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I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest for a small amount of union dues. That is not snark, it's a real statemen

I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest for a small amount of union dues. That is not snark, it's a real statement. I legitimately do not understand it. Can someone who works/worked one of these jobs please explain it to me? I am so confused by how lopsided this was.

trackmenot 6y ago
My theory is that rich people and well-educated people vote according to self-interest, but poor and non-educated people according to identity. Billionaires votes for whoever lowers their taxes, academics for whoever secures them, often tax-funded, jobs, but poor people for whoever they like personally. I'm positive that education was strongly correlated with voting in favor of unionization. This is something the left everywhere struggles with enormously. When poor people are too dumb to vote according to their own self-interest, the left's worldview falls down. The left then claims that poor people are brainwashed by capitalist propaganda. Yeah, maybe, but it can't explain completely disastrous results like this unionization vote. Misguided people will claim that unionization is not in the self-interest of most workers. Those people are wrong as there are about a billion studies showing that unionization improves both salaries and working conditions. For example: https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp143/ https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp143/ The science is incredibly clear-cut and these workers who voted against unionization voted against their own self-interest.
- wavefunction 6y ago
  Poor people vote in their own interest just like anyone else but their options are limited and often the opportunity to consider all their options is truncated by the vagaries of life on the edge of dissolution.
gruez 6y ago
From an earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26749927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26749927
brighton36 6y ago
I get the impression that most people download their opinions from whatever pa system is loudest and closest to them. Perhaps that explains this...
EarlKing 6y ago
They're underpaid enough as it is? Seriously, that's usually what it comes down to: Nobody wants to give up a dime for union dues when they're already barely making ends meet.
- prepend 6y ago
  Aren’t Amazon workers paid more than average warehouse workers? ZipRecruiter shows the average in all states as under $15 [0] so an Amazon worker will likely make more than a worker in other warehouses. Doesn’t mean that they are rolling in the money, but makes me think higher wages is probably not a motivating factor for unionization. [0] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Warehouse-Worker-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Wa...
  - dylan604 6y ago
    making $15/hour doesn't mean you suddenly have lots of money to make it rain. $15/hour means that a lot of people are just now at the point of barely making it vs the completely snowed under they were in at minimum wage
    - prepend 6y ago
      I think it depends on your circumstances but I don’t think $15/hour is a ton of money. Warehouses are frequently in rural settings and $15 isn’t so bad. I have friends who are doing ok on $12/hour but they only have $300 rent and really low expenses. Rural America doesn’t have many upsides, but being cheap is one. And my point wasn’t that Amazon was wonderful, just that it pays more than the alternative since the average pay is much lower ($11 vs $15 I think) at other companies.
      - slantedview 6y ago
        But there's a massive difference in working conditions. There is no warehouse floor worker that will be making $15 an hour indefinitely. Eventually, their bodies will succumb to injuries while trying to keep up with the brutal pace of work mandated by Amazon. So then what's worse: $11 an hour at a job you can work indefinitely, or $15 an hour at a job where your body will eventually fail and you may be left with a permanent injury which Amazon will not help you with? https://coloradosun.com/2020/09/29/amazon-safety-crisis-thornton-warehouse-osha/ https://coloradosun.com/2020/09/29/amazon-safety-crisis-thor...
AndyMcConachie 6y ago
If they unionize Amazon will close down the warehouse and open it somewhere else.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Maybe. They sure will threaten to. But fact is, Amazon has quite an investment in these warehouses and wages are really just one aspect of the calculus for whether or not to keep running the warehouse. Plus, if unionization makes its way to every Amazon warehouse, then everyone will compete on equal footing vis-a-vis wages.
  - fooker 6y ago
    If your idea (here: unionization) only works if you can manage to force everyone to accept it, it has no place in a modern Democratic society.
  - bradleyjg 6y ago
    Very brave of you and the grandparent poster to want other people to gamble their livelihoods to advance your ideological vision.
zests 6y ago
People aren't voting against the dues, they are voting against the union.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest The whole "voting against your own interest" is hugely paternalistic and anti-democratic. People have their own set of values and interests. As an outsider without knowledge of the people to accuse them of voting against their own interest because they did not vote the way you wanted them to is the height of arrogance.
- darkwater 6y ago
  OP is actually just asking why, and explaining they don't understand why workers voted that way, which superficially seems "wrong".
  - luckylion 6y ago
    And that's paternalistic, isn't it? "They voted against their interest" implies that OP knows/decides what their interests are. Personally, I've never met someone who knew workers that was fundamentally surprised by their decisions. It was always the people who only talked, read and wrote about workers that were flabbergasted. Source: worked as a consultant for a union in Europe for a decade.
    - Loughla 6y ago
      OP was implying what his/her interests are, or rather, would be, s/he believes, in this case. Source: I am OP and that was my intention. That's why I asked for someone with direct experience to comment. I am confused, based on my own viewpoint and experience with unions. >I've never met someone who knew workers that was fundamentally surprised by their decisions. I don't, genuinely don't understand this sentence. What is workers? Who are workers? What group of people would you consider workers? I've been part of two unions, both of which benefited me, personally, immensely. These were knowledge jobs and not hands-on jobs. Am I a worker? My father is very blue-collar manufacturing and he has been both anti- and pro-union, depending on which shop he worked for. Is he a worker? I don't understand what you're saying. Honestly. It sounds like you're the font of some mystical knowledge about a mythical group of people. What do you mean by your statement? I don't get it.
prepend 6y ago
I think reasons will vary, and I didn’t vote in this event. But in previous situations I’ve not supported unionization due to how it favored existing workers in ways I thought were unfair in that all layoffs were due to seniority not performance so older workers would be kept and younger workers laid off, no matter what. It also established more rigid pay levels that were better on average but not as good for high performers, and I always got much higher than average raises and bonuses. To a lesser extent, I didn’t like the idea of union leadership who were paid for things I didn’t think added value. So my overall take was that it was good if you were in the union and employed, but was much harder to get work and join the union.
- baron816 6y ago
  > it was good if you were in the union and employed, but was much harder to get work and join the union. This is my fundamental problem with unions—it helps the insiders and hurts everyone else. Amazon’s working condition are rough (and I really hope that changes), but there are plenty of jobs out there that are much worse and don’t pay nearly as well. They just get all the attention because of their size and impact.
  - tehWeeb 6y ago
    That’s the fundamental problem with our culture generally. The closer (figuratively speaking) to the big money and political power someone is the more comfortable they are. And we all want to believe it’s a meritocracy. We’re just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
    - prepend 6y ago
      I think that’s a feature, not a bug. In that I don’t think it’s a problem. Labor is subject to markets like many things, and shouldn’t be exploited. But there’s some work that’s hard and doesn’t require specialized training (eg, hauling stuff around warehouses all day). Some people are willing to do this and they do, if they don’t want to they can do other things. This is an oversimplification, of course, but having the ability to provide more jobs with more options is the solution I think. I grew up in a small town and it sucks for work. If you think working for Amazon sucks, you should try working in the warehouse of the only grocery store in town. The one run by a racist jerk who knows you have no options.
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kadomony 6y ago
Most of the folks who vote aren't really the type to sit down and think long-term. $50/month in dues getting them +$2-3k more annually every two years? They won't do the math and see they'd make a net profit of whatever that annual income increase is minus $600. There was some great video floating around recently of a forklift operator or something who explained what his union dues got him and he was so informed and unphased by the dues he was paying.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Right up until that new raise puts you in the lowest tier of the next tax bracket so that you suddenly make less by making more.
