8 ms·
To be honest, they were asking for 35% raise, PLUS reduced working hours PLUS benefits. They were offered somewhat smaller raise which they refused, while parti
by drno123 6y ago
To be honest, they were asking for 35% raise, PLUS reduced working hours PLUS benefits. They were offered somewhat smaller raise which they refused, while participating in an illegal strike. From my experience, in most negotiations, you rarely get everything that you want, but you can get a good deal if you are willing to compromise. When you play hard, it can backfire.
- krageon 6y ago> illegal strike I genuinely can't tell if you're being sarcastic with your comment.
- CalRobert 6y agoSome industries crucial to public safety have legal restrictions on the right to strike.
- ookdatnog 6y agoI imagine air traffic controllers spontaneously deciding to strike _here and now_ without prior warning would be quite dangerous. But if an air traffic controller strike is announced, say, 24 hours beforehand, it can't be reasonably argued to be a public safety hazard.
- hpoe 6y agoCounterpoint: My wife has a medication that has short shelf life and isn't widely distributed so it needs to be flown via air. Airplanes stop flying my wife no longer gets her medicine, she now dead.
- AdrianB1 6y agoThat is true, but you cannot force someone to fly it regularly to her. The miracles of modern medicine allow people to live when this would not have happened 100 years ago, but cannot guarantee that. Take it as a gift, not as a given.
- nickkell 6y agoIt sounds like quite an important job then. Maybe you should join in and pressure the bosses to give them the raise they need
- kepler1 6y agoSome great logic there. Put it on the one party to give into anything the other wants, because they're said to be important. Does it work the other way in your mind too? If we all agreed that air traffic or say, Amazon, were a critical resource and has to run efficiently and for the country's benefit, not individuals, that means that they get to put whatever conditions on labor they like? This is the worst kind of approach to governing ever, if it can even be called that.
- nickkell 6y agoI can appreciate the irony of you posting this after seeing the post I was replying to. I hope you can appreciate it too!
- missedthecue 6y agoThe pilot unions are rent seeking from the man you are replying to. Why do you think he should support that?
- hpoe 6y agoEDIT: Just to clarify my point, my interest wasn't only in my wife, rather an anecdote about how these things can be vital to people's lives. That being said, yes I agree we should be grateful for what we have and me an my wife regularly marvel that if she'd been born just 40 years earlier she would've been dead by the time she was 9.
- lukifer 6y agoCuriously, one of the things that gives pilots and airline workers such powerful bargaining leverage, is exploiting safety regulations. If an airline is playing hardball with the union, the pilots go out of their way to create flight delays based on safety double-checks or "concerns" (a form of "work-to-rule" [0] strike), which the FAA gives them wide latitude to do. Unfortunately, this works against those who work directly for those government agencies. At the end of the day, bargaining power comes from holding value hostage; and we react differently to holding on-time flight arrivals hostage, versus holding public safety hostage. It's a wicked problem for anyone who works in service of the latter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule
- drno123 6y agoThat was part of the deal when they willingly signed up for a well paying job.
- fishtacos 6y agoEconomic pressures didn't inform any of that, you think? Most people (presumably you as well) have undergone at least one experience where they were forced to sign paperwork that they would not normally agree to, except under those specific circumstances (kid/family/rent/gadget etc.) Signing a piece of paper under such duress does not sign one's rights away exclusively.
- sigzero 6y agoIt was an illegal strike so I am pretty sure he is not being sarcastic. They had "civil service" clauses in their contract that made them "Federal employees" and Federal employees could not strike (not sure if that is true today).
- fishtacos 6y agoIt absolutely is. The courts have their take on it, as expected, but the spirit of a strike remains consistent despite laws against it. A strike, by definition, cannot be illegal. That includes armed forces and every federal employee. Whether existing legislation recognizes certain types of strikes as legal or not is irrelevant. Civil disobedience has deep roots in American history. This is an analogue to that, given that their rights to strike have been struck. (pun intended)
- ameister14 6y agoCould you explain how a strike cannot, by definition, be illegal? Civil disobedience can be illegal.
- fishtacos 6y agoAll civil disobedience is illegal, yet you seem to adjust for some of it vs. others. Extend that to all employment. Nothing illegal about not being forced to work. A contract is not a prison sentence, or I should hope so. I will grant you certain conditions apply to armed forces that wouldn't otherwise apply to civilian employment, as that does actively put other's lives at risk. This isn't a conversation about desertion of duty, merely protesting or quitting. Even then there are laws that protect conscientious objectors .
- throwaway0x1 6y ago>A strike, by definition, cannot be illegal. That includes armed forces and every federal employee. Wrong. A strike, by definition, as actually defined in federal law, can indeed be illegal. That includes armed forces and every federal employee.
