6 ms·

As somebody from the UK, I find it hard to understand the anti-union sentiment I always see here from people in the US. What is it about trades unions that's s

by M2Ys4U 5y ago

As somebody from the UK, I find it hard to understand the anti-union sentiment I always see here from people in the US. What is it about trades unions that's so objectionable? Is it the legal framework, union culture, being scared it means you'll make marginally less when your potential unicorn IPOs? And are those objections inherent to unions, or just the way that unions are usually run when you've encountered them in the past?

derefr 5y ago
One can understand much of the US’s politics through the lens that fully 50% of the country sees themselves as, if not small-business owners, then having small-business ownership in their career trajectory. As such, fully 50% of the country thinks that any measure that prevents them from being fully competitive in the worker-exploitation race-to-the-bottom that is business in most commodity markets (such as minimum wages, unions, more than 2wks mandatory vacation, etc.), will mean that they’ll fail to launch that phase of their career, and have to go back to flipping burgers. Of course, 50% of Americans will never be small business owners. It is thought by some that large corporations push this vision as propaganda, because voters who think of themselves as small business owners, vote for things that end up benefitting these large business owners.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Though you do get into this weird territory where the side that hates unions also loves police unions and coal mining unions. I've seen people have a full-blown existential meltdown when you point out that their favorite police union is in fact a union in the yay socialism sense. "No that can't be, that's different...." etc.
  - derefr 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s so strange: these people (the temporarily-embarrassed capital class, one could call them) are against unions they could see themselves managing. Not one of them wants to run a coal mine; that’s something that moustache-twirling aristocrats do, not decent bourgeoisie like themselves. And government unions aren’t a concern to them either, because this type of person also could never imagine themselves working for the government. (Few seem to have the inferential capacity to realize that they are nevertheless a shareholder of their government, and a marginal dollar saved in taxes is the same as a marginal dollar gained in dividends. One might in fact call taxes a dividend that’s usually net-negative.)
    - fundad 5y ago
      The temporarily-embarrassed capital class can rest assured their negative dividend will reliably go toward state violence. The police unions hold a special place because of what is known as Police Nationalism. For those people police determine that others need policing can can't imagine being on the receiving end of it. Would people object to prosecuting the Jan 6 perpetrators unless they feel police shouldn't be interfering in right wing attacks?
sam0x17 5y ago
There is so much anti-union disinformation coming out of most large and medium corporations at all times that by the time you are an adult, you probably know very little about unions but have this inkling that they are bad. This gets solidified as you go into the work force for [large corp] and are bombarded with anti-union propaganda. The disinformation is also class-based. Blue-collar workers and below are bombarded with this disinformation the second they start working at [large corp], and also hear it by virtue of their parents hearing it while they grow up, while white collar workers largely are not, which is why you see this peculiar progressivism amongst the elite, other than the portion of the elite that actually perpetuates anti-union sentiment because doing so is tacitly in their job description. So sadly, someone with a 1099 job at Amazon or McDonalds is much more likely to have anti-union sentiment, because they are much more likely to have been exposed to a "union education" pamphlet or "educational" video at work.
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  Are you a union member, or work for a union in some capacity?
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    Nope just an online leftist who also works for startups :)
    - mechanical_bear 5y ago
      Anecdotal, but well, I’m on online centrist who worked for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. Nearly all of the concerns raised in this thread are justified. In my experience, the benefits are threadbare and don’t offset the downsides. I often see people promoting or defending unions who have never worked for/been a member of a union, which is interesting.
School-Cotton 5y ago
Reposting a relevant comment I wrote a few years ago (although the last paragraph isn't relevant to Amazon warehouse workers specifically): First, culturally, US Americans are much more individualist than most Europeans. (Obviously I am painting with broad strokes here, but it’s true in a general sense, on average). US Americans are somewhat less likely to feel solidarity or a sense of common cause with coworkers, and more likely to value the freedom to negotiate their contract on their own. They are also much more likely to distrust large organizations and bureaucracy, sometimes to an extreme extent that would be puzzling to Western and Northern Europeans. Rather than being on their side, many would perceive the union as just one more large bureaucracy trying to screw them. Third, there are many current examples of unions in the US that have made industries meaningfully less efficient. And highly-paid US Americans are less likely to see themselves as oppressed by their employers and more likely to see themselves as making common cause: after all, they have a common goal of making a lot of money. If my company, say, found it harder to fire low performers (an almost certain consequence of a union), it would be less efficient, make less profit, and be less able to pay me my current high salary.
- 8ytecoder 5y ago
