4 ms·

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power

by krige 5y ago

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are a traditional thing, strong unions can and will screw over a workplace. It's usually about a show of power and abusing veto ability to stay in power until the place stagnates, loses competitive status and disintegrates.

geewee 5y ago
Speaking from practice in a country where unions are also a traditional thing (Denmark), in fact so traditional our whole way of working and negotiating salary is based on it - I think strong unions are a wonderful thing that benefits the workers a lot.
hjanssen 5y ago
There are several countries with strong unions and a tradition of unions taking part in company matters, a good example would be my place, Germany. I have never seen a union "screwing over" a company, but many times have I seen complains that the unions screwed the company over from people that directly or indirectly profit from weak or no unions.
- nickik 5y ago
  Its amazing how people endlessly talk about Germany but ignore all the other cases where Union are far less positive. How about we talk about how Venezuela Union bosses. How about the US car workers union being an endless pit of corruption. Switzerland is next to Germany, and has almost no union and there is not so much difference in overall standard of living and how workers are treated. The idea that Unions are this universal good and talking negative about them is simply being anti-worker pro-capitalist exploitation is a tiered talking point.
  - dgb23 5y ago
    In Switzerland many professions have a GAV (initiated by unions) with strong worker protection.
    - jorvi 5y ago
      AFAIK, Denmark doesn't even have a minimum wage, it's just that pretty much every sector and niche of the economy has unions so it is de facto enforced via union <-> sector negotiations. Unions are great, and people who are against them fall in one of three categories: - business owner - absolute free market fetishists - one bad experience cherry pickers
- krige 5y ago
  My current workplace is one such case of union killing a theoretically profitable company so I really am speaking from experience - the only reason the workplace still exists today is because after it went bankrupt it was bought out by an outsider who discarded the union part. Ironically it turned out to be for the best for both the company as a whole and the actual workers. Just because you don't hear of it - or don't want to hear of it - doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
  - samsari 5y ago
    Just because you saw it is no reason to state that unions will become bad actors.
nosianu 5y ago
Speaking from practice in a country where unions were strong for many decades, the German economy was doing pretty well all the time and if Germany loses out at some point it is hardly the union's fault (for example, the pressure to remain such a high net exporter seems hard to maintain forever). What kind of reasoning is it to look for one or a few examples of individuals screwing up and then claiming it as a property of the species? I think we found more than one criminal company or CEO, but you would not use that as an example for how useless or even bad companies and CEOs are. I would also have preferred that OP instead of pointing to the name of the source (and nothing else!) would at least have added something about the actual content of the linked article. It seems to me to be rarely justified to argue by just pointing at the source of the argument as if that is a counter argument to the actual argument that was made (which at that point remains unexplored and unknown, implying it's not even worth looking at it - but it was still worth formulating a comment?).
dgb23 5y ago
Unions have no general and inherent self-defense against corruption, so the larger, more powerful and more hierarchical they become, the more these kinds of problems can (and will) arise. Similar things can happen to worker coops, foundations and other organizations that emerge from the need of having a counterbalance to corrupted institutions and corporations. The only solution is to maintain and expand democratic decision making from within. An organization that claims to be about the people, its members, absolutely has to be run by those people directly.
pydry 5y ago
It's interesting that when this topic rears its head a common attitude comes out (although is never outright stated): * Governments are frequently corrupt and when they are they should be reformed. * Businesses are frequently corrupt and when they are they should be reformed. * Unions are frequently corrupt. They should therefore not exist. Realistically corruption is a feature of all human institutions. Unions are special only insofar as they are institutions that threaten rather than defend the wealth of the American ruling classes.
- austhrow743 5y ago
  You can't realistically abolish your government. Or at the least stop being governed by one. Other internal organisations will take its place or a foreign government will gobble you up. You can't realistically abolish businesses. An economy of just individual tradesmen all working independently cant come close to the efficiency gains a large business has and just straight up lack the capacity for large scale projects and R&D. It's going to lead to the same outcome as your government being abolished and then businesses being reinstated. Listed alongside the other two, the special thing about unions is they don't have this "you just straight up cant get rid of them and keep them gone" factor. So I think its completely reasonable for a person very concerned with corruption to take reform, reform, get rid of them stances respectively. Remove the institutions you can and fight corruption in the ones you cant.
  - pydry 5y ago
    You can abolish government. The results arent pleasant (see 90s mogadishu) but you can. This is the goal of so called "ancaps". It's great if you enjoy being a warlord. You can abolish businesses too. The 2nd largest economy from 1950-1970 did precisely that, TINA propaganda notwithstanding. Chinese SOEs also serve as a model for a business that isnt really a business. It's great if you're on the central committee. You can abolish unions as well. The results also arent exactly pleasant for the 90% of people who rely on selling their labor to survive. But it's fucking great for that top 10% if they dont exist.
lapinot 5y ago
Bad unions are bad and the sky is blue. It should be pretty self-explanatory that nobody is gonna defend unions which "screw over the workplace", it's a straw-man. But some people still defend unions.. so, a more honest question would be: what do they think is a good union then? What should a union strive to do? What are the critics they agree with?
- jseban 5y ago
  The people who are happy with the union will be people who are underperforming and/or belong to the mainstream majority of the people in the workplace. Just like always, the majority will benefit at the expense of the minority, so it will never be good for everyone, and push for conformity and restricting people's freedom, and in the end will probably be mostly arbitrary depending on what the majority in that workplace happens to be (mostly younger, singles, or older with kids etc). And even such general things such as negotiating pay will only be good for the lower performers, anyone who is a high performer will be better off negotiating their own salary.
jseban 5y ago
This is exactly what happened in the recession in the 70s in Europe which caused a crisis in the industry in for example Sweden, and the reason why Thatcher had to push through the unpopular neoliberal reforms in the UK. Unions caused stagnation and the industry could not compete with the recovering global competition, from Japan etc.