- Wintamute 6y agoIt's not clear from your comment, but I'm assuming you deem the term "illegal strike" oxymoronic. It isn't.
- mhh__ 6y agoDe facto or de jure
- croutonwagon 6y agoMy wife is a member of a non-striking teachers union.. I've always wondered what their ultimate collective bargaining power is if the single thing that grants them their leverage (to strike) is off the table from day 1. Shes never been able to answer. Its not shocking that they rarely even settle for a fraction of what is asked and are just "thankful" when the government and politicians are so kind to budget them raises. Best part....Due to the policies put in place during the 08 crash, salaries and raises were severely restricted. The government last year decided to "make up for it" by changing the base salaries for NEW teachers. So now a brand new teacher just out of college makes about as much (within a couple thousand) as much as my wife, who has a masters and has been teaching for about a decade. Thats the issue with people that are passionate about something. It happens in IT as well. Many will work for peanuts because they like it and "experience". And my companies have been put off that I describe myself as a mercenary. I work for money and have absolutely no emotional ties to team, company or organization.
- lostcolony 6y agoDepending on how it's structured, she may be able to bounce to a different city/county/state (depending on logistics) for a year or two. Much like in industry, how leaving (and potentially coming back) can get you far more of a raise than staying.
- newacct583 6y ago> I've always wondered what their ultimate collective bargaining power To be fair, unions don't exist solely as threats to employers. The ability to bargain collectively still results in better/fairer outcomes in most situations. Most of the time, employers want to compensate their employees in good faith. Most of the time, employees want to work for a team who get rewarded more or less fairly and not compete in a cutthroat arena where everyone has to bargain for themselves. But yes: non-striking unions are absolutely not going to have the kind of corrective power in the face of genuine imbalance that real organized labor does.
- bps4484 6y ago"I've always wondered what their ultimate collective bargaining power is if the single thing that grants them their leverage (to strike) is off the table from day 1." While they can't strike, they can do the absolute bare minimum, which is what happens in a lot of professions (police, fire) where they can't legally strike. I'm not saying it's as effective as an actual strike, obviously, but with how much extra time teacher give beyond normal working hours, cutting it down to just working during business hours makes a school noticeably worse.
- alasdair_ 6y agoAir traffic controllers, like the army and certain other “essential to public safety” vocations, are not allowed to strike.
- datavirtue 6y agoNo one is allowed to strike. LOL It's war, where all is fair.
- caturopath 6y agoI suppose in that sense, the question is whether the government is taking sides.
- bidirectional 6y ago> Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act states in part, “Employees shall have the right. . . to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Strikes are included among the concerted activities protected for employees by this section. From https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes
- xienze 6y agoDoes that supercede this? > An individual may not accept or hold a position in the Government of the United States or the government of the District of Columbia if he— > (3)participates in a strike, or asserts the right to strike, against the Government of the United States or the government of the District of Columbia; or https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7311 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7311 I'm guessing no since the firing wasn't challenged.
- Kranar 6y agoFederal employees are not regulated by the NLRA but rather the FSLMRS. The FSLMRS explicitly denies the right of all federal employees from striking or even discussing a strike. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Service_Labor-Management_Relations_Statute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Service_Labor-Manageme...
- pwthornton 6y agoYou can have a contract that makes striking illegal and that you have to do arbitration instead when disputes arise. This is not necessarily a bad thing. A good arbitration setup can be less combative and feel fairer than a setup where the threat of strike is the motivating factor. A wildcat strike is what it is called when workers strike when their contract says they can't.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- garmaine 6y agoAir Traffic Control. It’s a matter of public safety. Strikes are not allowed.
- throwaway0x1 6y agoDo you really expect us to believe that you don't know the concept of an "illegal strike"? Then again, your profile picture is a soyboy face, and you're constantly spewing braindead leftist dribble, so, no one should be surprised by your glaring ignorance and naivety.
- mynameisash 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
- gknoy 6y agoHN does not value personal attacks like the kind you made. Please consider that you could have elevated the conversation by actually addressing the idea of an illegal strike (what differentiates a legal one from an illegal one, for example).
- dang 6y agoWe've banned this account. Creating accounts to break HN's guidelines will eventually get your main account banned, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- m-p-3 6y ago> illegal strike It's easy to win when you can change the rules of a game as you go.
- elmomle 6y agoI'm sure many good justifications can be made for this, or for (e.g.) the Taft-Hartley act, but at the end of the day, there is no arguing that the last 75 years of US federal policy decisively kneecapped unions, and we are by no means better off for that.
- javert 6y agoIn the past, the US gave unions a bunch of special "rights" that violate the rights of others. It would take a decisive kneecapping to go back to parity. Unions (and corporations, for that matter!) should have the same rights as any other group of people. No more, no less. Labor organizers don't care about that, of course. Their "job" is to increase the power of "labor," by hook or by crook.