  There’s also a long history of union propaganda - like good ones, it’s usually mixed with truth. The entire Valley of Fear Sherlock Holmes novel was based on union busting. The fight for employee rights probably had a lot of bloodshed and now that we generally enjoy decent protection, we have forgotten the need for a union. All these factors add up.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  >They are also much more likely to distrust large organizations and bureaucracy, sometimes to an extreme extent that would be puzzling to Western and Northern Europeans. As an English person I have to disagree, there's certainly a level of cynicism towards bureaucracy in much of our society. Just look at a lot of British comedy, The Thick of It, Yes Minister, The League of Gentlemen, swathes of Monty Python, The Office, and many other examples couldn't have come from a culture where there's genuine deference to institutions and authority.
djrogers 5y ago
I think it's largely the power that unions have here once established. For recent examples, one can look at the spate of news about union crane operators at the ports of LA and Long Beach, but there are a ton of them. Large unions become huge political contributors, and affect policy decisions to an extent that often outweighs any influence they could get without that money, and that rubs people the wrong way as well.
mabub24 5y ago
Specifically for HN: this is a forum made up of predominantly young, hyper-mobile, extremely well compensated, white collar workers with an often unstated belief in meritocracy as the key determiner of success. Many of them do not understand the need of a union because they don't work in a milieu to which unions were previously prominent, nor do they understand their purpose. They see anything that could affect the above conditions as unnecessary or "bad". There has also been decades of corporate promoted anti-union propaganda. A simple google search shows that companies like Amazon will go to extremely intrusive lengths to control the narrative around unions by employing tactics like mass texting and communication campaigns, mandatory anti-union information meetings, etc. Do that enough and you get people who begin to earnestly support an anti-union sentiment, even if the union would help them.
csee 5y ago
I will offer an opinion as a staunchly anti-union person, so that you can get a feel for the perspective. If working conditions and pay suck, I much prefer a UBI so people can work less. It has none of the downsides of the below. - I want my underperforming colleagues to be fired quickly. It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I don't want seniority or rank to be rewarded. It's unfair to young people (me) who are more competent and ambitious, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I want to negotiate individually because I believe I will make more money as an outperformer. I don't want a centralized handicapper to blunt my compensation. - I don't like that unions are rent seeking in nature. - I don't like that unions often are exploited by organized crime. - I don't like that unions interfere in the broader political process and democracy via activism and political pressure (e.g look at the fact that the new EV subsidies will be going to everyone except Tesla, it's a perversion). - I think people should be free to organize, but I don't like that the state grants special asymmetric powers to unions. - I don't like especially public sector unions that I believe are doing significant damage to society broadly. For example police unions that shielded Chauvin after a large number of complaints.
- ur-whale 5y ago
  I wish HN would grant users a weekly quota of upvotes so I could spend it all at once on your post.
  - masterof0 5y ago
    I just spent all of mine on yours a csee's. ;)
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  Thank you. These are my concerns as well. I have the additional background of having worked for a union, which I would never consider again.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  > the state grants special asymmetric powers to unions. I'm in the middle on unions, largely because research has shown that low skill labor is a monopsony market. The state needs to give asymmetric power to unions because employers have an incredible advantage in the low skill labor market. UBI would certainly help here, as we've seen during the pandemic, but I'm not sure it would be enough for people to decide that they just won't work anymore.
RHSeeger 5y ago
There's people that think unions are the devil, and they destroy companies. There's people that think unions are perfect and everyone should be in one because they make everything better. The truth is that unions, at least in the US, have positives and negatives and both are significant. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or delusional. How people weight those two things against each other varies by person.
willcipriano 5y ago
My biological grandfather's truck was fire bombed by the Philadelphia Roofers Union. It's sort of a family thing for me personally.
snarf21 5y ago
There are several things: * The corruption in the unions gets a lot of press, now and historically. * There are lots of stories where union workers can't be fired so they just sleep at their desk. * We don't have good worker protections. There is no political appetite for it and also no strong public sentiment for it. This sounds counter intuitive but there is this attitude that people get what they deserve. "They could just get a different job", "No one is forcing them to work there". Even look at our vacation policies compare to Europe. There is a mentality that hard work (even being exploited) is a goal to strive for.
n8cpdx 5y ago
If a cop beats the shit out of you for no reason, on camera, against policy and in violation of constitutional rights and doesn’t get fired; you can thank the union. When the city bureaucracy cant’t process your permit application without an extra 3 months delay, and you wonder why they don’t speed up the process, or work a bit harder to handle things: thank the union. When you can’t train more doctors, because it is in doctors interest to be scarce: thank the ~union~ guild. When the factory shuts down, and the town loses its primary industry altogether because it can’t be productive with American workers fighting modernization: thank the union. I don’t like unions because they do nothing but cause problems and make society less efficient for everyone. We already know how to make life better for workers, which is to run the economy hot (basically one of the few things Trump got right; economy was looking good for marginal workers ~2017-2019) and use labor regulations in the cases where that isn’t enough. Running the organizations inefficiently is not actually necessary to improve conditions for workers.
