7 ms·

Unions and vaccines are similar in that they are a collective action against which people only complain due to their effectiveness. That is to say, all the lib

• missedthecue 4y ago
  People "only" complain due to their effectiveness? OPEC is also a union, have I no grounds to complain about them? What about when meat packing companies cartelize together to raise their incomes? Competition is a good thing whether in labor or oil or chicken markets.
  • adam-a 4y ago
    What are you talking about? OPEC is not a labour union, which is clearly what’s being discussed here. You may as well say a horse is a duck because they both shit.
    • missedthecue 4y ago
      OPEC works the same way as a union. They are both groups of competitors that band together to form a cartel, using similar tactics to increase the price of the product the sell. In one case, oil, in the other, labor.
      • camdat 4y ago
        Unions are made up of workers and their combined labor. OPEC is not. This is definitional.
        • missedthecue 4y ago
          OPEC is made up of oil producing countries and their combined output. They are extremely similar except that one deals in labor, and the other in petrochemicals.
          • kyleplum 4y ago
            One is big enough to influence the global market price for it's product, the other is small and localized and has effectively no influence on the going market rate for it's product.
            • missedthecue 4y ago
              You don't think the UAW has any impact on the price of autoworker labor?
              • kyleplum 4y ago
                On a global level? No. On a local level? Maybe? But consider that the US workers of the most valuable car company in the world (by a factor of about 3)are not part of the UAW, so it's debatable at best.
                • chmod775 4y ago
                  Tesla is a tiny, tiny company. Tesla's market share is about 2.5%, or 14% when only looking at electric vehicles. It's not even in the top 10 of car manufacturers by revenue. In fact it's only like 1/5th the size of the tenth place (Hyundai), or about 1/14th the size of the first place on that list (Volkswagen). It's not going move any car markets on its own, regardless of what goes on at Tesla. So yeah, valuation is completely detached from (current) reality in this case, and Tesla is not a great example. We could look at the biggest manufacturer instead, but I'm sure most people have heard of VW's union by now.
          • heavenlyblue 4y ago
            Yeah, let’s mix up the definition of a legal person and an actual person.
  • dghlsakjg 4y ago
    OPEC is a cartel. In most econ 101 classes it is used as the most prevalent example of a cartel. I have never seen anyone argue that it is a labor union.
    • gruez 4y ago
      Is a labor union not a cartel for labor?
      • kyleplum 4y ago
        No because the company has other options for labor - it can fire it's entire workforce and rehire, or relocate. The same can't be said for cartels which have complete control over their respective markets.
        • missedthecue 4y ago
          Not in all industries or countries. This only applies to extremely weak unions. It is very difficult to hire non-uaw members for instance. There was a huge multi-month strike brining massive work stoppages a few years ago over this issue. Same with Kelloggs last year.
        • gruez 4y ago
          >No because the company has other options for labor [...] The same can't be said for cartels which have complete control over their respective markets. that's like saying OPEC isn't a cartel because you can still get oil from russia or canada. >it can fire it's entire workforce and rehire isn't that union-busting and/or illegal?
          • kyleplum 4y ago
            I'm not convinced that a single labor union has the power to influence the labor market outside of the specific company the union represents. This is not the case for OPEC who has sufficient power to manipulate the market. > isn't that union-busting and/or illegal? It's supposed to be, but it's often the case that corporations are not penalized to a sufficient amount (or at all) to deter this. We've seen many cases where it's cheaper for the corporation to pay these fines and continue doing what they are doing - in that sense the current laws are ineffective.
  • kelseyfrog 4y ago
    What does the word union mean to you?
    • missedthecue 4y ago
      Restricting competition to raise the cost of the product sold. That's why unions hate people who cross the picket line. If you willingly compete, you undermine the whole strategy.
      • kelseyfrog 4y ago
        That's so interesting. Most people tend to call that a monopoly and use the word union for something else. What made you choose to use union for this behavior instead?
        • missedthecue 4y ago
          Well unions really only work well when they have a monopoly. If a plant want's to go on strike over something, but that means only 10% of the workforce is walking off, that's not as effective as if the union was in a monopoly position. In fact this is why the Clayton Act specifically exempts unions from anti-trust law, and it's why "Right to work" laws are so controversial - they reduce the monopoly status of the union.
          • kelseyfrog 4y ago
            I get all that. I also understand that unions function as a labor monopoly. What I don't get is not simply referring to unions as unions and monopolies as monopolies as is the common practice. Correct me, if I'm understanding but your point seems to be this Unions are a monopoly so it makes sense to call OPEC a union. Let me refer us both back to intro to programming and frame this in OOP terms. Just because a Cat has an IS-A relationship to Animal, does not make all Animals Cats.
            • missedthecue 4y ago
• sershe 4y ago
  • edmundsauto 4y ago
    Aren't unions the reason we have a number of worker protections and standards, including the 40 hour work week?