- djbebs 6y agoThis. If union's had less rights than any other organization then you might argue they have been "kneecapped" but that's just not the case. Let companies fire workers for unionizing, let them refuse to negotiate with unions, and in turn let unions do what they are intended to do, serve as a way for groups of workers to jointly apply pressure for their interests alone.
- croes 6y ago"Let companies fire workers for unionizing, let them refuse to negotiate with unions" This renders unions pretty much useless. There is already an imbalance of power in favor of the companies.
- throwawayboise 6y agoMost companies can't fire everyone all at once. If you didn't need your employees, you wouldn't have them in the first place. When both sides have something to lose, then finding acceptable compromise is in everyone's interest.
- LanceH 6y ago
- backtoyoujim 6y agoThis comment is basically, "How dare they ?"
- sorokod 6y ago"illegal strike" - For My Friends, Anything. For My Enemies, the Law
- fnord77 6y agonot working is illegal.
- mywittyname 6y agoThis was a time of the biggest inflation in US modern history. The treasury rate was >15%, double what it was five years earlier, and triple of 10 years prior. These people were probably getting 4-5% annual raises at a time when inflation was going at over 10%. The 35% raise was probably just to bring them back up to their baseline. For reference, using the BLS CPI calculator, $10,000 in 1975 was $17,000 in 1981. That's insane. And those are the official BLS numbers, which most of us feel undersell inflation.
- nomercy400 6y agoI'm curious, do you also have the numbers for 1980-1990, 1990-2000, 2000-2010, 2010-2020? I can't place your number in perspective.
- mywittyname 6y agoYeah, good question, I should have cited these numbers: I got the treasury yields here: http://www.fedprimerate.com/10-Year-US-Treasury-Yield-History.htm http://www.fedprimerate.com/10-Year-US-Treasury-Yield-Histor... For the inflation stats, I used the BLS Inflation calculator here: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
- loceng 6y agoAnd this thread of comments here lets us know that shallow narratives still perpetuate/ripple many decades later, hiding the detailed truth - which we're all prone to.
- nomercy400 6y agoFor completeness: 10000 USD in Start was worth Result at End: Start-End: Result 1920-1930: 8860 1930-1940: 8128 1940-1950: 16906 1950-1960: 12468 1960-1970: 12901 1970-1980: 20582 1980-1990: 16375 1990-2000: 13249 2000-2010: 12837 2010-2020: 11905 For contrast 1990-2020: 20248 Yeah, the period you mentioned wasn't fun. I guess the last 30 years weren't so bad. Kind of strange how things feel to get so much more expensive while money doesn't devaluate that much.
- croes 6y agoThese demands are hard to evaluate without the prior status quo. How much did they earn before, how long were the working hours?
- socialdemocrat 6y agoClever lying by omission. This is the kind of dirty tricks FOX plays. They leave of crucial information to twist the truth. By not mentioning the sky high inflation existing at the time, you give the impression that the was completely unreasonable raise. You count on the fact that people today are used to very low inflation, and will immediately be disgusted by the demands of these workers. This sort of manipulation, is something conservatives have perfected over many years. Also classic conservative backstabbing. Reagan got these people to support him. He even had a past as a union representative. Yet when push came to shove, he didn't have their back. No, he stabbed them in the back instead, and reduced them to poverty. Denying them employment in the future was classic vengeful pettiness which would have made Donald Trump proud.
- alentist 6y ago> Denying them employment in the future was classic vengeful pettiness which would have made Donald Trump proud. https://www.ft.com/content/d73b9541-f91c-4423-9353-1f6606f31ee7 https://www.ft.com/content/d73b9541-f91c-4423-9353-1f6606f31... But the consolidation, even expansion, of Mr Trump’s base rests on a more concrete achievement. For the first three years of his presidency, he produced steady growth (which a number of presidents have managed) in which a disproportionate share of the gains went to low-income workers (a rarer feat). Workers in the lowest quarter of incomes saw their wages rise almost 5 per cent. This was the first sustained downward redistribution of income and wealth since the last century, a vindication for voters in the forgotten parts of the country who voted for Mr Trump in 2016. It may account for the shock of this election: the gravitation of young Latinos and black men to Mr Trump’s candidacy.
- fnord77 6y agothe way I understand it was they govt actually agreed to a pretty healthy pay raise before the strike (inflation was high then and salaries did not go up). PATCO thought they could get more and Reagan went nuclear on them. this seems like a good write up (dunno the accuracy) https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2796do/what_exactly_happened_when_president_reagan_fired/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2796do/what_...
- ajmadesc 6y agoGenuine question...Can you have an illegal strike without slavery? I didn't think a strike was a legal (having to do with the law) action?