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  “ When you can’t train more doctors, because it is in doctors interest to be scarce: thank the ~union~ guild.” Doctor unions wield no power, thankfully. Source: wife’s a doc
  - jpk2f2 5y ago
    I assume they were referring to doctor groups such as the AMA which actively work to limit the number of doctors.
    - dlp211 5y ago
      Except this isn't really true. While it is true that the AMA lobbied to reduce positions in the early 2000's due to an projected surplus, once it became apparent that there was actually a shortage, the AMA reversed its position and now lobbies for more positions.
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    There's all kinds of hoops to become a Doctor that aren't really necessary for most people to get the healthcare they need. Those organizations help foster that.
LarryDarrell 5y ago
The Cold War propaganda machine messed with a couple of generations' minds. Thatcher aside, I think maybe such propaganda was not as severe in the UK? You guys did have the community building exercise of rebuilding after the war, where in the US we immediately built the suburbs and began our decent into a Cowboy Individualist fever dream. Here you'll hear the same things over and over: "My (friend) was working at (someplace) and had to wait (2 hours | half a day) for a Union Electrician to plug in an electrical cord!" (Who cares! You got a free break! Enjoy the time slacking!) "Unions are corrupt!" (Ignoring the difference of scale of corruption in the corporate world vs a union) "I am paid because of my productivity! I am a Super-Worker! I resent the people who simply punch the clock at their CAREER." (Here you have wage slaves who were given a salary+perks and have been swindled into thinking that they have common ground with the Capitalist Class. Dividing workers into hierarchical groups is a old and great way to insure against any movement towards solidarity.) and on and on... but in the US, every argument against any form of worker solidarity you'll see the complete absence of consideration of the abuses and priorities of the Capitalist Class. It's never workers vs ownership over here. It's workers versus the narcissistic individual "Top-Performer" (self-described).
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  “ Who cares! You got a free break! Enjoy the time slacking!” This is exactly the mentality that demonstrates everything wrong with unions.
  - LarryDarrell 5y ago
    I remember re-covering the roof of an apartment building for a slumlord I worked for in college. We ran out of tar, so I had to wait an hour while the boss went to get some more. Sitting for awhile in the shade of the roof access entrance was glorious. We were supposed to drag our exhausted, aching bodies to the basement to "tidy". We didn't because that was absurd. Now I sit on my ass all day long and write code. I make enough now that I'm in the class of worker that's allowed to slack and pretend I don't. Sometimes I slack and post to Hacker News in the middle of the day. No union needed!
ur-whale 5y ago
> I find it hard to understand the anti-union sentiment There was an article on HN a couple of days back about how the ports of LA being some of the least efficient on the planet. Much about why Unions are a plague on the economy can be found in there.
ars 5y ago
> As somebody from the UK A Union in Europe and a Union in the US are not the same thing! They have the same name, but they are not the same type of organization. That's why you are confused. European style Unions do not exist in the US. One huge difference is in Europe the employee picks their union, while in the US there is a single union for the employer.
didibus 5y ago
My take now that I live in the US is that it's about people's definition of a successful and happy life. I feel in Europe people dream of having a cottage somewhere cute and pleasant, and just relaxing with good friends, having a drink at the pub, rinse and repeat. That's the "good life". But in America, people dream of being number #1, the best athlete, the richest man, the biggest CEO, etc. That's the "good life". So in America you want to be the best richest most famous most accomplished, and Unions seem to go against that. You're looking to compete for the top spot, not find a happy compromise, your coworkers are competition. In Europe, work stands in the way of your dream of leisure cottage life and caring to your hobbies. Unions seem to help with that, by amortizing the job/compensation, you can reclaim some of your time for yourself, have a better pension, work less hours, all things that'll help you have more free time.
hnaccount141 5y ago
One of the most common arguments I see repeated here when unions come up is the idea (not sure if it can be backed by evidence or not) that unions protect underperformers and stifle top performers. Combine this with the fact that most Americans believe they're above average intelligence [0] and you end up where a situation where most people believe that they personally would be worse off under a union. I suspect that the HN demographic (and I include myself in this) is particularly prone to this sense of illusory superiority [1]. We're a demographic that is more likely than most to have grown up constantly receiving external validation that we're exceptional via good performance in school, getting into elite universities, occupying extremely high paying jobs, and so on. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6029792/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6029792/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
ffggvv 5y ago
look at detroit to see what unions do. or teachers refusing to get vaccinated and prioritizing themselves over children