    • NoraCodes 4y ago
      Unions and anarchists, yes.
    • palmetieri2000 4y ago
      Yes, the comment you are replying to is complete nonsense.
      • sershe 4y ago
        Complete nonsense? I provided several well known facts about unions, but instead of refuting them or providing some counter it was hidden away by union groupies. Sure, let me post them again with links to some sources. 1) Union racism - I thought there was even a congressional testimony by a union leader against allowing Blacks moving to the North to take jobs, but I cannot find it now. However, while I thought it was a 1950-ies problem - [1, including describing a system that goes beyond personal prejudice; etc.], while researching, I found it may STILL be a problem! [2] 2) Union-mafia connections [3, etc. - well known] 3) Anti-immigration stance of unions [4], incl. e.g. famously Cesar Chavez using union power to help deport undocumented immigrants via both law and with violence [5] 4) UAW role in destruction of American auto industry. This one is really typical, the union was milking a recently over-concentrated auto industry when the rest of the world had no auto industry to speak of. At the first sight of competition the whole thing collapsed. [6] 5) Unions preventing and protesting automation of ports, and successfully preventing the govt funding of it during a supply crunch [7] [8] 6) Generalized corruption. Too many small examples, here's a recent one in UAW [9] 7) Featherbedding. Similarly, many examples, some I know personally, NY infrastructure is the most prominent [10] 8) AMA limiting residency spots, med school accreditation, hospital certificates of need, etc. => limiting physicians per capital, producing more expensive healthcare. 9) Police unions... need I say more? With a cursory search you can find much more in each category, and probably more categories too. Why would you expect anything else? Think about a union from the first principles, it's as if someone wanted to make a basket case for every possible misaligned incentive. * Unions have ultimate, NIMBY-like rent-seeking incentive, based on restriction and exclusion of other labor (as demonstrated above, up to racism and anti-immigrant violence when viable - but also via certification beyond any practical necessity, etc.). In a market labor would get wages it deserves. Union incentive is to milk a company for as much extra as it can instead AND ALSO to exclude other labor. The bet is that even if the company dies, workers will just go to the next one. Or the company can continue as a zombie, with union maneuvering to get as much of the spoils as possible. Sometimes it doesn't work, as with Detroit where it didn't work and industry went abroad; notably, the key union achievements were at the time where the "abroad" was undeveloped and/or bombed out. Public sector unions are an ultimate racket here, as public sector cannot really go under (I hope) so it can be rent-seeked-from forever. * They have nothing to gain from progress or innovation that may eliminate jobs or make them more efficient (hence fighting port automation, or at least making automation useless by featherbedding like in NYC). * They generally are monopolistic, but instead of being broken up/regulated/at least frowned upon like many monopolistic companies, their monopolies and/or coordination with each other is encourage. * If those weren't enough, long-term, they have basically unaccountable leaders operating over a base of people who, rightfully, are not very engaged in the union politics. Perfect breeding ground for corruption, especially combined with the above two - you cannot run most companies with incompetents and mafia members, you will run them into the ground; but you can easily run a union. Aside from gangs/mobs/cartels/armies/etc., unions are truly the most harmful institution even created by man. If I wanted to invent an institution with worse incentives from scratch I couldn't have come up with anything so bad. [1] https://www.commentary.org/articles/herbert-hill/labor-unions-and-the-negrothe-record-of-discrimination/ https://www.commentary.org/articles/herbert-hill/labor-union... [2] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/union_constructions_racial_equity_and_inclusion_charade https://ssir.org/articles/entry/union_constructions_racial_e... [3] https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unions https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unio... [4] https://www.npr.org/2013/02/05/171175054/how-the-labor-movement-did-a-180-on-immigration https://www.npr.org/2013/02/05/171175054/how-the-labor-movem... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEPawel2014293_245-0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez#cite_ref-FOOTNOTE... [6] https://cei.org/blog/empire-of-rust-how-the-uaw-killed-detroit/ https://cei.org/blog/empire-of-rust-how-the-uaw-killed-detro... [7] https://www.porttechnology.org/news/west-coast-ports-and-unions-clash-on-automation-ahead-of-talks/ https://www.porttechnology.org/news/west-coast-ports-and-uni... [8] https://reason.com/2021/11/09/americas-ports-need-more-robots-but-the-1-trillion-infrastructure-bill-wont-fund-port-automation/ https://reason.com/2021/11/09/americas-ports-need-more-robot... [9] https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/10/united-auto-workers-gary-jones-corruption/ https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/10/united-auto-workers-ga... [10] https://tunnelingonline.com/why-tunnels-in-the-us-cost-much-more-than-anywhere-else-in-the-world/#:~:text=Labor%20cost%20is%20often%20driven,to%20three%20times%20this%20value https://tunnelingonline.com/why-tunnels-in-the-us-cost-much-....