  - RankingMember 6y ago
    That's not how marginal tax rates work, though- You get taxed higher on the amount above the threshold, not on the entire amount.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      If you're below the poverty line, it's possible to make less by making more by disqualifying yourself for public aid. But if the Amazon workers are in that situation then we would need to expand this conversation anyway.
      - RankingMember 6y ago
        Agreed. My comment regards income tax brackets, not public aid.
  - anotherman554 6y ago
    That's not how tax brackets work. You never make "less" when you make more money.
    - 6y ago
dylan604 6y ago
I absolutely abhor modern day versions of unions. They have not done enough to separate themselves in my eyes from the misguided activities that brought them their current negative reputations. However, I absolutely understand the need, and feel sorry for those stuck in a sitation where union type help is needed. If there was a way to wipe out existing unions and start fresh where nobody from leadership of exisiting unions were allowed to have influence, then maybe just maybe I would start leaning towards unions. But at the current implementation, it's a nope from me.
- boublepop 6y ago
  The more I read about Unions in America the more I am befuddled. Don’t you have membership elections for the leadership? How do you even decide who the leadership is then? If you do have elections, then your comment is akin to a republican proclaiming that democracy doesn’t work, but would work in principle but only of the current leadership was replace with Donal Trump.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    >Don’t you have membership elections for the leadership? So does Iran, Russia, etc. Do you feel like those elections are free and fair? I don't feel like union leadership votes are. Again, there's a lot of baggage associated with current unions. New unions are needed, not new leadership of existing unions.
    - boublepop 6y ago
      Are you suggesting that the elections aren’t fair because you don’t like the outcomes of them or are you accusing them of rigging the elections?
bpodgursky 6y ago
Other than dues and having control over pay grades (maybe workers think they can do better than union-negotiated flat pay scales), unions can vote to strike and force you out of a job. And at the end of the day, the workers just weren't particularly unhappy, and those weren't palatable risks.
utahcon 6y ago
Unions will only work in a few scenarios. The biggest of which is that the people with the skill need to be 100% together in starting the union, and willing to not work when the union says to not work. The facts remain that most of these employees most likely can't afford to not work. They can't afford to be without the stability of their employers paycheck. Additionally, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people willing to replace these workers. Sadly they don't require any trade skill to pick/pull/pack. So there is no barrier for new recruits to be hired and replace the missing union workers. Advantage: Amazon
chrisseaton 6y ago
> why you would vote against your own collective interest Maybe they are not sufficiently confident that the union will act in their interest? Is that so crazy an idea? If you're in favour of unions then I guess you're in favour of workers being able to have a say in how they work. And if they don't want to work with a union then I can't understand how you can rationally do anything but say 'ok thank you for saying, if that's what you want no problem we'll do it that way'.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  You are saying in expressing the right to have a say in how they work, they chose to vote to not have a say in how they work? It's a pretty simple calculus. When the company spends twice the yearly payroll of the entire place on preventing the lowest of low workers on the totem pole from forming a union, maybe the company isn't acting in their best interests.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    They said that they did not want to be represented by these specific people with this specific deal. Maybe they'd be happy to be represented by someone else as part of some other arrangement? I don't know, and neither do you. But if that's what they say when asked what else should we do except honour that? If you think it's absolutely inconceivable they could legitimately vote against it at all... I mean then why have a vote at all? Might as well unionise them by force against their will and impose the union leaders as unelected and unwelcome representatives? That'll empower 'em, right?
  - lovecg 6y ago
    Equating a specific approach with _the_ solution to the problem is the oldest trick in the book. You’re implicitly assuming that this specific proposal to form a union is equivalent to “having a say in how they work”. That’s definitely what people proposing the union would have everyone believe, but it’s not necessarily the reality. There are many other outcomes possible, and on the balance the people disagreed with that framing.
bko 6y ago
Assuming you're not an Amazon warehouse employee, but they have more skin in the game than you. So presumably their opinion is more informed and reasoned. I don't think its as clear cut as "in your interest". I certainly wouldn't vote to unionize my profession and I would even go as far as avoiding unionized fields. I prefer to have a direct relationship with my employer. I stay away from organizations that have a table that will tell you how much you'll make after N years. It's just not a dynamic place to work. Or at least that's my impression when dealing with unionized groups in large banks.
- criddell 6y ago
  > I stay away from organizations that have a table that will tell you how much you'll make after N years. I don't think that's necessarily a characteristic of a union shop and if it is, those are probably minimums. For example, professional baseball players and are unionized yet individuals can still negotiate salary.
  - bko 6y ago
    That's true, but unionized spots have such a strong individualistic component to the work. However, in industries such as warehouse workers, the employee ability is a lot more uniform, so I doubt there would be provisions for superstars to negotiate salaries. It would more likely be something akin to a teacher union, with teaching being in between performance athletes and uniform workers. And even there I don't think individual teachers have much power to negotiate salary, but I could be wrong.
  - freewilly1040 6y ago
    Why do you think the vagueness is in your favor? Especially for a warehouse worker, the job is doing rote tasks forever. Why wouldn’t they be able to project your salary into the future?
    - criddell 6y ago
      I think for a warehouse worker or any other job where people are basically fungible, unionizing is a no-brainer. Individuals have no leverage. Unionizing can make sense for other types of jobs as well. The person I responded to mentioned their preference for having a direct relationship with an employer. To me, that means other types of places than warehouses because I doubt very much that many warehouse workers have a relationship with anybody above their direct supervisor.
bioinformatics 6y ago
I agree with you. Elections everywhere are full of people voting wrong, against their self-interests and against everything I hold dear in life. I am Abel to vote in two countries and I can see this every year.
ransom1538 6y ago
"I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest" Union execs become a bunch of corrupt fat cats. They are terrible [1][2][3]. The union execs will go on fancy dinners with amazon execs and decide how to "make a deal". You pay dues to a bunch of fat cats (out of your horrible salary), THEN, good luck getting any kind of promotion without fat cat approval. Promotions will quickly be based on seniority. Production will soon slow then the company will decide to shut down these unproductive plants. Read about "flint michigan" to learn how awesome unions are in the US. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/prominent-union-leader-has-deep-ties-to-mafia-serbian-gangs-feds-allege/2802256/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/promi... https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/ https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/ https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unions https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unio...
AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
I like to think this is due to the bad reputation unions have. Digging a two mile tunnel eats half of the state budget? Police refuses to wear body cams? Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Rightly or not, in many people's minds unions are to blame.
- Someone1234 6y ago
  > Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Are you talking hypotheticals? Because that hasn't happened, and couldn't have happened since COVID isn't "over" anywhere in the US.
  - dawnerd 6y ago
    If anything they’ve reopened too fast. News this morning that Michigan is closing them back down. Almost like there’s still a pandemic.
  - mariksolo 6y ago
    It's happened more at the elementary school level.
- lr4444lr 6y ago
  I agree, but there are other dimensions to public sector unions that makes them worth keeping around: deterrence of the spoils system in politics, and the legal monopsony the state has on the labor and monopoly on credentialing in many cases.
- trackmenot 6y ago
