesn't kick out shitty union members no? The same still holds true. Anything a bad union does, a bad boss can do, at least with a union you have a vote.
      - random5634 6y ago
        This has already happened in America - many union based orgs become totally noncompetitive and had bankruptcies and layoffs rather than blowing away the "drinking buddies" businesses. In the private sector unions now only have a small fraction of jobs (I think < 10% now?) Unions work much better in public sector where they can't go out of business. Police unions, prison guard unions, teacher unions etc. I wouldn't say service or accountability is that great in these systems.
        pydry 6y ago
        Union based orgs typically went under because competitor labor was offshored or just cheaper (e.g. new airlines hiring pilots for $16k/year). When you're competing with a Mexican, a Bangladeshi or a slave in Thailand all working for a pittance it doesn't necessarily matter how hard you work. Unemployment or poverty wages are your two choices. Police unions and prison worker unions are more effective because they tend to aid rather than threaten capital. Teachers unions by contrast are not, which is why most governors declare outright war on them.
    - bumby 6y ago

whatshisface 6y ago

Oddly? Have you ever been on a team with a few people who were just phoning it in, while you weren't? It's pretty annoying.

random5634 6y ago
Yes, but after a while if it's not getting fixed I just quit! The pay differences are usually token - one of my earlier jobs this happened, and when I found out the other person was getting paid more than me I was super bothered!
- fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah, but the argument is that in a unionized workforce people are incentivized to 'phone it in' because it's hard to fire them. Unions and collective bargaining at their best give the employees leverage for better pay and profit share. They do create bad incentives around making it hard to fire bad employees and making things slow.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- meepmorp 6y ago
  >Yes, but after a while if it's not getting fixed I just quit! Unionization doesn't remove this ability, you know.

david-cako 6y ago

Amazon is super metric-driven. It would be interesting to see unions come back with a metric-driven approach that helps workers, gives power to individual warehouses, comes across as "Amazonian", and makes corporate cream.

random5634 6y ago
Didn't the new york teachers union start a charter school in new york to show that they could operate something effectively? Anyone know how that worked. That might be a good example for union success?