7 ms·

The fact that businesses are anti-union should be all you need to know as to why you should support them. Workers and employers have nothing in common.

legitster 4y ago
Why would a business support a union? It's inherently going to be an adversarial relationship. I completely get why unions are necessary. But it would be like me hiring a divorce attorney for my own wife. A business is almost never going to want a union. And it seems weird to expect them to.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  There are things I don't want, and things I prioritise to get rid of. The fact that for amazon getting rid of unions is a priority, suggests that unions are effective
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Amazon sees the unions as a direct threat to their profits, but that doesn't mean that unions are effective. Amazon's profits going down doesn't guarantee that workers pay & conditions would go up. I think nearly everyone agrees that unions are going to have a negative impact on profits, that hasn't a point of contention in the debate.
    - epups 4y ago
      And where do those profits go, when a union shows up, if not to better pay and work conditions?
      - randomdata 4y ago
        To downtime. The one and only lever a union brings is a withdrawal of services – i.e. strike. An employer won't take a union seriously until it has demonstrated that it will strike, so if it is more than a bluff among workers a strike is inevitable. This is also why unions have largely fallen out of fashion except in industries where the workers are well off. Unless you are wealthy enough to burden several months, if not years, without work striking isn't an option and thus the union becomes toothless.
        epups 4y ago
        That's a bad take. Strikes are temporary, and have clear goals of increasing pay and work conditions. You talk as if a union is formed, then strikes indefinitely and hurts profits, then the business fails. Unions have "fallen out of fashion" in the US because there are not enough labor protections in place. Even now you hear of Starbucks and Amazon even going so far as hiring firms to do hit jobs on union leaders. If you think this is because they are afraid of downtime, rather than having to actually share more of their profits with workers, suit yourself.
        randomdata 4y ago
        > You talk as if a union is formed, then strikes indefinitely and hurts profits, then the business fails. The original claim replied to was that profit would decline, not disappear... Talk about a bad take. > enough labor protections in place. That's the remainder of the story. Because labour laws have appeared over the decades and centuries, one doesn't have to forego financial stability to save their life like people once had to. Workers now become de facto members of the government union which has already negotiated minimum standards for all. That wasn't always the case. Those who are in a position to be able to walk away from an income for months at a time may hold on to eek out an ounce more, but it's simply not worth it to low paid workers who rely on a regular paycheque. The cost of losing a home and going hungry greatly outweighs any potential returns.
  - pyinstallwoes 4y ago
    Damn right it's effective when you want to blackmail someone because you have extra time. If you were prioritizing your life then I came and tried to rob you, what would be the chance that you prioritize my angle of attack? Unions are literally built to prey on that cost that a company IS prioritized and by distracting it with legal hell it becomes slower and risks losing its position in the marketplace and thus potentially vulnerable to negoitations that are unfaorable because of exploiting what would otherwise be prioritization. Your example is just that the vampire sucked too much blood, and has a clear boundary of policy.
  - kennend3 4y ago
    How much of the major auto bailouts years ago was the result of union rules? For decades they met union demands to avoid costly legal fights.. and in the end? this is rather old, but telling: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/09/2 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/09/2 Instead of restructure, the uion opted for bankruptcy? Way to "protect jobs"? "The company's attempt to buy more time failed after union leaders rejected a new restructuring plan that would have cut a fifth of the 19,000-strong workforce. The union said its members would have to be paid £70m in wages arrears before it would consider the proposals."
  - RHSeeger 4y ago
    > The fact that for amazon getting rid of unions is a priority, suggests that unions are effective Well, it suggests that unions are effective at creating negative consequences for the company. Those consequences could be "more costly to do business because the employees are paid more"; in theory, a good outcome. They could also be "more costly to do business because it's not against the rules for someone to plug in the monitor in their office because all electronics must be handled by a certified union member" (which actually happens); in theory, a bad outcome. Not all "bad for the company" things are "good for the employees".
- klyrs 4y ago