  > Digging a two mile tunnel eats half of the state budget?Police refuses to wear body cams? Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Rightly or not, in many people's minds unions are to blame. If you were a contractor to a state and you scored a contract worth half the state's budget, would you consider that a success or a failure? You would consider it a success! The examples you give show exactly how unions work in the self-interest of their members. If the tunnel costs half the state's budget, the tunnel workers are surely well-paid, police officers rather not wear body cams so that they can whack people with their batons without being prosecuted, and teachers rather not return to schools as long as the epidemic is ongoing.
throw4downvote 6y ago
Ironically I think this is a good example of one of the weaknesses many people see in unions. Here we have a group of people who have voted "against their collective interest" (which is a dubious claim imo, but let's assume that it's true for the sake of argument). If they were already unionized, what's to stop them to similarly keep voting "against their collective interest", as viewed by one individual within the organization? All of this to say, I don't trust a large group of other people to vote for what's best for me personally. See also: US presidential elections, usually close to a 50/50 vote, where most people consider "their side" to be unequivocally aligned with their own interests, and the other side to be heinous and corrupt. Peoples perceptions and the objective truth are rarely aligned when there's money and campaigning involved. (Throwaway because being anti-union is unfortunately taboo)
lr4444lr 6y ago
Maybe they're worried that Amazon will not want to do business with union labor and just hire people willing to work unrepresented for 15/hr. minimum. Maybe work-life at Amazon low end is not as bad as the media sensationlizes. Why should it be your default to consider this as paradoxical rather than evidence?
trimbo 6y ago
> I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest The answer is in the article > Some workers who voted not to unionize said they ultimately didn’t see how a union would improve their pay or working conditions. They looked at the issue and felt it would not be better. We don't know what the union was promising them, and what they had seen through the process. I came here to find this comment because the "vote against their interest" argument is very predictable. It assumes that people should have no agency. That they're supposed to be robots that only vote one way on issues because of their demographic, and if they don't, then they must have been hoodwinked. It's condescending.
- kethinov 6y ago
  They looked at the issue and felt incorrectly that it would not be better. Look, I get the good intentions on all the discourse about not judging what's in another person's interests because you can't possibly know what they value, but it sure seems indisputable to me that a union would've delivered better pay and working conditions. I'm not sure in what warped universe voting against that isn't a vote against your interests and I don't think it's at all disrespectful to say they were victims of propaganda to get them to vote against their interests because when I look at the facts, that's what I see.
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    They probably just examined the same facts as you and came to a different conclusion. They are closer to their own situation, which doesn’t always mean they will make the right decision, but I would be very careful about telling someone how to live their own life.
    - kethinov 6y ago
      What set of facts could possibly have made unionization a bad idea? I genuinely can't imagine a single hypothetical which would make voting against this a good idea and would love to hear one.
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jasode 6y ago
>I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest It's because unions in America cannot guarantee the existence of the job. Yes, unions can force negotiations but they have no power to force the corporation to keep the factory open. (E.g. workers of Bakers union go on strike and in response, Hostess closes the factory.) That's the tradeoff of possible negative consequences that many armchair observers totally leave out when they only emphasize benefits of unions such as "higher pay, better work conditions, etc". I'd contend that observers who are confused why workers would "vote against their self-interest" and being "illogical" -- do not truly empathize with the poor workers' plight. (Or the observers are from Europe where unions work differently than America.) So the workers (Volkswagen workers in TN, Nissan in TN, Boeing in SC) that voted to reject union representation weighed the game theory tradeoffs of: (a) jobs continue to exist with better pay and conditions ... or ... (b) jobs are eliminated leading to layoffs and pay of $0 The possible outcome of (b) becomes even more perverse in that the workers pay dues to have their jobs eliminated! Yes, but if workers don't form a union -- "it's a race to the bottom!". Well, repeating memes is the currency of pundits rather than real cash that puts food on the table. Workers, understandably, make local decisions because they want a paycheck rather than worry about some global abstraction of "race to the bottom". Other fields such as NFL, NBA, superstars have leverage in union negotiations. Faceless workers have much less leverage. E.g. baseball umpires (faceless and less leverage) strike but the MLB just accepts their resignations and hires replacements. The unskilled line workers in factories have even less leverage.
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  Hard to believe this isn’t the top reply. You don’t need to go off into some long discussion about the philosophy of collective action. This vote was no because if it had been yes the likely consequence would have been all the voters being out of a job.
  - regextegrity 6y ago
    > This vote was no because if it had been yes the likely consequence would have been all the voters being out of a job. Isn't that a problem?
fergie 6y ago
Reading the replies here I’m pretty shocked by the lack of good arguments against unionisation. Its sad.
- hackeraccount 6y ago
  The arguments against come from uncertainty, "there are clearly trade offs" "I don't know but people with skin in the game are against it" "This will cause problems in the long run" The arguments in favor are certain. There's is no mention of downsides; the only talk is of more money and more security with at most a mention that some dues will need to be paid (though on balance the worker will come out ahead).
- conanbatt 6y ago
  Empirical argument: The biggest unions in america are for the most poorly run and corrupt organizations. Teachers, Police, Firemen, Government workers, Health, public transportation. All with massive costs to the consumer, corruption, service disruption, closed shops, etc. Microeconomics argument: The only meaningful way unions increase employees wages is by artificially restricting supply. They can only move the point of equilibrium of demand and supply in their favor by restricting supply, thus unions always have in their interests on: increase minimum wages, licensing, closed shops, etc. Political Economy argument: What is most interesting for unions is to survive as unions, which means that even if sometimes they are adversarial with employers, they are often allies to the structure. This is because at the negotiation table between unions and employers there are some actors missing, namely, the consumer. Political argument: Unions exhert force only by destruction: by refusing to work, by boycotting, by collecting administration fees to maintain its structure. The proliferation of unions is the proliferation of destruction. Giving special legal status, protections, considerations, rewards to unions, you are proliferating unions and proliferating destruction.
  - regextegrity 6y ago
    Meanwhile the Teachers, Police, Firemen, Government workers, Health, public transportation workers do not live in a state of wage slavery where the best job they can get doesn't even give bathroom breaks (i.e Amazon)
syshum 6y ago
I absolutely do not understand why someone would vote to be collectively represented instead of being able to act as as individual in your own best interest You claim not voting for the union is against your own interest but that assumes that the union will 100% of the time be looking out for your own individual best interest, this is simply false The union has supplanted individual choice for collective voting, and if your interests align with 50.1% of your fellow co workers than great but if your needs to not align with the majority of your co-workers then the union will screw you to serve the collective, and that is the best case.
- Loughla 6y ago
  >You claim not voting for the union is against your own interest but that assumes that the union will 100% of the time be looking out for your own individual best interest No, and that is a pretty far stretch from what I said. Please re-read "your own collective interest". It's easy to win an argument when you misrepresent what is said. Collective interest implies that it is the greatest good for the majority of people. Not the most good for you every time. Question for you: >I absolutely do not understand why someone would vote to be collectively represented instead of being able to act as as individual in your own best interest Do you really not see how it may be easier to negotiate as a group, rather than as an individual? In high-skill, high-demand jobs, yes, it is probably much easier to negotiate for individual benefits, because you have the power as the worker. But in low-skill, or high-supply jobs, the employers have all the power. I don't understand what you're saying.
  - syshum 6y ago
