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At one place I worked, I discovered that an employee had intentionally broken a machine that resulted in more than $8m in losses, but because of union negotiati

At one place I worked, I discovered that an employee had intentionally broken a machine that resulted in more than $8m in losses, but because of union negotiations, no one would do anything about it. At a different company, a union worker actually aimed a forklift at me, apparently because I was in IT. Unions historically served an important role, but they're an anachronism in the U.S. -- especially for coders at Google who are literally in the 1% of top earners. Google SWE's complaining they're not making enough is just breathtaking hubris. There's so much money sloshing around that they could, and should, go work for another startup or start their own, especially as an ex-Googler.

lovich 5y ago
I’m willing to be convinced here but how does 2 shitty people convince you that unions are an anachronism, especially when we are in the middle of an effective nationwide labor revolt over how shitty workers have been paid and treated for years?
- gunapologist99 5y ago
  Thanks! these are not the only stories I could tell, but just two picked at random.
  - lovich 5y ago
    Willing to be convinced == I am willing to here your logic here. This is still just anecdotes with no connection other than that some people can suck
    - gunapologist99 5y ago
      You're right, it's just anecdata, but literally I have a dozen stories like that and almost (not quite) zero countervailing stories. My experience with unions is that they start out with noble intentions, and then within a generation or two of union leaders devolve into just serving themselves; meanwhile, management suffers with worse and worse employees, because they can't do anything to get rid of the bad apples. Over time, the bad apples bring in more bad apples and things get progressively worse. That can happen in a non-union company, too, but then it'll get punished by the market. It's really a question of misaligned incentives; the union reps have no incentive to do anything to help the company, and often have incentives to do the exact opposite, like initiate a strike at the worst possible time.
      - lovich 5y ago
        The unions have just as much an incentive to help the company as the company has to help the workers. Both will have nothing without the other so they can’t extract 100% of the value, but they do want to maximize their take. What I don’t get from your comments is why you think unions are bad because they can have bad actors, but are ignoring that the company’s bad behavior doesn’t go away if the union does. And this happens even for well compensated roles. Look at examples like when Apple, google, and a few other companies entered into a cartel agreement to suppress engineer wages.
        gunapologist99 5y ago
        > Look at examples like when Apple, google, and a few other companies entered into a cartel agreement to suppress engineer wages. Wasn't that already illegal? Did unions help?
        lovich 5y ago
        The unions didn’t exist so how could they have helped?
        gunapologist99 5y ago
        That's kinda the point. How did it get resolved? Through a class-action lawsuit from 60,000 employees across all of the involved companies. No union was needed.
1121redblackgo 5y ago
I am not sure that anything in that long winded diatribe says anything about the usefulness of unions.
- gunapologist99 5y ago
  Unions protect people who should have long since been fired, even when they literally cost the company millions. That (huge) company actually completely moved overseas. The second (also huge) company moved 100% of their manufacturing to Mexico. In another place that I worked at fresh out of college, they actually covered their signage on trucks because the truckers were being beat up in truck stops and getting their tires slashed. One of the truckers told me that he made top of the industry wages and he was happy with management and didn't see any need to join a union, but that he was worried about getting beat up if he didn't vote to join.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
There are plenty of stories of executives and boards of directors who mess up big time, cost the company big money and get rewarded with multi million dollar severance packages. Is management and board of directors an anachronism too?

lovich 5y ago

I’m willing to be convinced here but how does 2 shitty people convince you that unions are an anachronism, especially when we are in the middle of an effective nationwide labor revolt over how shitty workers have been paid and treated for years?

gunapologist99 5y ago
Thanks! these are not the only stories I could tell, but just two picked at random.
- lovich 5y ago
  Willing to be convinced == I am willing to here your logic here. This is still just anecdotes with no connection other than that some people can suck
  - gunapologist99 5y ago
    You're right, it's just anecdata, but literally I have a dozen stories like that and almost (not quite) zero countervailing stories. My experience with unions is that they start out with noble intentions, and then within a generation or two of union leaders devolve into just serving themselves; meanwhile, management suffers with worse and worse employees, because they can't do anything to get rid of the bad apples. Over time, the bad apples bring in more bad apples and things get progressively worse. That can happen in a non-union company, too, but then it'll get punished by the market. It's really a question of misaligned incentives; the union reps have no incentive to do anything to help the company, and often have incentives to do the exact opposite, like initiate a strike at the worst possible time.
    - lovich 5y ago
      The unions have just as much an incentive to help the company as the company has to help the workers. Both will have nothing without the other so they can’t extract 100% of the value, but they do want to maximize their take. What I don’t get from your comments is why you think unions are bad because they can have bad actors, but are ignoring that the company’s bad behavior doesn’t go away if the union does. And this happens even for well compensated roles. Look at examples like when Apple, google, and a few other companies entered into a cartel agreement to suppress engineer wages.
      - gunapologist99 5y ago
        > Look at examples like when Apple, google, and a few other companies entered into a cartel agreement to suppress engineer wages. Wasn't that already illegal? Did unions help?
        lovich 5y ago
        The unions didn’t exist so how could they have helped?
        gunapologist99 5y ago
        That's kinda the point. How did it get resolved? Through a class-action lawsuit from 60,000 employees across all of the involved companies. No union was needed.

1121redblackgo 5y ago

I am not sure that anything in that long winded diatribe says anything about the usefulness of unions.

gunapologist99 5y ago
Unions protect people who should have long since been fired, even when they literally cost the company millions. That (huge) company actually completely moved overseas. The second (also huge) company moved 100% of their manufacturing to Mexico. In another place that I worked at fresh out of college, they actually covered their signage on trucks because the truckers were being beat up in truck stops and getting their tires slashed. One of the truckers told me that he made top of the industry wages and he was happy with management and didn't see any need to join a union, but that he was worried about getting beat up if he didn't vote to join.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

There are plenty of stories of executives and boards of directors who mess up big time, cost the company big money and get rewarded with multi million dollar severance packages. Is management and board of directors an anachronism too?