4 ms·

This is where we balance it out with unions. Unions have historically gotten us everything today that most people think is just SOP. Limited work weeks (40 hrs

by xyst 4y ago

This is where we balance it out with unions. Unions have historically gotten us everything today that most people think is just SOP. Limited work weeks (40 hrs). Monday thru Friday as business days. Paid vacations. Family and medical leave. Breaks. Paid holidays. Sick leave. It’s a shame there’s been a massive push from corporations pushing anti-union propaganda. We have been complacent. We need unions to make our voice heard. Both in the mega corps and local/state/federal governments.

fleddr 4y ago
I agree, unions and legislation. The devil is in the details but those are the main instruments, if only we were more willing and motivated.
- ianai 4y ago
  Maybe it’s worth reiterating that the unions and legal frameworks didn’t just happen “because unions.” And unions weren’t always (never were) guiltless entities. It was always a fight. The past is full of incidents to be horrified and emboldened by learning. Edit-there have been long periods where seemingly nothing can possibly change. Then enough backlash is raised against another side (even the status quo) and things change.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    There's different types of unions, those in Europe tend to be different from the unions the US used to have (and perhaps still have). Unions in my country (Netherlands) do not protect the individual. You do not get hired via a union (free job from a "friend") nor does the union protect you from getting fired. The union is only there to protect collective interests. For example, a massive degradation in contract terms for all workers. In the Netherlands, strikes are extremely rare because of a unique system called the "Polder Model", it's a triangle of government, employers and unions coming to yearly wide sweeping agreements on things like taxes, pensions, employment and termination terms, the like. It has provided an extreme degree of stability for decades in a row. Simply put, it's a system that suppresses extremes. Nobody really wins or loses. I have to admit though that this once well working system is largely hollowed out by now. Under the pressures of globalization, power has shifted slowly but surely towards the government-employers pair. It seems worldwide the working class (and to a large degree the middle class) has been abandoned by both politics and employers.
    - mananaysiempre 4y ago
      And then you get to France. Several hours late, because there is an SNCF strike once again :)
      - fleddr 4y ago
        I actually respect he French attitude and willingness to stand up for their rights and way of life. We can endlessly debate whether they take it too far but in the backdrop of the rest of the world doing fuck all, I see it as a positive.
        mananaysiempre 4y ago
        Sure, I didn’t actually expect an off-hand remark like that to be taken as a serious comment on the French labour situation. (It’s... complicated, seems to have no good solutions, and I have mixed feelings about it given that France is one of the few places in Western Europe that has actual, genuine socialists rather than social democrats, but yes, the fact that there does seem to be a serious discussion going on, with a decent range of options and real power to enact them, makes up for a lot of my gripes about the quality of the arguments used.) The point was that while Europe, as a rule, does lean towards more labour regulation than the US, the specifics vary so much that this is about the only useful generalization you make about it. The rest heavily depends on the country, and even geographical proximity doesn’t really play into it. (But you would know all about that, I expect.)
        fleddr 4y ago
        True, it's complicated, but I can offer the counter generalization that the US view on European worker protection is dramatically overstated. Case in point, Germany did not have a minimum wage...AT ALL...until 2015. In the Netherlands, there's an entire class of workers on "zero hours" contracts, which give said workers none of the traditional protections. Protections that even in the best of cases, an indefinite work contract situation, are strongly hollowed out by now.
    - 4y ago
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  and union power made sure certain legislators got elected.
chartpath 4y ago
Totally agree. I once helped start a worker-owned cooperative dev agency, and discovered (naively) that getting investment was basically impossible because investors and lenders aren't interested in creative legal solutions that don't fit their mold in which they would have funded a normal company doing the exact same work. That and extensive direct democracy can lead to design by committee and factionalism, which distract from the mission or violate the bylaws and require more overt conflict (compared to the back room stuff of hierarchical companies). I also recently took a university course on corporate law and co-ops were not mentioned even once (in Canada where there is a federal Cooperatives Act that permits their creation no less), so it is very niche. See Mondragon for an example of successful worker co-op businesses. At least unions can still exist inside the standard model of employment which everything else is built around. In a "benevolent" tech company that actually treats its people well, I have trouble seeing unions as the ideal vehicle for balancing fairness with innovation. Of course there is inherent exploitation in any employment relationship within the standard model. I would love to see an example of it working in tech though, because I can imagine a union that is equally as interested in the success of the business and prioritizes sustainable growth on top of enforcing equitable treatment as a backstop. There has to be some combination of legal structures that can somehow represent all interests fairly without adding friction. That is unions, or unions plus other things. For example, employee ownership trusts could in theory be very aggressive and help smooth out the continuum between periodic bargaining and striking as the main/only leverage. Similar to a share purchase plan or RSU with a pool that has a majority of voting power, or at least equal to founders and investors with all the usual tie-breakers and dilution protections. If I remember correctly some countries (Germany?) also have legislation requiring a certain amount of employee representation on corporate boards, but I don't know if that actually makes a big difference.
zip1234 4y ago
How would a union make Robinhood a more successful company that can afford to pay all of those employees? For that matter, how would it make a government organization better?
doliveira 4y ago
One thing I find it weird in the US is company-specific unions, instead of specific to sectors. Seems to me they lose a lot of leverage that way
tick_tock_tick 4y ago
> We need unions to make our voice heard. Both in the mega corps and local/state/federal governments. We have them; it's why education and policing is so fucked.

