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I honestly don't get why you wouldn't want to form a union. Why voluntarily put yourself into a massively worse position when negotiating wages and working cond

by xg15 4y ago

I honestly don't get why you wouldn't want to form a union. Why voluntarily put yourself into a massively worse position when negotiating wages and working conditions with your employer? This goes especially for frontline or storage workers or anyone else who is frequently seen by management as "easily replaceable".

yucky 4y ago
>I honestly don't get why you wouldn't want to form a union. The most common answer to this is that unions protect the worst employees, and tends to equalize wages so that the better employees are paid the same as the worst. If you're more talented, why should you expect equal pay to everyone else? Unions reward mediocrity. They can (and have) certainly done good as well. But this is the most common critique of unions.
- xg15 4y ago
  Ah, that makes sense - though I wonder who usually is making that criticism. At least, I don't see why a union couldn't negotiate a base pay that still leaves room for bonuses if certain employees are particularly high-performing. Unions have an incentive for the company to be healthy and profitable - just not at the expense of the workers. Also, "talented" seems very vague to me. Of course everyone would like to be exceptionally talented and be placed above the others, but who in the end decides of you are talented or not and on which criteria? This seems a bit like the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" situation, where you can be tempted to give up security in the present for some idealized but highly uncertain future.
  - yucky 4y ago
    >Also, "talented" seems very vague to me. The fact is, there are a ton of shitty employees. Anybody who has ever worked with others, knows that. In a union environment, those people are paid the same. That naturally grates on a lot of people. If you work with someone who does the same job as you, but poorly...you would rightfully expect to be paid more. I don't want this to come off as me saying unions are shit, but the question was asked why would people ever not support unions and that's generally why.
rtp4me 4y ago
I honestly don't know why the initial reaction is *to have a union*. To me, this immediately puts you at a position of distrust with your employer. And, I simply don't understand all the HN hate toward management. I highly doubt most management teams see workers as "easily replaceable" especially considering how hard it is to get workers these days.
- xg15 4y ago
  > To me, this immediately puts you at a position of distrust with your employer. Well yes, it does. After all, the employer doesn't trust me either, otherwise we wouldn't have a whole industry of performance monitoring tools, time tracking systems, access control solutions, etc. You cannot expect one side to pretend we're all a big family while the other does not. > I highly doubt most management teams see workers as "easily replaceable" especially considering how hard it is to get workers these days. Then go ahead and chat with a few Amazon warehouse workers or Starbucks Baristas or Uber drivers. Or Amazon developers for that matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31789381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31789381
- ddingus 4y ago
  The reason "have a union" is high on the list of potential solutions to the need to improve both the work place and compensation comes down to having power, and that boils down to being able to present real costs and risks to management they need to respect. As for mistrust, not necessarily. The basic idea of a better balance of power can simply insure good people stay good. In the case of newly formed unions, the overwhelming majority already have mistrust and cause for it. Hate towards management is simple and works like auto mechanics do; namely, there are enough shoddy ones to give the good ones a challenge to maintain a good reputation. At lower wage scales, there is a lot of bad management. Your last statement varies considerably by industry. Let's just say making people replaceable or even making them feel replaceable or have the perception of being replaceable is very high on the priority list for a lot of management.

by xg15 4y ago

yucky 4y ago

>I honestly don't get why you wouldn't want to form a union. The most common answer to this is that unions protect the worst employees, and tends to equalize wages so that the better employees are paid the same as the worst. If you're more talented, why should you expect equal pay to everyone else? Unions reward mediocrity. They can (and have) certainly done good as well. But this is the most common critique of unions.

xg15 4y ago
Ah, that makes sense - though I wonder who usually is making that criticism. At least, I don't see why a union couldn't negotiate a base pay that still leaves room for bonuses if certain employees are particularly high-performing. Unions have an incentive for the company to be healthy and profitable - just not at the expense of the workers. Also, "talented" seems very vague to me. Of course everyone would like to be exceptionally talented and be placed above the others, but who in the end decides of you are talented or not and on which criteria? This seems a bit like the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" situation, where you can be tempted to give up security in the present for some idealized but highly uncertain future.
- yucky 4y ago
  >Also, "talented" seems very vague to me. The fact is, there are a ton of shitty employees. Anybody who has ever worked with others, knows that. In a union environment, those people are paid the same. That naturally grates on a lot of people. If you work with someone who does the same job as you, but poorly...you would rightfully expect to be paid more. I don't want this to come off as me saying unions are shit, but the question was asked why would people ever not support unions and that's generally why.

rtp4me 4y ago

I honestly don't know why the initial reaction is *to have a union*. To me, this immediately puts you at a position of distrust with your employer. And, I simply don't understand all the HN hate toward management. I highly doubt most management teams see workers as "easily replaceable" especially considering how hard it is to get workers these days.

xg15 4y ago
> To me, this immediately puts you at a position of distrust with your employer. Well yes, it does. After all, the employer doesn't trust me either, otherwise we wouldn't have a whole industry of performance monitoring tools, time tracking systems, access control solutions, etc. You cannot expect one side to pretend we're all a big family while the other does not. > I highly doubt most management teams see workers as "easily replaceable" especially considering how hard it is to get workers these days. Then go ahead and chat with a few Amazon warehouse workers or Starbucks Baristas or Uber drivers. Or Amazon developers for that matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31789381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31789381
ddingus 4y ago
The reason "have a union" is high on the list of potential solutions to the need to improve both the work place and compensation comes down to having power, and that boils down to being able to present real costs and risks to management they need to respect. As for mistrust, not necessarily. The basic idea of a better balance of power can simply insure good people stay good. In the case of newly formed unions, the overwhelming majority already have mistrust and cause for it. Hate towards management is simple and works like auto mechanics do; namely, there are enough shoddy ones to give the good ones a challenge to maintain a good reputation. At lower wage scales, there is a lot of bad management. Your last statement varies considerably by industry. Let's just say making people replaceable or even making them feel replaceable or have the perception of being replaceable is very high on the priority list for a lot of management.