    While low skill / high supply jobs can be more challenging in some cases to negotiate, I know many many employers that are having problems finding people even for the most entry level jobs. Further good employees, even in low skill jobs, are very hard to find and even harder to retain. employers want to keep them, unionization often limits their ability to retain these high performing employees because they are not allowed to give bonus, raise or any other incentive beyond what is laid out by collective bargaining. So I really do not see how it is easier to negotiate as a group. my personal experiences matches what have have observed in employment rations through out my career from when I was in a entry level position to now where I am in a higher skilled position
js8 6y ago
I wonder if it helped democracy if voters would be able to add "justification" to their vote. Then there would be less room for speculation about the reasons.
- mmcdermott 6y ago
  The data would be nice, but it seems like this would have a chilling effect on the vote itself. The extra context of a justification would make it easier to tie votes to groups or even individuals. I'm not sure why, but polls as a separate, voluntary activity seem like a safer way to do it.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Also dues are not compulsive because it's a "write to work" state. Insanity.
- macinjosh 6y ago
  It is "right to work" and I do not see how it is insane to not _force_ people to join unions. In the US we take our freedoms of association seriously and forcing a citizen to associate with an organization they do not wish to associate with is tantamount to an unconstitutionality.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    I didn't say right-to-work was insane, I said it was insane to complain about dues with right-to-work. As to right-to-work itself, yes it does sound very odd on the face of it, and that's because the way unions have been institutionalized is quite odd. It's a very peculiar legal framework, divorced from the "situation on the ground". I recommend https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-colleges-union-walter-reuther-treaty-detroit https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-coll... https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/eidlin-united-states-canada-unions-labor https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/eidlin-united-states-cana... for some background. Now, one school of thought is "these are the tools we have, use them" another school of thought is "this is self-defeating weirdness", I am not sure. But it certainly isn't so clear cut that "of course right-to-work" is bad. Regardless of everything else, it was an anti-labor cudgel created in bad faith. Any solution that finds union compulsion icky but doesn't do something about the monopsony power of employers is not to be taken seriously.
rorykoehler 6y ago
Gaslit to death
- macinjosh 6y ago
  Funny how some resort to calling workers gullible when they don't vote the way they're supposed to. You're saying these people have no agency and no understanding of their own situation? How patronizing! I thought accepting the will of the people is the whole goal of democracy?
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  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    You take the Union and then shape it to your will. Now they for sure have no agency and no options. It’s a stupid decision no matter how you paint it. It’s also not my problem. They can piss in bottles if they like.
macinjosh 6y ago
"why you would vote against your own collective interest for a small amount of union dues" Ignorance of their own reasoning is rooted in the presupposition that the union was in their best interest and the dues were worth it. Obviously, the employees in this case did not agree it was in their interest. People think differently than others and that is OK.
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JarlUlvi 6y ago
If a union pushes improved working conditions, and the reduction of hours, this could have a substantially negative pay impact on the Amazon workers there. Given overtime laws, and the premium pay for overtime (1.5), a valid concern may be unionization will eliminate the lucrative overtime that is highly rewarding to peak performers willing to put in long hours.
linuxbo 6y ago
I personally enjoyed the flexibility of the "at-will" job. I grabbed a position at a Minnesota warehouse as a post-college graduate with no fulltime job. Kinda just wandered in off some job posting online and they just brought me on. Feels like people just don't want to mess with a good thing tho? A lot of my friends came from super different walks of life, but almost all unanimously enjoyed coming in for shifts and shooting the shit with their friends. Might just be a perception that change means that things will get worse and no one wants that.
RhysU 6y ago
If you are excellent at your job and can get a different one, why would you unionize? The union takes money out of your pocket, reduces your ability to get paid for performance, and slows the firm's ability to innovate. If the firm mistreats you, you can leave.
wnevets 6y ago
> I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest Americans have been doing exactly that for decades.
conanbatt 6y ago
The kind of people that would like to be in unions is not the same kind of people that would not like to be in unions.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Can someone who works/worked one of these jobs please explain it to me? I am so confused by how lopsided this was. It's a result of how unions are structured in the US. (It's different in Europe from what I understand, and they're more popular there as a result.) In the US unions are structured as a monopoly on labor which then nominally has more negotiating power with the employer. The problem is that monopolies are inherently an industrial scale fail factory and everything about them makes everything worse. You then have effectively two possibilities. The first is that the employer is competing with a hundred other local employers for labor. In this case there isn't really anything for the union to do, because the employer will already have to offer competitive working conditions or employees will go work for somebody else. And the employer in a competitive market won't have thick margins for the union to extract from, implying that the union's overhead will be larger than what they can extract from the employer. The second is that the employer is, itself, a monopoly. In theory it now has thick margins that the union can extract concessions out of. But then you have two monopolies negotiating with each other. It's a battle of attrition. Can the employer afford to have their facility closed for longer than you can afford to be on strike? You know the answer to this is for large multinational corporations. The corporation will barely even notice the complete shuttering of that facility because they have a thousand more to pick up the slack. A monopsony employer is still a big problem, of course, it's just not a problem that unions are a solution to. Try antitrust, or lower regulatory barriers to small businesses so that there are more competing local employers etc.
- slantedview 6y ago
  > A monopsony employer is still a big problem, of course, it's just not a problem that unions are a solution to. Try antitrust, or lower regulatory barriers to small businesses so that there are more competing local employers etc. I like your comment, but unions aren't necessarily meant to solve this problem. Amazon imposes terrible working conditions on its warehouse workers, which a union absolutely could address.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Amazon imposes terrible working conditions on its warehouse workers, which a union absolutely could address. How? The union's negotiating power comes from the ability to go on strike. They make a demand, Amazon says no, they go on strike, Amazon closes that warehouse and sends people their cheap junk from a different one. All the union can get you is the unemployment line, unless you do something to increase local competition for labor. In which case you don't need the union because employers have to compete through better working conditions.
exabrial 6y ago
I would try working one of "those jobs" at some point in your life. I repeatedly voted against unionization in previous lives of blue collar jobs: bus building, commercial roofing, and sheet metal workers. First, Union leadership is bought out and pursuing their own interests. They're not "for the people" as repeatedly braindeadly repeated in the comments section ad infinitum. Union leadership is out to benefit themselves first and foremost, and workers might benefit if you contribute to their cause, but it's a fantasy to pretend union leadership has everyone's best intentions in mind. Inevitably, this leads to the second, which is escalation of costs at the company. This is only partially wages; business decisions get delayed at committee, competitive advantage on market timing goes away, old-timey boomers get mad when something changes, and your company's innovation becomes stagnate. Your company falls behind and wages stagnate, and union leadership blames literally everyone except for themselves. Finally, the benefits are stupid for the price you pay. If they were measured on charity navigator, they would be listed as some of the worst run. The money gets funneled into union leadership pockets and their golf buddies. Nepotism runs wild; promotions got to whomever is slapping whom's ass or giving it out to their kid. It's a "tax" you can't vote yourself out of except to quit your job.
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disposekinetics 6y ago
It's a trade off. A union would very likely benefit me financially but every union I've ever had the opportunity to join has had a very progressive bend. Do I gain financially and lose morally or hold morally and miss out financially? Edit: I would be very enthusiastic about a union that stuck to just labor issues, no unrelated issues.