by M2Ys4U 5y ago

derefr 5y ago

One can understand much of the US’s politics through the lens that fully 50% of the country sees themselves as, if not small-business owners, then having small-business ownership in their career trajectory. As such, fully 50% of the country thinks that any measure that prevents them from being fully competitive in the worker-exploitation race-to-the-bottom that is business in most commodity markets (such as minimum wages, unions, more than 2wks mandatory vacation, etc.), will mean that they’ll fail to launch that phase of their career, and have to go back to flipping burgers. Of course, 50% of Americans will never be small business owners. It is thought by some that large corporations push this vision as propaganda, because voters who think of themselves as small business owners, vote for things that end up benefitting these large business owners.

sam0x17 5y ago
Though you do get into this weird territory where the side that hates unions also loves police unions and coal mining unions. I've seen people have a full-blown existential meltdown when you point out that their favorite police union is in fact a union in the yay socialism sense. "No that can't be, that's different...." etc.
- derefr 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s so strange: these people (the temporarily-embarrassed capital class, one could call them) are against unions they could see themselves managing. Not one of them wants to run a coal mine; that’s something that moustache-twirling aristocrats do, not decent bourgeoisie like themselves. And government unions aren’t a concern to them either, because this type of person also could never imagine themselves working for the government. (Few seem to have the inferential capacity to realize that they are nevertheless a shareholder of their government, and a marginal dollar saved in taxes is the same as a marginal dollar gained in dividends. One might in fact call taxes a dividend that’s usually net-negative.)
  - fundad 5y ago
    The temporarily-embarrassed capital class can rest assured their negative dividend will reliably go toward state violence. The police unions hold a special place because of what is known as Police Nationalism. For those people police determine that others need policing can can't imagine being on the receiving end of it. Would people object to prosecuting the Jan 6 perpetrators unless they feel police shouldn't be interfering in right wing attacks?

