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Unions make the slow demise of companies bearable for workers. Think of any big company it has a 50-100 year life cycle with the first 10-20 years being up and

by rdtwo 5y ago

Unions make the slow demise of companies bearable for workers. Think of any big company it has a 50-100 year life cycle with the first 10-20 years being up and the rest being middling or decay. During the first 10-20 unions aren’t common or needed much but eventually management rot sets in and you start getting some crazy policies. Take Amazon for example, if they had a Union a lot of the crazy stacked ranking insane ot oddities would be resolved by Union contact. Salary would probably go down because you don’t need to pay insane wages if your work/life environment is good. The company Might be a bit less productive but the effect would be pretty negligible

scarface74 5y ago
I happen to work at AWS (ProServe). You know what people did when they saw the wages weren’t competitive? They started leaving in droves forcing Amazon to be competitive. https://www.geekwire.com/2022/amazon-more-than-doubles-max-base-pay-to-350k-for-corporate-and-tech-workers-citing-labor-market/ https://www.geekwire.com/2022/amazon-more-than-doubles-max-b... The free market and free will is a great thing isn’t it? So wouldn’t unions also prevent top performers from negotiating wages? How much did unions help the auto industry?
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  There's probably actual research on this, but I can't come up with the right search terms. It could be one of those situations where it's impossible to say for sure. You can't exactly design an experiment around it: the decline already happened. So you'd have to do some kind of comparative analysis to figure out how outcomes would have changed without a union. Unions were never a 100% thing, so it might be enough to look at how non-union shops in the same markets fared.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Is this really what we want as a society? https://fortune.com/longform/unions-workplace-technology/ https://fortune.com/longform/unions-workplace-technology/ And they fight against merit pay. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/10/why_do_unions_o.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/10/why_do_unions_o.htm...
    - rdtwo 5y ago
      If you think you are the top 10% of management favorites then you will not benefit. If you are a middling engineer then you will
      - scarface74 5y ago
        I don’t have to be the top 10%. I just have to be better than the median. I should be better than the median in my mid 40s.
        rdtwo 5y ago
        Yes and no you have to be better than the median in all categories some of which you have no control over. For example you need to work in a better than median group for a better than median boss in a better than median division with better than median experience.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  In tech the workers have a lot more negotiating power because you aren’t trapped by heavy capital equipment costs. Still unions help with some of the shitty practices you see like the pip shenanigans at Amazon. There is a cost but if you need or want a stable place to work for more than a few years without burnout they help with work life Protections
  - scarface74 5y ago
    I mentioned I work in ProServe specifically to imply that I don’t have those issues. “I control my calendar”. I make sure the scope of work is well defined before I take on any work if I’m not involved in the pre sales part and I am responsible for setting reasonable expectations with my customers. In my org, it’s a sign of poor project management and customer management skills if you are constantly overbooked and it’s considered a negative. Of course all that went out of the window during the first three months after Covid.

by rdtwo 5y ago

scarface74 5y ago

I happen to work at AWS (ProServe). You know what people did when they saw the wages weren’t competitive? They started leaving in droves forcing Amazon to be competitive. https://www.geekwire.com/2022/amazon-more-than-doubles-max-base-pay-to-350k-for-corporate-and-tech-workers-citing-labor-market/ https://www.geekwire.com/2022/amazon-more-than-doubles-max-b... The free market and free will is a great thing isn’t it? So wouldn’t unions also prevent top performers from negotiating wages? How much did unions help the auto industry?

mkr-hn 5y ago
There's probably actual research on this, but I can't come up with the right search terms. It could be one of those situations where it's impossible to say for sure. You can't exactly design an experiment around it: the decline already happened. So you'd have to do some kind of comparative analysis to figure out how outcomes would have changed without a union. Unions were never a 100% thing, so it might be enough to look at how non-union shops in the same markets fared.
- scarface74 5y ago
  Is this really what we want as a society? https://fortune.com/longform/unions-workplace-technology/ https://fortune.com/longform/unions-workplace-technology/ And they fight against merit pay. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/10/why_do_unions_o.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/10/why_do_unions_o.htm...
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    If you think you are the top 10% of management favorites then you will not benefit. If you are a middling engineer then you will
    - scarface74 5y ago
      I don’t have to be the top 10%. I just have to be better than the median. I should be better than the median in my mid 40s.
      - rdtwo 5y ago
        Yes and no you have to be better than the median in all categories some of which you have no control over. For example you need to work in a better than median group for a better than median boss in a better than median division with better than median experience.
rdtwo 5y ago
In tech the workers have a lot more negotiating power because you aren’t trapped by heavy capital equipment costs. Still unions help with some of the shitty practices you see like the pip shenanigans at Amazon. There is a cost but if you need or want a stable place to work for more than a few years without burnout they help with work life Protections
- scarface74 5y ago
  I mentioned I work in ProServe specifically to imply that I don’t have those issues. “I control my calendar”. I make sure the scope of work is well defined before I take on any work if I’m not involved in the pre sales part and I am responsible for setting reasonable expectations with my customers. In my org, it’s a sign of poor project management and customer management skills if you are constantly overbooked and it’s considered a negative. Of course all that went out of the window during the first three months after Covid.