trackmenot 6y ago

My theory is that rich people and well-educated people vote according to self-interest, but poor and non-educated people according to identity. Billionaires votes for whoever lowers their taxes, academics for whoever secures them, often tax-funded, jobs, but poor people for whoever they like personally. I'm positive that education was strongly correlated with voting in favor of unionization. This is something the left everywhere struggles with enormously. When poor people are too dumb to vote according to their own self-interest, the left's worldview falls down. The left then claims that poor people are brainwashed by capitalist propaganda. Yeah, maybe, but it can't explain completely disastrous results like this unionization vote. Misguided people will claim that unionization is not in the self-interest of most workers. Those people are wrong as there are about a billion studies showing that unionization improves both salaries and working conditions. For example: https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp143/ https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp143/ The science is incredibly clear-cut and these workers who voted against unionization voted against their own self-interest.

wavefunction 6y ago
Poor people vote in their own interest just like anyone else but their options are limited and often the opportunity to consider all their options is truncated by the vagaries of life on the edge of dissolution.

gruez 6y ago

From an earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26749927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26749927

brighton36 6y ago

I get the impression that most people download their opinions from whatever pa system is loudest and closest to them. Perhaps that explains this...

EarlKing 6y ago

They're underpaid enough as it is? Seriously, that's usually what it comes down to: Nobody wants to give up a dime for union dues when they're already barely making ends meet.

prepend 6y ago
Aren’t Amazon workers paid more than average warehouse workers? ZipRecruiter shows the average in all states as under $15 [0] so an Amazon worker will likely make more than a worker in other warehouses. Doesn’t mean that they are rolling in the money, but makes me think higher wages is probably not a motivating factor for unionization. [0] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Warehouse-Worker-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Wa...
- dylan604 6y ago
  making $15/hour doesn't mean you suddenly have lots of money to make it rain. $15/hour means that a lot of people are just now at the point of barely making it vs the completely snowed under they were in at minimum wage
  - prepend 6y ago
    I think it depends on your circumstances but I don’t think $15/hour is a ton of money. Warehouses are frequently in rural settings and $15 isn’t so bad. I have friends who are doing ok on $12/hour but they only have $300 rent and really low expenses. Rural America doesn’t have many upsides, but being cheap is one. And my point wasn’t that Amazon was wonderful, just that it pays more than the alternative since the average pay is much lower ($11 vs $15 I think) at other companies.
    - slantedview 6y ago
      But there's a massive difference in working conditions. There is no warehouse floor worker that will be making $15 an hour indefinitely. Eventually, their bodies will succumb to injuries while trying to keep up with the brutal pace of work mandated by Amazon. So then what's worse: $11 an hour at a job you can work indefinitely, or $15 an hour at a job where your body will eventually fail and you may be left with a permanent injury which Amazon will not help you with? https://coloradosun.com/2020/09/29/amazon-safety-crisis-thornton-warehouse-osha/ https://coloradosun.com/2020/09/29/amazon-safety-crisis-thor...

AndyMcConachie 6y ago

If they unionize Amazon will close down the warehouse and open it somewhere else.

mywittyname 6y ago
Maybe. They sure will threaten to. But fact is, Amazon has quite an investment in these warehouses and wages are really just one aspect of the calculus for whether or not to keep running the warehouse. Plus, if unionization makes its way to every Amazon warehouse, then everyone will compete on equal footing vis-a-vis wages.
- fooker 6y ago
  If your idea (here: unionization) only works if you can manage to force everyone to accept it, it has no place in a modern Democratic society.
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  Very brave of you and the grandparent poster to want other people to gamble their livelihoods to advance your ideological vision.

zests 6y ago

People aren't voting against the dues, they are voting against the union.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest The whole "voting against your own interest" is hugely paternalistic and anti-democratic. People have their own set of values and interests. As an outsider without knowledge of the people to accuse them of voting against their own interest because they did not vote the way you wanted them to is the height of arrogance.

darkwater 6y ago
OP is actually just asking why, and explaining they don't understand why workers voted that way, which superficially seems "wrong".
- luckylion 6y ago
  And that's paternalistic, isn't it? "They voted against their interest" implies that OP knows/decides what their interests are. Personally, I've never met someone who knew workers that was fundamentally surprised by their decisions. It was always the people who only talked, read and wrote about workers that were flabbergasted. Source: worked as a consultant for a union in Europe for a decade.
  - Loughla 6y ago
    OP was implying what his/her interests are, or rather, would be, s/he believes, in this case. Source: I am OP and that was my intention. That's why I asked for someone with direct experience to comment. I am confused, based on my own viewpoint and experience with unions. >I've never met someone who knew workers that was fundamentally surprised by their decisions. I don't, genuinely don't understand this sentence. What is workers? Who are workers? What group of people would you consider workers? I've been part of two unions, both of which benefited me, personally, immensely. These were knowledge jobs and not hands-on jobs. Am I a worker? My father is very blue-collar manufacturing and he has been both anti- and pro-union, depending on which shop he worked for. Is he a worker? I don't understand what you're saying. Honestly. It sounds like you're the font of some mystical knowledge about a mythical group of people. What do you mean by your statement? I don't get it.

prepend 6y ago

I think reasons will vary, and I didn’t vote in this event. But in previous situations I’ve not supported unionization due to how it favored existing workers in ways I thought were unfair in that all layoffs were due to seniority not performance so older workers would be kept and younger workers laid off, no matter what. It also established more rigid pay levels that were better on average but not as good for high performers, and I always got much higher than average raises and bonuses. To a lesser extent, I didn’t like the idea of union leadership who were paid for things I didn’t think added value. So my overall take was that it was good if you were in the union and employed, but was much harder to get work and join the union.

baron816 6y ago
> it was good if you were in the union and employed, but was much harder to get work and join the union. This is my fundamental problem with unions—it helps the insiders and hurts everyone else. Amazon’s working condition are rough (and I really hope that changes), but there are plenty of jobs out there that are much worse and don’t pay nearly as well. They just get all the attention because of their size and impact.
- tehWeeb 6y ago
  That’s the fundamental problem with our culture generally. The closer (figuratively speaking) to the big money and political power someone is the more comfortable they are. And we all want to believe it’s a meritocracy. We’re just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
  - prepend 6y ago
    I think that’s a feature, not a bug. In that I don’t think it’s a problem. Labor is subject to markets like many things, and shouldn’t be exploited. But there’s some work that’s hard and doesn’t require specialized training (eg, hauling stuff around warehouses all day). Some people are willing to do this and they do, if they don’t want to they can do other things. This is an oversimplification, of course, but having the ability to provide more jobs with more options is the solution I think. I grew up in a small town and it sucks for work. If you think working for Amazon sucks, you should try working in the warehouse of the only grocery store in town. The one run by a racist jerk who knows you have no options.

