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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 U
by 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 agoI wish HN would grant users a weekly quota of upvotes so I could spend it all at once on your post.
- masterof0 5y agoI just spent all of mine on yours a csee's. ;)
- mechanical_bear 5y agoThank 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.
- masterof0 5y ago> If working conditions and pay suck, I would say find something else to do, I know plenty of people switching to web development, graphic design, etc... from other industries (accountanting, sales, ...), start your own company, change jobs, ... I also don't want unions in tech, I understand the need for it elsewhere.
- didibus 5y agoOk, but you do understand that these are not arguments, they are worries? And you realize that there has been historically effort and money going into those exact fears being propagated and ingrained in the US worker's mind, because of strong anti-union company practices. So that leaves us in a very weird place, where the pros and cons of unions become beliefs and opinions, but it should very much be something one can properly analyse from real data.