6 ms·

Labor Unions Reduce Product Quality

28 points by Bostonian 4y ago

feet 4y ago
- twoodfin 4y ago
  In what sense is the referenced paper propaganda?
- sn0w_crash 4y ago
  Are you really of the view that there are no downsides to unionized labor?
  - feet 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - junofan 4y ago
      Nobody said anything about profits. If airbags are failing because of inadequate workmanship, people should know.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        It's just as likely of a conclusion (as pointed out elsewhere) that people are informed because of unionization - i.e. that union workers are better empowered to point out design flaws or other recall-worthy issues (without fear of reprisal over having embarassed the management) than non-union workers. That is: using recalls to measure product quality is highly misleading for reasons that take all of five seconds to identify, and the fact that the paper chose such a metric despite such an obvious flaw reeks of bad faith.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - cercatrova 4y ago
      > Are you saying that we should prioritize product quality over the workers who make them? It depends on the product in question but of course the product should be prioritized, it is what is being produced and sold after all. Without the product, the workers would not be at that company.
      - feet 4y ago
        You must be in favor of abolishing police unions then, eh? The quality of the product is piss poor
        cercatrova 4y ago
        Sure, I am definitely in favor.
    - rockemsockem 4y ago
      You know there are other conclusions one could draw from that. If unions really do produce lower quality products then there's sort a of a nice cycle that happens (albeit likely over far too long a time period). A company mistreats its workers, the workers unionize, the company's product-quality reduces, the company becomes a better target for competitors. I'm all for making it easy for workers to unionize, but in a lot of cases I'll hope they don't. That kind of logic might not apply to scenarios where companies are too huge, but that seems to be a problem best solved with other tools.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Everything has downsides as well. In the case of the unions, the plus side outweigh the downsides. It is a pity that one country that fought so hard to have them a century ago after its first capitalism collapse, nowadays has a society that pushes back to a feudal system (aka gig economy and perks instead of salary/decent work hours).
- ChrisLomont 4y ago
  How is the paper propaganda? Did you read it? What was done incorrectly?
  - feet 4y ago
    A piece like this puts out the idea that unions are harmful, but the idea that it puts forward alongside that is that the quality of products takes priority over the wellbeing and care for the workers themselves. It's telling us that we need to think about product quality before workers. Products before living humans. Profit over life. Even if it is true, this is harmful. There are other ways to improve product quality besides shitting on your workers and taking away any bargaining power that they have to squeeze them of every little bit of productivity.
    - rockemsockem 4y ago
      It's possible to come up with different conclusions than that, IMO, rather pessimistic one. I had already had this notion that unions likely decrease quality of work, but my conclusion has not been "products over workers", my conclusion has been that companies which mistreat their workers so much that they feel the need to unionize deserve to suffer. There could even be a deeper correlation there in younger companies. Worker mistreatment seems to me to be a sign of incompetence. The companies that do so deserve any ill results they get from unionizing and better companies that treat their workers better and make better products deserve to win out over them.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        > It's possible to come up with different conclusions than that, IMO, rather pessimistic one. It being possible does not make it probable. I would bet that most people reading the paper are going to come to the "unions bad" conclusion, specifically because people (at least here in the US) have repeatedly been told over and over again that "unions bad".
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      Propaganda is when science I don't like?
Kinrany 4y ago
I wonder why supply-side unions and cooperatives are heavily political while consumer cooperatives never make the news.
jonnycomputer 4y ago
I guess my first question would be, had the paper found otherwise, would marginalrevolution have blogged about it?
ulfw 4y ago
Looking at a Mercedes or BMW vs a Tesla I am not so sure I would agree.
getSood666 4y ago
[dead]
quantified 4y ago
Am I missing a non-paywalled link to the article itself? All I can click to so far is the abstract.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Yes seems to be just an abstract. There's also the weird sentence that the article was accepted by Gustavo Manso, so does that mean he was the reviewer? Was there only one?...
  - quantified 4y ago
    Makes it hard to see the actual methodology. Lot of heat and smoke in the comments for just an abstract. A quick search for the title in DDG yields verbatim copies of the marginal revolution words, no actual paper. So it's not like anyone is actually writing for marginal revolution here.
r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
Or unionized firms have a culture where employees are more empowered to report dangerous and defective products to regulators without fear of getting fired, and so are more likely to have product recalls than non unionized firms. See, I can draw unwarranted conclusions based on my own prejudices too.
- ChrisLomont 4y ago
  >See, I can draw unwarranted conclusions based on my own prejudices too. They backed theirs up with a well written paper, so it not an unwarranted conclusion. It follows from their data. Did you read the paper? What in it is incorrect?
Proven 4y ago
pjmlp 4y ago
fallingfrog 4y ago
The nurses in my city formed a labor union recently, and one of their key demands is to increase the number of nurses on duty at any given time- which will decrease wait times, decrease burnout, and increase standards of care.
cafard 4y ago
Does the paper consider the quality differences between the South Carolina and Washington Boeing factories?
- ChrisLomont 4y ago
  ? The paper uses a dataset of all 6000+ recall events from the FDA, NHYSA, and CPSC for recalls, and the results of all 1,144 union elections during the same time frame for their analysis. It's a pretty comprehensive dataset, so I doubt they care much about two specific factories. They may not even have any recall events from those places.