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kadomony 6y ago

Most of the folks who vote aren't really the type to sit down and think long-term. $50/month in dues getting them +$2-3k more annually every two years? They won't do the math and see they'd make a net profit of whatever that annual income increase is minus $600. There was some great video floating around recently of a forklift operator or something who explained what his union dues got him and he was so informed and unphased by the dues he was paying.

dylan604 6y ago
Right up until that new raise puts you in the lowest tier of the next tax bracket so that you suddenly make less by making more.
- RankingMember 6y ago
  That's not how marginal tax rates work, though- You get taxed higher on the amount above the threshold, not on the entire amount.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    If you're below the poverty line, it's possible to make less by making more by disqualifying yourself for public aid. But if the Amazon workers are in that situation then we would need to expand this conversation anyway.
    - RankingMember 6y ago
      Agreed. My comment regards income tax brackets, not public aid.
- anotherman554 6y ago
  That's not how tax brackets work. You never make "less" when you make more money.
  - 6y ago

dylan604 6y ago

I absolutely abhor modern day versions of unions. They have not done enough to separate themselves in my eyes from the misguided activities that brought them their current negative reputations. However, I absolutely understand the need, and feel sorry for those stuck in a sitation where union type help is needed. If there was a way to wipe out existing unions and start fresh where nobody from leadership of exisiting unions were allowed to have influence, then maybe just maybe I would start leaning towards unions. But at the current implementation, it's a nope from me.

boublepop 6y ago
The more I read about Unions in America the more I am befuddled. Don’t you have membership elections for the leadership? How do you even decide who the leadership is then? If you do have elections, then your comment is akin to a republican proclaiming that democracy doesn’t work, but would work in principle but only of the current leadership was replace with Donal Trump.
- dylan604 6y ago
  >Don’t you have membership elections for the leadership? So does Iran, Russia, etc. Do you feel like those elections are free and fair? I don't feel like union leadership votes are. Again, there's a lot of baggage associated with current unions. New unions are needed, not new leadership of existing unions.
  - boublepop 6y ago
    Are you suggesting that the elections aren’t fair because you don’t like the outcomes of them or are you accusing them of rigging the elections?

bpodgursky 6y ago

Other than dues and having control over pay grades (maybe workers think they can do better than union-negotiated flat pay scales), unions can vote to strike and force you out of a job. And at the end of the day, the workers just weren't particularly unhappy, and those weren't palatable risks.

utahcon 6y ago

Unions will only work in a few scenarios. The biggest of which is that the people with the skill need to be 100% together in starting the union, and willing to not work when the union says to not work. The facts remain that most of these employees most likely can't afford to not work. They can't afford to be without the stability of their employers paycheck. Additionally, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people willing to replace these workers. Sadly they don't require any trade skill to pick/pull/pack. So there is no barrier for new recruits to be hired and replace the missing union workers. Advantage: Amazon

chrisseaton 6y ago

> why you would vote against your own collective interest Maybe they are not sufficiently confident that the union will act in their interest? Is that so crazy an idea? If you're in favour of unions then I guess you're in favour of workers being able to have a say in how they work. And if they don't want to work with a union then I can't understand how you can rationally do anything but say 'ok thank you for saying, if that's what you want no problem we'll do it that way'.

stefan_ 6y ago
You are saying in expressing the right to have a say in how they work, they chose to vote to not have a say in how they work? It's a pretty simple calculus. When the company spends twice the yearly payroll of the entire place on preventing the lowest of low workers on the totem pole from forming a union, maybe the company isn't acting in their best interests.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  They said that they did not want to be represented by these specific people with this specific deal. Maybe they'd be happy to be represented by someone else as part of some other arrangement? I don't know, and neither do you. But if that's what they say when asked what else should we do except honour that? If you think it's absolutely inconceivable they could legitimately vote against it at all... I mean then why have a vote at all? Might as well unionise them by force against their will and impose the union leaders as unelected and unwelcome representatives? That'll empower 'em, right?
- lovecg 6y ago
  Equating a specific approach with _the_ solution to the problem is the oldest trick in the book. You’re implicitly assuming that this specific proposal to form a union is equivalent to “having a say in how they work”. That’s definitely what people proposing the union would have everyone believe, but it’s not necessarily the reality. There are many other outcomes possible, and on the balance the people disagreed with that framing.

bko 6y ago

Assuming you're not an Amazon warehouse employee, but they have more skin in the game than you. So presumably their opinion is more informed and reasoned. I don't think its as clear cut as "in your interest". I certainly wouldn't vote to unionize my profession and I would even go as far as avoiding unionized fields. I prefer to have a direct relationship with my employer. I stay away from organizations that have a table that will tell you how much you'll make after N years. It's just not a dynamic place to work. Or at least that's my impression when dealing with unionized groups in large banks.

criddell 6y ago
> I stay away from organizations that have a table that will tell you how much you'll make after N years. I don't think that's necessarily a characteristic of a union shop and if it is, those are probably minimums. For example, professional baseball players and are unionized yet individuals can still negotiate salary.
- bko 6y ago
  That's true, but unionized spots have such a strong individualistic component to the work. However, in industries such as warehouse workers, the employee ability is a lot more uniform, so I doubt there would be provisions for superstars to negotiate salaries. It would more likely be something akin to a teacher union, with teaching being in between performance athletes and uniform workers. And even there I don't think individual teachers have much power to negotiate salary, but I could be wrong.
- freewilly1040 6y ago
  Why do you think the vagueness is in your favor? Especially for a warehouse worker, the job is doing rote tasks forever. Why wouldn’t they be able to project your salary into the future?
  - criddell 6y ago
    I think for a warehouse worker or any other job where people are basically fungible, unionizing is a no-brainer. Individuals have no leverage. Unionizing can make sense for other types of jobs as well. The person I responded to mentioned their preference for having a direct relationship with an employer. To me, that means other types of places than warehouses because I doubt very much that many warehouse workers have a relationship with anybody above their direct supervisor.

bioinformatics 6y ago

I agree with you. Elections everywhere are full of people voting wrong, against their self-interests and against everything I hold dear in life. I am Abel to vote in two countries and I can see this every year.

ransom1538 6y ago

"I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest" Union execs become a bunch of corrupt fat cats. They are terrible [1][2][3]. The union execs will go on fancy dinners with amazon execs and decide how to "make a deal". You pay dues to a bunch of fat cats (out of your horrible salary), THEN, good luck getting any kind of promotion without fat cat approval. Promotions will quickly be based on seniority. Production will soon slow then the company will decide to shut down these unproductive plants. Read about "flint michigan" to learn how awesome unions are in the US. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/prominent-union-leader-has-deep-ties-to-mafia-serbian-gangs-feds-allege/2802256/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/promi... https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/ https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/ https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unions https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unio...

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago

I like to think this is due to the bad reputation unions have. Digging a two mile tunnel eats half of the state budget? Police refuses to wear body cams? Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Rightly or not, in many people's minds unions are to blame.