  Hiring your spouse's divorce attorney sounds like a smart play, honestly. Except for the whole "conflict of interest" thing.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    .. and it probably gives them excellent grounds to challenge whatever agreement you and the spouse come up with. So, not actually a smart play.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      Yeah, that's the danger of a conflict of interest. Like many things in life, there's daylight between "smart" and "sounds smart"
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  A recent story linked on HN that sadly didn't get much attention was that companies are in a crisis of not knowing what they can do to stop their employees from quitting. Glib answers like "pay them more" and "treat them better" aren't helpful because many of these are high paid jobs and everyone has a difference of opinion on what it means to be treated well (even if most will agree that being punched in the face all day is bad). Companies cannot get employees to tell them what they want. Exit interviews are mostly fruitless, surveys are avoided because workers don't believe they're truly anonymous, outside surveys have the same problem since the survey company is being paid by the employer. How can a company get honest feedback from their employees without the employees fearing reprisals? A union is one way of doing it since employees (usually) trust their union to take their grievances to the employer with little risk to the employees as individuals or as a group. There was a case a few years ago where a European company opened a factory in the right-to-work state and wanted its workers in a union because that's how it maintained employee relations in their home country. They were confused by the hostility towards unions in that state, both by workers and by the government. IIRC, it was semi-skilled manufacturing so exploiting the workers would be self-defeating if they kept leaving for other jobs.
Cupertino95014 4y ago
You need to clear up the antecedent basis of "them." I think maybe you mean "unions" (although I could be wrong) but your sentence actually means "why you should support companies."
missedthecue 4y ago
"the fact that businesses hate supplier cartels tells you all you need to know and why you should support them" How does this make sense? Is your ethical framework simply loving everything businesses hate?
krisoft 4y ago
They also pretty much all anti -arsonist. Does the logic apply there too?
gkodpgfdgf 4y ago
kennend3 4y ago
As others posted, your logic is very very off on this one. "the fact individuals are anti-income tax should tell you all you need to know.." "the fact criminals are anti-law enforcement should tell you all you need to know.." Why would a business support unions? Often UNION members dont support other union employees. Go to a major unionized auto factory sometime and look at the parking lot and try to find "imports". These same "pro union" individuals also shop at walmart knowing it is not unionized because they like the lower prices.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  If you allow companies to consolidate and exert unlimited political power, workers need to be able to self-organize to ensure their interests are represented. Full stop. All of the things you complain about happen on the business side of the table. People are people and do stupid shit with power. Why are Azure VPs buying shit from Amazon? Why do companies park burned out executives for a few years on gardening leave?
  - kennend3 4y ago
    If you allow unions to consolidate and exert unlimited political power, companies need to be able to self-organize to ensure their interests are represented. Full stop. Does that work as well, or is this one of those "one way street" deals in your mind? When have companies "consolidated and exerted unlimited political power"? Did they end up facing "anti-trust" laws? get broken up as a result? > All of the things you complain about happen on the business side of the table. Are you sure about that? here's the head of the UAW being placed on leave for fraud: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/uaw-president-leave-corruption-investigation-1.5345689 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/uaw-president-leave-corrupt... Let me guess, the "business" made him do it? I have no idea what point you are making with Azure?
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      Companies seem to be able to organize themselves quite well to achieve their business and political goals. If it’s bad for an autoworker to buy an “import”, surely a Microsoft employee should be shopping at Walmart or some other Microsoft partner, not Amazon. Why do you care about how the UAW guy defrauded his organization? And why would the company? Amazon fires blue collar workers for peeing too long, why is the stewardship of their dues relevant at all? If anything, they benefit from compromised union leadership. Not everyone is a FAANG SWE who can get a new gig right away. Some of the proles benefit from protection from the capricious decisions of their employer.
Jensson 4y ago
You need laws to protect workers from unions or unions will abuse workers. In Europe you are pretty well protected against unions, in USA you aren't. I think this is by design in USA, businesses doesn't want unions to be popular and unions doesn't want to be regulated.
charcircuit 4y ago
>Workers and employers have nothing in common. That's untrue. Especially when workers own part of the company as a part of their compensation.