by krige 5y ago

geewee 5y ago

Speaking from practice in a country where unions are also a traditional thing (Denmark), in fact so traditional our whole way of working and negotiating salary is based on it - I think strong unions are a wonderful thing that benefits the workers a lot.

hjanssen 5y ago

There are several countries with strong unions and a tradition of unions taking part in company matters, a good example would be my place, Germany. I have never seen a union "screwing over" a company, but many times have I seen complains that the unions screwed the company over from people that directly or indirectly profit from weak or no unions.

nickik 5y ago
Its amazing how people endlessly talk about Germany but ignore all the other cases where Union are far less positive. How about we talk about how Venezuela Union bosses. How about the US car workers union being an endless pit of corruption. Switzerland is next to Germany, and has almost no union and there is not so much difference in overall standard of living and how workers are treated. The idea that Unions are this universal good and talking negative about them is simply being anti-worker pro-capitalist exploitation is a tiered talking point.
- dgb23 5y ago
  In Switzerland many professions have a GAV (initiated by unions) with strong worker protection.
  - jorvi 5y ago
    AFAIK, Denmark doesn't even have a minimum wage, it's just that pretty much every sector and niche of the economy has unions so it is de facto enforced via union <-> sector negotiations. Unions are great, and people who are against them fall in one of three categories: - business owner - absolute free market fetishists - one bad experience cherry pickers
krige 5y ago
My current workplace is one such case of union killing a theoretically profitable company so I really am speaking from experience - the only reason the workplace still exists today is because after it went bankrupt it was bought out by an outsider who discarded the union part. Ironically it turned out to be for the best for both the company as a whole and the actual workers. Just because you don't hear of it - or don't want to hear of it - doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
- samsari 5y ago
  Just because you saw it is no reason to state that unions will become bad actors.