Someone1234 6y ago
> Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Are you talking hypotheticals? Because that hasn't happened, and couldn't have happened since COVID isn't "over" anywhere in the US.
- dawnerd 6y ago
  If anything they’ve reopened too fast. News this morning that Michigan is closing them back down. Almost like there’s still a pandemic.
- mariksolo 6y ago
  It's happened more at the elementary school level.
lr4444lr 6y ago
I agree, but there are other dimensions to public sector unions that makes them worth keeping around: deterrence of the spoils system in politics, and the legal monopsony the state has on the labor and monopoly on credentialing in many cases.
trackmenot 6y ago
> Digging a two mile tunnel eats half of the state budget?Police refuses to wear body cams? Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Rightly or not, in many people's minds unions are to blame. If you were a contractor to a state and you scored a contract worth half the state's budget, would you consider that a success or a failure? You would consider it a success! The examples you give show exactly how unions work in the self-interest of their members. If the tunnel costs half the state's budget, the tunnel workers are surely well-paid, police officers rather not wear body cams so that they can whack people with their batons without being prosecuted, and teachers rather not return to schools as long as the epidemic is ongoing.

throw4downvote 6y ago

Ironically I think this is a good example of one of the weaknesses many people see in unions. Here we have a group of people who have voted "against their collective interest" (which is a dubious claim imo, but let's assume that it's true for the sake of argument). If they were already unionized, what's to stop them to similarly keep voting "against their collective interest", as viewed by one individual within the organization? All of this to say, I don't trust a large group of other people to vote for what's best for me personally. See also: US presidential elections, usually close to a 50/50 vote, where most people consider "their side" to be unequivocally aligned with their own interests, and the other side to be heinous and corrupt. Peoples perceptions and the objective truth are rarely aligned when there's money and campaigning involved. (Throwaway because being anti-union is unfortunately taboo)

lr4444lr 6y ago

Maybe they're worried that Amazon will not want to do business with union labor and just hire people willing to work unrepresented for 15/hr. minimum. Maybe work-life at Amazon low end is not as bad as the media sensationlizes. Why should it be your default to consider this as paradoxical rather than evidence?

trimbo 6y ago

> I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest The answer is in the article > Some workers who voted not to unionize said they ultimately didn’t see how a union would improve their pay or working conditions. They looked at the issue and felt it would not be better. We don't know what the union was promising them, and what they had seen through the process. I came here to find this comment because the "vote against their interest" argument is very predictable. It assumes that people should have no agency. That they're supposed to be robots that only vote one way on issues because of their demographic, and if they don't, then they must have been hoodwinked. It's condescending.

kethinov 6y ago
They looked at the issue and felt incorrectly that it would not be better. Look, I get the good intentions on all the discourse about not judging what's in another person's interests because you can't possibly know what they value, but it sure seems indisputable to me that a union would've delivered better pay and working conditions. I'm not sure in what warped universe voting against that isn't a vote against your interests and I don't think it's at all disrespectful to say they were victims of propaganda to get them to vote against their interests because when I look at the facts, that's what I see.
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  They probably just examined the same facts as you and came to a different conclusion. They are closer to their own situation, which doesn’t always mean they will make the right decision, but I would be very careful about telling someone how to live their own life.
  - kethinov 6y ago
    What set of facts could possibly have made unionization a bad idea? I genuinely can't imagine a single hypothetical which would make voting against this a good idea and would love to hear one.

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jasode 6y ago

>I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest It's because unions in America cannot guarantee the existence of the job. Yes, unions can force negotiations but they have no power to force the corporation to keep the factory open. (E.g. workers of Bakers union go on strike and in response, Hostess closes the factory.) That's the tradeoff of possible negative consequences that many armchair observers totally leave out when they only emphasize benefits of unions such as "higher pay, better work conditions, etc". I'd contend that observers who are confused why workers would "vote against their self-interest" and being "illogical" -- do not truly empathize with the poor workers' plight. (Or the observers are from Europe where unions work differently than America.) So the workers (Volkswagen workers in TN, Nissan in TN, Boeing in SC) that voted to reject union representation weighed the game theory tradeoffs of: (a) jobs continue to exist with better pay and conditions ... or ... (b) jobs are eliminated leading to layoffs and pay of $0 The possible outcome of (b) becomes even more perverse in that the workers pay dues to have their jobs eliminated! Yes, but if workers don't form a union -- "it's a race to the bottom!". Well, repeating memes is the currency of pundits rather than real cash that puts food on the table. Workers, understandably, make local decisions because they want a paycheck rather than worry about some global abstraction of "race to the bottom". Other fields such as NFL, NBA, superstars have leverage in union negotiations. Faceless workers have much less leverage. E.g. baseball umpires (faceless and less leverage) strike but the MLB just accepts their resignations and hires replacements. The unskilled line workers in factories have even less leverage.

bradleyjg 6y ago
Hard to believe this isn’t the top reply. You don’t need to go off into some long discussion about the philosophy of collective action. This vote was no because if it had been yes the likely consequence would have been all the voters being out of a job.
- regextegrity 6y ago
  > This vote was no because if it had been yes the likely consequence would have been all the voters being out of a job. Isn't that a problem?

fergie 6y ago

Reading the replies here I’m pretty shocked by the lack of good arguments against unionisation. Its sad.

hackeraccount 6y ago
The arguments against come from uncertainty, "there are clearly trade offs" "I don't know but people with skin in the game are against it" "This will cause problems in the long run" The arguments in favor are certain. There's is no mention of downsides; the only talk is of more money and more security with at most a mention that some dues will need to be paid (though on balance the worker will come out ahead).
conanbatt 6y ago
Empirical argument: The biggest unions in america are for the most poorly run and corrupt organizations. Teachers, Police, Firemen, Government workers, Health, public transportation. All with massive costs to the consumer, corruption, service disruption, closed shops, etc. Microeconomics argument: The only meaningful way unions increase employees wages is by artificially restricting supply. They can only move the point of equilibrium of demand and supply in their favor by restricting supply, thus unions always have in their interests on: increase minimum wages, licensing, closed shops, etc. Political Economy argument: What is most interesting for unions is to survive as unions, which means that even if sometimes they are adversarial with employers, they are often allies to the structure. This is because at the negotiation table between unions and employers there are some actors missing, namely, the consumer. Political argument: Unions exhert force only by destruction: by refusing to work, by boycotting, by collecting administration fees to maintain its structure. The proliferation of unions is the proliferation of destruction. Giving special legal status, protections, considerations, rewards to unions, you are proliferating unions and proliferating destruction.
- regextegrity 6y ago
  Meanwhile the Teachers, Police, Firemen, Government workers, Health, public transportation workers do not live in a state of wage slavery where the best job they can get doesn't even give bathroom breaks (i.e Amazon)

syshum 6y ago

I absolutely do not understand why someone would vote to be collectively represented instead of being able to act as as individual in your own best interest You claim not voting for the union is against your own interest but that assumes that the union will 100% of the time be looking out for your own individual best interest, this is simply false The union has supplanted individual choice for collective voting, and if your interests align with 50.1% of your fellow co workers than great but if your needs to not align with the majority of your co-workers then the union will screw you to serve the collective, and that is the best case.