legitster 4y ago

Why would a business support a union? It's inherently going to be an adversarial relationship. I completely get why unions are necessary. But it would be like me hiring a divorce attorney for my own wife. A business is almost never going to want a union. And it seems weird to expect them to.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
There are things I don't want, and things I prioritise to get rid of. The fact that for amazon getting rid of unions is a priority, suggests that unions are effective
- roenxi 4y ago
  Amazon sees the unions as a direct threat to their profits, but that doesn't mean that unions are effective. Amazon's profits going down doesn't guarantee that workers pay & conditions would go up. I think nearly everyone agrees that unions are going to have a negative impact on profits, that hasn't a point of contention in the debate.
  - epups 4y ago
    And where do those profits go, when a union shows up, if not to better pay and work conditions?
    - randomdata 4y ago
      To downtime. The one and only lever a union brings is a withdrawal of services – i.e. strike. An employer won't take a union seriously until it has demonstrated that it will strike, so if it is more than a bluff among workers a strike is inevitable. This is also why unions have largely fallen out of fashion except in industries where the workers are well off. Unless you are wealthy enough to burden several months, if not years, without work striking isn't an option and thus the union becomes toothless.
      - epups 4y ago
        That's a bad take. Strikes are temporary, and have clear goals of increasing pay and work conditions. You talk as if a union is formed, then strikes indefinitely and hurts profits, then the business fails. Unions have "fallen out of fashion" in the US because there are not enough labor protections in place. Even now you hear of Starbucks and Amazon even going so far as hiring firms to do hit jobs on union leaders. If you think this is because they are afraid of downtime, rather than having to actually share more of their profits with workers, suit yourself.
        randomdata 4y ago
        > You talk as if a union is formed, then strikes indefinitely and hurts profits, then the business fails. The original claim replied to was that profit would decline, not disappear... Talk about a bad take. > enough labor protections in place. That's the remainder of the story. Because labour laws have appeared over the decades and centuries, one doesn't have to forego financial stability to save their life like people once had to. Workers now become de facto members of the government union which has already negotiated minimum standards for all. That wasn't always the case. Those who are in a position to be able to walk away from an income for months at a time may hold on to eek out an ounce more, but it's simply not worth it to low paid workers who rely on a regular paycheque. The cost of losing a home and going hungry greatly outweighs any potential returns.
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Damn right it's effective when you want to blackmail someone because you have extra time. If you were prioritizing your life then I came and tried to rob you, what would be the chance that you prioritize my angle of attack? Unions are literally built to prey on that cost that a company IS prioritized and by distracting it with legal hell it becomes slower and risks losing its position in the marketplace and thus potentially vulnerable to negoitations that are unfaorable because of exploiting what would otherwise be prioritization. Your example is just that the vampire sucked too much blood, and has a clear boundary of policy.
- kennend3 4y ago
  How much of the major auto bailouts years ago was the result of union rules? For decades they met union demands to avoid costly legal fights.. and in the end? this is rather old, but telling: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/09/2 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/09/2 Instead of restructure, the uion opted for bankruptcy? Way to "protect jobs"? "The company's attempt to buy more time failed after union leaders rejected a new restructuring plan that would have cut a fifth of the 19,000-strong workforce. The union said its members would have to be paid £70m in wages arrears before it would consider the proposals."
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  > The fact that for amazon getting rid of unions is a priority, suggests that unions are effective Well, it suggests that unions are effective at creating negative consequences for the company. Those consequences could be "more costly to do business because the employees are paid more"; in theory, a good outcome. They could also be "more costly to do business because it's not against the rules for someone to plug in the monitor in their office because all electronics must be handled by a certified union member" (which actually happens); in theory, a bad outcome. Not all "bad for the company" things are "good for the employees".
klyrs 4y ago
Hiring your spouse's divorce attorney sounds like a smart play, honestly. Except for the whole "conflict of interest" thing.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  .. and it probably gives them excellent grounds to challenge whatever agreement you and the spouse come up with. So, not actually a smart play.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Yeah, that's the danger of a conflict of interest. Like many things in life, there's daylight between "smart" and "sounds smart"
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
A recent story linked on HN that sadly didn't get much attention was that companies are in a crisis of not knowing what they can do to stop their employees from quitting. Glib answers like "pay them more" and "treat them better" aren't helpful because many of these are high paid jobs and everyone has a difference of opinion on what it means to be treated well (even if most will agree that being punched in the face all day is bad). Companies cannot get employees to tell them what they want. Exit interviews are mostly fruitless, surveys are avoided because workers don't believe they're truly anonymous, outside surveys have the same problem since the survey company is being paid by the employer. How can a company get honest feedback from their employees without the employees fearing reprisals? A union is one way of doing it since employees (usually) trust their union to take their grievances to the employer with little risk to the employees as individuals or as a group. There was a case a few years ago where a European company opened a factory in the right-to-work state and wanted its workers in a union because that's how it maintained employee relations in their home country. They were confused by the hostility towards unions in that state, both by workers and by the government. IIRC, it was semi-skilled manufacturing so exploiting the workers would be self-defeating if they kept leaving for other jobs.