28 points by Bostonian 4y ago

feet 4y ago

twoodfin 4y ago
In what sense is the referenced paper propaganda?
sn0w_crash 4y ago
Are you really of the view that there are no downsides to unionized labor?
- feet 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - junofan 4y ago
    Nobody said anything about profits. If airbags are failing because of inadequate workmanship, people should know.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      It's just as likely of a conclusion (as pointed out elsewhere) that people are informed because of unionization - i.e. that union workers are better empowered to point out design flaws or other recall-worthy issues (without fear of reprisal over having embarassed the management) than non-union workers. That is: using recalls to measure product quality is highly misleading for reasons that take all of five seconds to identify, and the fact that the paper chose such a metric despite such an obvious flaw reeks of bad faith.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    > Are you saying that we should prioritize product quality over the workers who make them? It depends on the product in question but of course the product should be prioritized, it is what is being produced and sold after all. Without the product, the workers would not be at that company.
    - feet 4y ago
      You must be in favor of abolishing police unions then, eh? The quality of the product is piss poor
      - cercatrova 4y ago
        Sure, I am definitely in favor.
  - rockemsockem 4y ago
    You know there are other conclusions one could draw from that. If unions really do produce lower quality products then there's sort a of a nice cycle that happens (albeit likely over far too long a time period). A company mistreats its workers, the workers unionize, the company's product-quality reduces, the company becomes a better target for competitors. I'm all for making it easy for workers to unionize, but in a lot of cases I'll hope they don't. That kind of logic might not apply to scenarios where companies are too huge, but that seems to be a problem best solved with other tools.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Everything has downsides as well. In the case of the unions, the plus side outweigh the downsides. It is a pity that one country that fought so hard to have them a century ago after its first capitalism collapse, nowadays has a society that pushes back to a feudal system (aka gig economy and perks instead of salary/decent work hours).
ChrisLomont 4y ago
How is the paper propaganda? Did you read it? What was done incorrectly?
- feet 4y ago
  A piece like this puts out the idea that unions are harmful, but the idea that it puts forward alongside that is that the quality of products takes priority over the wellbeing and care for the workers themselves. It's telling us that we need to think about product quality before workers. Products before living humans. Profit over life. Even if it is true, this is harmful. There are other ways to improve product quality besides shitting on your workers and taking away any bargaining power that they have to squeeze them of every little bit of productivity.
  - rockemsockem 4y ago
    It's possible to come up with different conclusions than that, IMO, rather pessimistic one. I had already had this notion that unions likely decrease quality of work, but my conclusion has not been "products over workers", my conclusion has been that companies which mistreat their workers so much that they feel the need to unionize deserve to suffer. There could even be a deeper correlation there in younger companies. Worker mistreatment seems to me to be a sign of incompetence. The companies that do so deserve any ill results they get from unionizing and better companies that treat their workers better and make better products deserve to win out over them.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > It's possible to come up with different conclusions than that, IMO, rather pessimistic one. It being possible does not make it probable. I would bet that most people reading the paper are going to come to the "unions bad" conclusion, specifically because people (at least here in the US) have repeatedly been told over and over again that "unions bad".
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Propaganda is when science I don't like?

Kinrany 4y ago

I wonder why supply-side unions and cooperatives are heavily political while consumer cooperatives never make the news.

jonnycomputer 4y ago

I guess my first question would be, had the paper found otherwise, would marginalrevolution have blogged about it?

ulfw 4y ago

Looking at a Mercedes or BMW vs a Tesla I am not so sure I would agree.

getSood666 4y ago

[dead]

quantified 4y ago

Am I missing a non-paywalled link to the article itself? All I can click to so far is the abstract.

cycomanic 4y ago
Yes seems to be just an abstract. There's also the weird sentence that the article was accepted by Gustavo Manso, so does that mean he was the reviewer? Was there only one?...
- quantified 4y ago
  Makes it hard to see the actual methodology. Lot of heat and smoke in the comments for just an abstract. A quick search for the title in DDG yields verbatim copies of the marginal revolution words, no actual paper. So it's not like anyone is actually writing for marginal revolution here.

r_hoods_ghost 4y ago

Or unionized firms have a culture where employees are more empowered to report dangerous and defective products to regulators without fear of getting fired, and so are more likely to have product recalls than non unionized firms. See, I can draw unwarranted conclusions based on my own prejudices too.

ChrisLomont 4y ago
>See, I can draw unwarranted conclusions based on my own prejudices too. They backed theirs up with a well written paper, so it not an unwarranted conclusion. It follows from their data. Did you read the paper? What in it is incorrect?

Proven 4y ago

pjmlp 4y ago

fallingfrog 4y ago

The nurses in my city formed a labor union recently, and one of their key demands is to increase the number of nurses on duty at any given time- which will decrease wait times, decrease burnout, and increase standards of care.

cafard 4y ago

Does the paper consider the quality differences between the South Carolina and Washington Boeing factories?

ChrisLomont 4y ago
? The paper uses a dataset of all 6000+ recall events from the FDA, NHYSA, and CPSC for recalls, and the results of all 1,144 union elections during the same time frame for their analysis. It's a pretty comprehensive dataset, so I doubt they care much about two specific factories. They may not even have any recall events from those places.