nosianu 5y ago

Speaking from practice in a country where unions were strong for many decades, the German economy was doing pretty well all the time and if Germany loses out at some point it is hardly the union's fault (for example, the pressure to remain such a high net exporter seems hard to maintain forever). What kind of reasoning is it to look for one or a few examples of individuals screwing up and then claiming it as a property of the species? I think we found more than one criminal company or CEO, but you would not use that as an example for how useless or even bad companies and CEOs are. I would also have preferred that OP instead of pointing to the name of the source (and nothing else!) would at least have added something about the actual content of the linked article. It seems to me to be rarely justified to argue by just pointing at the source of the argument as if that is a counter argument to the actual argument that was made (which at that point remains unexplored and unknown, implying it's not even worth looking at it - but it was still worth formulating a comment?).

dgb23 5y ago

Unions have no general and inherent self-defense against corruption, so the larger, more powerful and more hierarchical they become, the more these kinds of problems can (and will) arise. Similar things can happen to worker coops, foundations and other organizations that emerge from the need of having a counterbalance to corrupted institutions and corporations. The only solution is to maintain and expand democratic decision making from within. An organization that claims to be about the people, its members, absolutely has to be run by those people directly.

pydry 5y ago

It's interesting that when this topic rears its head a common attitude comes out (although is never outright stated): * Governments are frequently corrupt and when they are they should be reformed. * Businesses are frequently corrupt and when they are they should be reformed. * Unions are frequently corrupt. They should therefore not exist. Realistically corruption is a feature of all human institutions. Unions are special only insofar as they are institutions that threaten rather than defend the wealth of the American ruling classes.

austhrow743 5y ago
You can't realistically abolish your government. Or at the least stop being governed by one. Other internal organisations will take its place or a foreign government will gobble you up. You can't realistically abolish businesses. An economy of just individual tradesmen all working independently cant come close to the efficiency gains a large business has and just straight up lack the capacity for large scale projects and R&D. It's going to lead to the same outcome as your government being abolished and then businesses being reinstated. Listed alongside the other two, the special thing about unions is they don't have this "you just straight up cant get rid of them and keep them gone" factor. So I think its completely reasonable for a person very concerned with corruption to take reform, reform, get rid of them stances respectively. Remove the institutions you can and fight corruption in the ones you cant.
- pydry 5y ago
  You can abolish government. The results arent pleasant (see 90s mogadishu) but you can. This is the goal of so called "ancaps". It's great if you enjoy being a warlord. You can abolish businesses too. The 2nd largest economy from 1950-1970 did precisely that, TINA propaganda notwithstanding. Chinese SOEs also serve as a model for a business that isnt really a business. It's great if you're on the central committee. You can abolish unions as well. The results also arent exactly pleasant for the 90% of people who rely on selling their labor to survive. But it's fucking great for that top 10% if they dont exist.

lapinot 5y ago

Bad unions are bad and the sky is blue. It should be pretty self-explanatory that nobody is gonna defend unions which "screw over the workplace", it's a straw-man. But some people still defend unions.. so, a more honest question would be: what do they think is a good union then? What should a union strive to do? What are the critics they agree with?

jseban 5y ago
The people who are happy with the union will be people who are underperforming and/or belong to the mainstream majority of the people in the workplace. Just like always, the majority will benefit at the expense of the minority, so it will never be good for everyone, and push for conformity and restricting people's freedom, and in the end will probably be mostly arbitrary depending on what the majority in that workplace happens to be (mostly younger, singles, or older with kids etc). And even such general things such as negotiating pay will only be good for the lower performers, anyone who is a high performer will be better off negotiating their own salary.

jseban 5y ago

This is exactly what happened in the recession in the 70s in Europe which caused a crisis in the industry in for example Sweden, and the reason why Thatcher had to push through the unpopular neoliberal reforms in the UK. Unions caused stagnation and the industry could not compete with the recovering global competition, from Japan etc.