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Come work here in Brazil! We have more than 15,000 unions! We have a union for union workers (not even joking). It's great! We are now a very very rich country,

by haolez 6y ago

Come work here in Brazil! We have more than 15,000 unions! We have a union for union workers (not even joking). It's great! We are now a very very rich country, the labor is valued and we are also a tech powerhouse! Sarcasm aside, it's really disturbing to see amazing countries like the USA falling for the same illusions that have kept us poor since forever. What defeats bad bosses is the option for workers to simply walk away, be it because of competitors offering better conditions or because you don't really need the income in the short term. If your are left wing inclined, I suggest that you lobby UBI instead of unions. Be better than us.

triceratops 6y ago
correlation != causation. I can give you examples of rich countries that have lots of unions. Would you say it's the unions that made them rich? You should look elsewhere for reasons why Brazil is relatively poor today. I guarantee you unions have very little to do with it.
- erklik 6y ago
  > I can give you examples of rich countries that have lots of unions. Just curious, who would that be? I am guessing some Scandinavian countries, maybe?
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    See the table here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage France, Austria, Belgium, Iceland, and Sweden all have above 90% collective bargaining coverage. Finland, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany are between 50% and 90%.
ipaddr 6y ago
Imagine life without your unions. It could be worse. Brazil has many problems preventing it from taking over the globe. Union are not holding them back. You have bigger companies vs many smaller companies. Unions and big companies go hand in hand.
paxys 6y ago
You are right. That is why Somalia, with no legally recognized labor unions, is a global economic powerhouse, while shitty European countries like Germany, Finland, Denmark (where up to 2/3 of the workforce is in unions) are in the dirt. Cherry picking can go both ways. National economies are complex, and what works in one country can fail in another. There is zero point in generalizing.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Germany is shitty though when it comes to tech. The pay is garbage compared to US top companies so they lose out on the top global talent. It’s possible that unions are great for average and below employees, but they appear to be a pretty sour deal for everyone used to big tech income in the US.
  - paxys 6y ago
    Every country other than the US is shit when it comes to tech salaries. I doubt unions have anything to do with that either way. If you use the same argument then how do they make the world's top luxury cars with "average and below" union workers?
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    > _________ is shitty though when it comes to tech. The pay is garbage compared to US top companies so they lose out on the top global talent. You can fill the blank with the name of literally any country on earth and the sentence will still be correct. Tech salaries in the US are a huge outlier. There is not a single other country on earth where ICs can earn remotely as much as they do in the US tech hubs. Even US top companies don't pay remotely as much in their non-US offices.
  - spottedgiraffe 6y ago
    My impression is that tech is one area where union membership is very low in Germany.
- haolez 6y ago
  Do you live in any of those countries?
sp332 6y ago
Wages rose faster in America back when we had stronger unions. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... And rich executives were taking a smaller fraction of the profit for themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States#/media/File:United_States_union_membership_and_inequality,_top_1%_income_share,_1910_to_2010.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...

by haolez 6y ago

triceratops 6y ago

correlation != causation. I can give you examples of rich countries that have lots of unions. Would you say it's the unions that made them rich? You should look elsewhere for reasons why Brazil is relatively poor today. I guarantee you unions have very little to do with it.

erklik 6y ago
> I can give you examples of rich countries that have lots of unions. Just curious, who would that be? I am guessing some Scandinavian countries, maybe?
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  See the table here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage France, Austria, Belgium, Iceland, and Sweden all have above 90% collective bargaining coverage. Finland, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany are between 50% and 90%.

ipaddr 6y ago

Imagine life without your unions. It could be worse. Brazil has many problems preventing it from taking over the globe. Union are not holding them back. You have bigger companies vs many smaller companies. Unions and big companies go hand in hand.

paxys 6y ago

You are right. That is why Somalia, with no legally recognized labor unions, is a global economic powerhouse, while shitty European countries like Germany, Finland, Denmark (where up to 2/3 of the workforce is in unions) are in the dirt. Cherry picking can go both ways. National economies are complex, and what works in one country can fail in another. There is zero point in generalizing.

kortilla 6y ago
Germany is shitty though when it comes to tech. The pay is garbage compared to US top companies so they lose out on the top global talent. It’s possible that unions are great for average and below employees, but they appear to be a pretty sour deal for everyone used to big tech income in the US.
- paxys 6y ago
  Every country other than the US is shit when it comes to tech salaries. I doubt unions have anything to do with that either way. If you use the same argument then how do they make the world's top luxury cars with "average and below" union workers?
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > _________ is shitty though when it comes to tech. The pay is garbage compared to US top companies so they lose out on the top global talent. You can fill the blank with the name of literally any country on earth and the sentence will still be correct. Tech salaries in the US are a huge outlier. There is not a single other country on earth where ICs can earn remotely as much as they do in the US tech hubs. Even US top companies don't pay remotely as much in their non-US offices.
- spottedgiraffe 6y ago
  My impression is that tech is one area where union membership is very low in Germany.
haolez 6y ago
Do you live in any of those countries?

sp332 6y ago

Wages rose faster in America back when we had stronger unions. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... And rich executives were taking a smaller fraction of the profit for themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States#/media/File:United_States_union_membership_and_inequality,_top_1%_income_share,_1910_to_2010.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...