sam0x17 5y ago

There is so much anti-union disinformation coming out of most large and medium corporations at all times that by the time you are an adult, you probably know very little about unions but have this inkling that they are bad. This gets solidified as you go into the work force for [large corp] and are bombarded with anti-union propaganda. The disinformation is also class-based. Blue-collar workers and below are bombarded with this disinformation the second they start working at [large corp], and also hear it by virtue of their parents hearing it while they grow up, while white collar workers largely are not, which is why you see this peculiar progressivism amongst the elite, other than the portion of the elite that actually perpetuates anti-union sentiment because doing so is tacitly in their job description. So sadly, someone with a 1099 job at Amazon or McDonalds is much more likely to have anti-union sentiment, because they are much more likely to have been exposed to a "union education" pamphlet or "educational" video at work.

mechanical_bear 5y ago
Are you a union member, or work for a union in some capacity?
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Nope just an online leftist who also works for startups :)
  - mechanical_bear 5y ago
    Anecdotal, but well, I’m on online centrist who worked for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. Nearly all of the concerns raised in this thread are justified. In my experience, the benefits are threadbare and don’t offset the downsides. I often see people promoting or defending unions who have never worked for/been a member of a union, which is interesting.

School-Cotton 5y ago

Reposting a relevant comment I wrote a few years ago (although the last paragraph isn't relevant to Amazon warehouse workers specifically): First, culturally, US Americans are much more individualist than most Europeans. (Obviously I am painting with broad strokes here, but it’s true in a general sense, on average). US Americans are somewhat less likely to feel solidarity or a sense of common cause with coworkers, and more likely to value the freedom to negotiate their contract on their own. They are also much more likely to distrust large organizations and bureaucracy, sometimes to an extreme extent that would be puzzling to Western and Northern Europeans. Rather than being on their side, many would perceive the union as just one more large bureaucracy trying to screw them. Third, there are many current examples of unions in the US that have made industries meaningfully less efficient. And highly-paid US Americans are less likely to see themselves as oppressed by their employers and more likely to see themselves as making common cause: after all, they have a common goal of making a lot of money. If my company, say, found it harder to fire low performers (an almost certain consequence of a union), it would be less efficient, make less profit, and be less able to pay me my current high salary.

8ytecoder 5y ago
There’s also a long history of union propaganda - like good ones, it’s usually mixed with truth. The entire Valley of Fear Sherlock Holmes novel was based on union busting. The fight for employee rights probably had a lot of bloodshed and now that we generally enjoy decent protection, we have forgotten the need for a union. All these factors add up.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
>They are also much more likely to distrust large organizations and bureaucracy, sometimes to an extreme extent that would be puzzling to Western and Northern Europeans. As an English person I have to disagree, there's certainly a level of cynicism towards bureaucracy in much of our society. Just look at a lot of British comedy, The Thick of It, Yes Minister, The League of Gentlemen, swathes of Monty Python, The Office, and many other examples couldn't have come from a culture where there's genuine deference to institutions and authority.

djrogers 5y ago

I think it's largely the power that unions have here once established. For recent examples, one can look at the spate of news about union crane operators at the ports of LA and Long Beach, but there are a ton of them. Large unions become huge political contributors, and affect policy decisions to an extent that often outweighs any influence they could get without that money, and that rubs people the wrong way as well.

mabub24 5y ago

Specifically for HN: this is a forum made up of predominantly young, hyper-mobile, extremely well compensated, white collar workers with an often unstated belief in meritocracy as the key determiner of success. Many of them do not understand the need of a union because they don't work in a milieu to which unions were previously prominent, nor do they understand their purpose. They see anything that could affect the above conditions as unnecessary or "bad". There has also been decades of corporate promoted anti-union propaganda. A simple google search shows that companies like Amazon will go to extremely intrusive lengths to control the narrative around unions by employing tactics like mass texting and communication campaigns, mandatory anti-union information meetings, etc. Do that enough and you get people who begin to earnestly support an anti-union sentiment, even if the union would help them.