Cupertino95014 4y ago

You need to clear up the antecedent basis of "them." I think maybe you mean "unions" (although I could be wrong) but your sentence actually means "why you should support companies."

missedthecue 4y ago

"the fact that businesses hate supplier cartels tells you all you need to know and why you should support them" How does this make sense? Is your ethical framework simply loving everything businesses hate?

krisoft 4y ago

They also pretty much all anti -arsonist. Does the logic apply there too?

gkodpgfdgf 4y ago

kennend3 4y ago

As others posted, your logic is very very off on this one. "the fact individuals are anti-income tax should tell you all you need to know.." "the fact criminals are anti-law enforcement should tell you all you need to know.." Why would a business support unions? Often UNION members dont support other union employees. Go to a major unionized auto factory sometime and look at the parking lot and try to find "imports". These same "pro union" individuals also shop at walmart knowing it is not unionized because they like the lower prices.

Spooky23 4y ago
If you allow companies to consolidate and exert unlimited political power, workers need to be able to self-organize to ensure their interests are represented. Full stop. All of the things you complain about happen on the business side of the table. People are people and do stupid shit with power. Why are Azure VPs buying shit from Amazon? Why do companies park burned out executives for a few years on gardening leave?
- kennend3 4y ago
  If you allow unions to consolidate and exert unlimited political power, companies need to be able to self-organize to ensure their interests are represented. Full stop. Does that work as well, or is this one of those "one way street" deals in your mind? When have companies "consolidated and exerted unlimited political power"? Did they end up facing "anti-trust" laws? get broken up as a result? > All of the things you complain about happen on the business side of the table. Are you sure about that? here's the head of the UAW being placed on leave for fraud: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/uaw-president-leave-corruption-investigation-1.5345689 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/uaw-president-leave-corrupt... Let me guess, the "business" made him do it? I have no idea what point you are making with Azure?
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Companies seem to be able to organize themselves quite well to achieve their business and political goals. If it’s bad for an autoworker to buy an “import”, surely a Microsoft employee should be shopping at Walmart or some other Microsoft partner, not Amazon. Why do you care about how the UAW guy defrauded his organization? And why would the company? Amazon fires blue collar workers for peeing too long, why is the stewardship of their dues relevant at all? If anything, they benefit from compromised union leadership. Not everyone is a FAANG SWE who can get a new gig right away. Some of the proles benefit from protection from the capricious decisions of their employer.

Jensson 4y ago

You need laws to protect workers from unions or unions will abuse workers. In Europe you are pretty well protected against unions, in USA you aren't. I think this is by design in USA, businesses doesn't want unions to be popular and unions doesn't want to be regulated.

charcircuit 4y ago

>Workers and employers have nothing in common. That's untrue. Especially when workers own part of the company as a part of their compensation.