Loughla 6y ago
>You claim not voting for the union is against your own interest but that assumes that the union will 100% of the time be looking out for your own individual best interest No, and that is a pretty far stretch from what I said. Please re-read "your own collective interest". It's easy to win an argument when you misrepresent what is said. Collective interest implies that it is the greatest good for the majority of people. Not the most good for you every time. Question for you: >I absolutely do not understand why someone would vote to be collectively represented instead of being able to act as as individual in your own best interest Do you really not see how it may be easier to negotiate as a group, rather than as an individual? In high-skill, high-demand jobs, yes, it is probably much easier to negotiate for individual benefits, because you have the power as the worker. But in low-skill, or high-supply jobs, the employers have all the power. I don't understand what you're saying.
- syshum 6y ago
  While low skill / high supply jobs can be more challenging in some cases to negotiate, I know many many employers that are having problems finding people even for the most entry level jobs. Further good employees, even in low skill jobs, are very hard to find and even harder to retain. employers want to keep them, unionization often limits their ability to retain these high performing employees because they are not allowed to give bonus, raise or any other incentive beyond what is laid out by collective bargaining. So I really do not see how it is easier to negotiate as a group. my personal experiences matches what have have observed in employment rations through out my career from when I was in a entry level position to now where I am in a higher skilled position

js8 6y ago

I wonder if it helped democracy if voters would be able to add "justification" to their vote. Then there would be less room for speculation about the reasons.

mmcdermott 6y ago
The data would be nice, but it seems like this would have a chilling effect on the vote itself. The extra context of a justification would make it easier to tie votes to groups or even individuals. I'm not sure why, but polls as a separate, voluntary activity seem like a safer way to do it.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Also dues are not compulsive because it's a "write to work" state. Insanity.

macinjosh 6y ago
It is "right to work" and I do not see how it is insane to not _force_ people to join unions. In the US we take our freedoms of association seriously and forcing a citizen to associate with an organization they do not wish to associate with is tantamount to an unconstitutionality.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  I didn't say right-to-work was insane, I said it was insane to complain about dues with right-to-work. As to right-to-work itself, yes it does sound very odd on the face of it, and that's because the way unions have been institutionalized is quite odd. It's a very peculiar legal framework, divorced from the "situation on the ground". I recommend https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-colleges-union-walter-reuther-treaty-detroit https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-coll... https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/eidlin-united-states-canada-unions-labor https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/eidlin-united-states-cana... for some background. Now, one school of thought is "these are the tools we have, use them" another school of thought is "this is self-defeating weirdness", I am not sure. But it certainly isn't so clear cut that "of course right-to-work" is bad. Regardless of everything else, it was an anti-labor cudgel created in bad faith. Any solution that finds union compulsion icky but doesn't do something about the monopsony power of employers is not to be taken seriously.

rorykoehler 6y ago

Gaslit to death

macinjosh 6y ago
Funny how some resort to calling workers gullible when they don't vote the way they're supposed to. You're saying these people have no agency and no understanding of their own situation? How patronizing! I thought accepting the will of the people is the whole goal of democracy?
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- rorykoehler 6y ago
  You take the Union and then shape it to your will. Now they for sure have no agency and no options. It’s a stupid decision no matter how you paint it. It’s also not my problem. They can piss in bottles if they like.

macinjosh 6y ago

"why you would vote against your own collective interest for a small amount of union dues" Ignorance of their own reasoning is rooted in the presupposition that the union was in their best interest and the dues were worth it. Obviously, the employees in this case did not agree it was in their interest. People think differently than others and that is OK.

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JarlUlvi 6y ago

If a union pushes improved working conditions, and the reduction of hours, this could have a substantially negative pay impact on the Amazon workers there. Given overtime laws, and the premium pay for overtime (1.5), a valid concern may be unionization will eliminate the lucrative overtime that is highly rewarding to peak performers willing to put in long hours.

linuxbo 6y ago

I personally enjoyed the flexibility of the "at-will" job. I grabbed a position at a Minnesota warehouse as a post-college graduate with no fulltime job. Kinda just wandered in off some job posting online and they just brought me on. Feels like people just don't want to mess with a good thing tho? A lot of my friends came from super different walks of life, but almost all unanimously enjoyed coming in for shifts and shooting the shit with their friends. Might just be a perception that change means that things will get worse and no one wants that.

RhysU 6y ago

If you are excellent at your job and can get a different one, why would you unionize? The union takes money out of your pocket, reduces your ability to get paid for performance, and slows the firm's ability to innovate. If the firm mistreats you, you can leave.

wnevets 6y ago

> I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interest Americans have been doing exactly that for decades.

conanbatt 6y ago

The kind of people that would like to be in unions is not the same kind of people that would not like to be in unions.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Can someone who works/worked one of these jobs please explain it to me? I am so confused by how lopsided this was. It's a result of how unions are structured in the US. (It's different in Europe from what I understand, and they're more popular there as a result.) In the US unions are structured as a monopoly on labor which then nominally has more negotiating power with the employer. The problem is that monopolies are inherently an industrial scale fail factory and everything about them makes everything worse. You then have effectively two possibilities. The first is that the employer is competing with a hundred other local employers for labor. In this case there isn't really anything for the union to do, because the employer will already have to offer competitive working conditions or employees will go work for somebody else. And the employer in a competitive market won't have thick margins for the union to extract from, implying that the union's overhead will be larger than what they can extract from the employer. The second is that the employer is, itself, a monopoly. In theory it now has thick margins that the union can extract concessions out of. But then you have two monopolies negotiating with each other. It's a battle of attrition. Can the employer afford to have their facility closed for longer than you can afford to be on strike? You know the answer to this is for large multinational corporations. The corporation will barely even notice the complete shuttering of that facility because they have a thousand more to pick up the slack. A monopsony employer is still a big problem, of course, it's just not a problem that unions are a solution to. Try antitrust, or lower regulatory barriers to small businesses so that there are more competing local employers etc.

slantedview 6y ago
> A monopsony employer is still a big problem, of course, it's just not a problem that unions are a solution to. Try antitrust, or lower regulatory barriers to small businesses so that there are more competing local employers etc. I like your comment, but unions aren't necessarily meant to solve this problem. Amazon imposes terrible working conditions on its warehouse workers, which a union absolutely could address.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > Amazon imposes terrible working conditions on its warehouse workers, which a union absolutely could address. How? The union's negotiating power comes from the ability to go on strike. They make a demand, Amazon says no, they go on strike, Amazon closes that warehouse and sends people their cheap junk from a different one. All the union can get you is the unemployment line, unless you do something to increase local competition for labor. In which case you don't need the union because employers have to compete through better working conditions.

exabrial 6y ago

I would try working one of "those jobs" at some point in your life. I repeatedly voted against unionization in previous lives of blue collar jobs: bus building, commercial roofing, and sheet metal workers. First, Union leadership is bought out and pursuing their own interests. They're not "for the people" as repeatedly braindeadly repeated in the comments section ad infinitum. Union leadership is out to benefit themselves first and foremost, and workers might benefit if you contribute to their cause, but it's a fantasy to pretend union leadership has everyone's best intentions in mind. Inevitably, this leads to the second, which is escalation of costs at the company. This is only partially wages; business decisions get delayed at committee, competitive advantage on market timing goes away, old-timey boomers get mad when something changes, and your company's innovation becomes stagnate. Your company falls behind and wages stagnate, and union leadership blames literally everyone except for themselves. Finally, the benefits are stupid for the price you pay. If they were measured on charity navigator, they would be listed as some of the worst run. The money gets funneled into union leadership pockets and their golf buddies. Nepotism runs wild; promotions got to whomever is slapping whom's ass or giving it out to their kid. It's a "tax" you can't vote yourself out of except to quit your job.

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disposekinetics 6y ago

It's a trade off. A union would very likely benefit me financially but every union I've ever had the opportunity to join has had a very progressive bend. Do I gain financially and lose morally or hold morally and miss out financially? Edit: I would be very enthusiastic about a union that stuck to just labor issues, no unrelated issues.