csee 5y ago

I will offer an opinion as a staunchly anti-union person, so that you can get a feel for the perspective. If working conditions and pay suck, I much prefer a UBI so people can work less. It has none of the downsides of the below. - I want my underperforming colleagues to be fired quickly. It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I don't want seniority or rank to be rewarded. It's unfair to young people (me) who are more competent and ambitious, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I want to negotiate individually because I believe I will make more money as an outperformer. I don't want a centralized handicapper to blunt my compensation. - I don't like that unions are rent seeking in nature. - I don't like that unions often are exploited by organized crime. - I don't like that unions interfere in the broader political process and democracy via activism and political pressure (e.g look at the fact that the new EV subsidies will be going to everyone except Tesla, it's a perversion). - I think people should be free to organize, but I don't like that the state grants special asymmetric powers to unions. - I don't like especially public sector unions that I believe are doing significant damage to society broadly. For example police unions that shielded Chauvin after a large number of complaints.

ur-whale 5y ago
I wish HN would grant users a weekly quota of upvotes so I could spend it all at once on your post.
- masterof0 5y ago
  I just spent all of mine on yours a csee's. ;)
mechanical_bear 5y ago
Thank you. These are my concerns as well. I have the additional background of having worked for a union, which I would never consider again.
colinmhayes 5y ago
> the state grants special asymmetric powers to unions. I'm in the middle on unions, largely because research has shown that low skill labor is a monopsony market. The state needs to give asymmetric power to unions because employers have an incredible advantage in the low skill labor market. UBI would certainly help here, as we've seen during the pandemic, but I'm not sure it would be enough for people to decide that they just won't work anymore.

RHSeeger 5y ago

There's people that think unions are the devil, and they destroy companies. There's people that think unions are perfect and everyone should be in one because they make everything better. The truth is that unions, at least in the US, have positives and negatives and both are significant. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or delusional. How people weight those two things against each other varies by person.

willcipriano 5y ago

My biological grandfather's truck was fire bombed by the Philadelphia Roofers Union. It's sort of a family thing for me personally.

snarf21 5y ago

There are several things: * The corruption in the unions gets a lot of press, now and historically. * There are lots of stories where union workers can't be fired so they just sleep at their desk. * We don't have good worker protections. There is no political appetite for it and also no strong public sentiment for it. This sounds counter intuitive but there is this attitude that people get what they deserve. "They could just get a different job", "No one is forcing them to work there". Even look at our vacation policies compare to Europe. There is a mentality that hard work (even being exploited) is a goal to strive for.

n8cpdx 5y ago

If a cop beats the shit out of you for no reason, on camera, against policy and in violation of constitutional rights and doesn’t get fired; you can thank the union. When the city bureaucracy cant’t process your permit application without an extra 3 months delay, and you wonder why they don’t speed up the process, or work a bit harder to handle things: thank the union. When you can’t train more doctors, because it is in doctors interest to be scarce: thank the ~union~ guild. When the factory shuts down, and the town loses its primary industry altogether because it can’t be productive with American workers fighting modernization: thank the union. I don’t like unions because they do nothing but cause problems and make society less efficient for everyone. We already know how to make life better for workers, which is to run the economy hot (basically one of the few things Trump got right; economy was looking good for marginal workers ~2017-2019) and use labor regulations in the cases where that isn’t enough. Running the organizations inefficiently is not actually necessary to improve conditions for workers.

mechanical_bear 5y ago
“ When you can’t train more doctors, because it is in doctors interest to be scarce: thank the ~union~ guild.” Doctor unions wield no power, thankfully. Source: wife’s a doc
- jpk2f2 5y ago
  I assume they were referring to doctor groups such as the AMA which actively work to limit the number of doctors.
  - dlp211 5y ago
    Except this isn't really true. While it is true that the AMA lobbied to reduce positions in the early 2000's due to an projected surplus, once it became apparent that there was actually a shortage, the AMA reversed its position and now lobbies for more positions.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  There's all kinds of hoops to become a Doctor that aren't really necessary for most people to get the healthcare they need. Those organizations help foster that.