by xyst 4y ago

fleddr 4y ago

I agree, unions and legislation. The devil is in the details but those are the main instruments, if only we were more willing and motivated.

ianai 4y ago
Maybe it’s worth reiterating that the unions and legal frameworks didn’t just happen “because unions.” And unions weren’t always (never were) guiltless entities. It was always a fight. The past is full of incidents to be horrified and emboldened by learning. Edit-there have been long periods where seemingly nothing can possibly change. Then enough backlash is raised against another side (even the status quo) and things change.
- fleddr 4y ago
  There's different types of unions, those in Europe tend to be different from the unions the US used to have (and perhaps still have). Unions in my country (Netherlands) do not protect the individual. You do not get hired via a union (free job from a "friend") nor does the union protect you from getting fired. The union is only there to protect collective interests. For example, a massive degradation in contract terms for all workers. In the Netherlands, strikes are extremely rare because of a unique system called the "Polder Model", it's a triangle of government, employers and unions coming to yearly wide sweeping agreements on things like taxes, pensions, employment and termination terms, the like. It has provided an extreme degree of stability for decades in a row. Simply put, it's a system that suppresses extremes. Nobody really wins or loses. I have to admit though that this once well working system is largely hollowed out by now. Under the pressures of globalization, power has shifted slowly but surely towards the government-employers pair. It seems worldwide the working class (and to a large degree the middle class) has been abandoned by both politics and employers.
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    And then you get to France. Several hours late, because there is an SNCF strike once again :)
    - fleddr 4y ago
      I actually respect he French attitude and willingness to stand up for their rights and way of life. We can endlessly debate whether they take it too far but in the backdrop of the rest of the world doing fuck all, I see it as a positive.
      - mananaysiempre 4y ago
        Sure, I didn’t actually expect an off-hand remark like that to be taken as a serious comment on the French labour situation. (It’s... complicated, seems to have no good solutions, and I have mixed feelings about it given that France is one of the few places in Western Europe that has actual, genuine socialists rather than social democrats, but yes, the fact that there does seem to be a serious discussion going on, with a decent range of options and real power to enact them, makes up for a lot of my gripes about the quality of the arguments used.) The point was that while Europe, as a rule, does lean towards more labour regulation than the US, the specifics vary so much that this is about the only useful generalization you make about it. The rest heavily depends on the country, and even geographical proximity doesn’t really play into it. (But you would know all about that, I expect.)
        fleddr 4y ago
        True, it's complicated, but I can offer the counter generalization that the US view on European worker protection is dramatically overstated. Case in point, Germany did not have a minimum wage...AT ALL...until 2015. In the Netherlands, there's an entire class of workers on "zero hours" contracts, which give said workers none of the traditional protections. Protections that even in the best of cases, an indefinite work contract situation, are strongly hollowed out by now.
  - 4y ago
Tiktaalik 4y ago
and union power made sure certain legislators got elected.

chartpath 4y ago

Totally agree. I once helped start a worker-owned cooperative dev agency, and discovered (naively) that getting investment was basically impossible because investors and lenders aren't interested in creative legal solutions that don't fit their mold in which they would have funded a normal company doing the exact same work. That and extensive direct democracy can lead to design by committee and factionalism, which distract from the mission or violate the bylaws and require more overt conflict (compared to the back room stuff of hierarchical companies). I also recently took a university course on corporate law and co-ops were not mentioned even once (in Canada where there is a federal Cooperatives Act that permits their creation no less), so it is very niche. See Mondragon for an example of successful worker co-op businesses. At least unions can still exist inside the standard model of employment which everything else is built around. In a "benevolent" tech company that actually treats its people well, I have trouble seeing unions as the ideal vehicle for balancing fairness with innovation. Of course there is inherent exploitation in any employment relationship within the standard model. I would love to see an example of it working in tech though, because I can imagine a union that is equally as interested in the success of the business and prioritizes sustainable growth on top of enforcing equitable treatment as a backstop. There has to be some combination of legal structures that can somehow represent all interests fairly without adding friction. That is unions, or unions plus other things. For example, employee ownership trusts could in theory be very aggressive and help smooth out the continuum between periodic bargaining and striking as the main/only leverage. Similar to a share purchase plan or RSU with a pool that has a majority of voting power, or at least equal to founders and investors with all the usual tie-breakers and dilution protections. If I remember correctly some countries (Germany?) also have legislation requiring a certain amount of employee representation on corporate boards, but I don't know if that actually makes a big difference.

zip1234 4y ago

How would a union make Robinhood a more successful company that can afford to pay all of those employees? For that matter, how would it make a government organization better?

doliveira 4y ago

One thing I find it weird in the US is company-specific unions, instead of specific to sectors. Seems to me they lose a lot of leverage that way

tick_tock_tick 4y ago

> We need unions to make our voice heard. Both in the mega corps and local/state/federal governments. We have them; it's why education and policing is so fucked.