LarryDarrell 5y ago

The Cold War propaganda machine messed with a couple of generations' minds. Thatcher aside, I think maybe such propaganda was not as severe in the UK? You guys did have the community building exercise of rebuilding after the war, where in the US we immediately built the suburbs and began our decent into a Cowboy Individualist fever dream. Here you'll hear the same things over and over: "My (friend) was working at (someplace) and had to wait (2 hours | half a day) for a Union Electrician to plug in an electrical cord!" (Who cares! You got a free break! Enjoy the time slacking!) "Unions are corrupt!" (Ignoring the difference of scale of corruption in the corporate world vs a union) "I am paid because of my productivity! I am a Super-Worker! I resent the people who simply punch the clock at their CAREER." (Here you have wage slaves who were given a salary+perks and have been swindled into thinking that they have common ground with the Capitalist Class. Dividing workers into hierarchical groups is a old and great way to insure against any movement towards solidarity.) and on and on... but in the US, every argument against any form of worker solidarity you'll see the complete absence of consideration of the abuses and priorities of the Capitalist Class. It's never workers vs ownership over here. It's workers versus the narcissistic individual "Top-Performer" (self-described).

mechanical_bear 5y ago
“ Who cares! You got a free break! Enjoy the time slacking!” This is exactly the mentality that demonstrates everything wrong with unions.
- LarryDarrell 5y ago
  I remember re-covering the roof of an apartment building for a slumlord I worked for in college. We ran out of tar, so I had to wait an hour while the boss went to get some more. Sitting for awhile in the shade of the roof access entrance was glorious. We were supposed to drag our exhausted, aching bodies to the basement to "tidy". We didn't because that was absurd. Now I sit on my ass all day long and write code. I make enough now that I'm in the class of worker that's allowed to slack and pretend I don't. Sometimes I slack and post to Hacker News in the middle of the day. No union needed!

ur-whale 5y ago

> I find it hard to understand the anti-union sentiment There was an article on HN a couple of days back about how the ports of LA being some of the least efficient on the planet. Much about why Unions are a plague on the economy can be found in there.

ars 5y ago

> As somebody from the UK A Union in Europe and a Union in the US are not the same thing! They have the same name, but they are not the same type of organization. That's why you are confused. European style Unions do not exist in the US. One huge difference is in Europe the employee picks their union, while in the US there is a single union for the employer.

didibus 5y ago

My take now that I live in the US is that it's about people's definition of a successful and happy life. I feel in Europe people dream of having a cottage somewhere cute and pleasant, and just relaxing with good friends, having a drink at the pub, rinse and repeat. That's the "good life". But in America, people dream of being number #1, the best athlete, the richest man, the biggest CEO, etc. That's the "good life". So in America you want to be the best richest most famous most accomplished, and Unions seem to go against that. You're looking to compete for the top spot, not find a happy compromise, your coworkers are competition. In Europe, work stands in the way of your dream of leisure cottage life and caring to your hobbies. Unions seem to help with that, by amortizing the job/compensation, you can reclaim some of your time for yourself, have a better pension, work less hours, all things that'll help you have more free time.

hnaccount141 5y ago

One of the most common arguments I see repeated here when unions come up is the idea (not sure if it can be backed by evidence or not) that unions protect underperformers and stifle top performers. Combine this with the fact that most Americans believe they're above average intelligence [0] and you end up where a situation where most people believe that they personally would be worse off under a union. I suspect that the HN demographic (and I include myself in this) is particularly prone to this sense of illusory superiority [1]. We're a demographic that is more likely than most to have grown up constantly receiving external validation that we're exceptional via good performance in school, getting into elite universities, occupying extremely high paying jobs, and so on. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6029792/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6029792/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

ffggvv 5y ago

look at detroit to see what unions do. or teachers refusing to get vaccinated and prioritizing themselves over children