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As unions decline, inequality rises

• Overtonwindow 4y ago
  What is the impact of inequality in a job seekers market? The perception I have is that employers are seeing difficulty in hiring. Would not inequality and diversity increase in such markets, as employers lower barriers and reduce leverage?
• Zeyka 4y ago
  I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions, maybe they just see themselves as embarrassed millionaires that would want to crush their workers to squeeze money out of them? It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone, say Jerry, 60 year old factory worker from idaho, can be against unions...
  • faitswulff 4y ago
    Ironically you’re being downvoted by the same folks who would benefit from unions. American Twitter employees, for instance, would have done a lot better with European labor protections. European Twitter employees probably have a sizable comeuppance on the horizon.
    • Zeyka 4y ago
      Exactly, and I'm not trying to devalue their beliefs, I'm just trying to understand how they can be against something that would benefit them.
      • mhb 4y ago
        Is it that hard to understand that someone might be in favor of something in principle, but object to its particular implementation? Or that someone could act against their own self-interest because of a belief in a broader principle? Maybe everyone's motivation isn't to blindly follow their own micro-self-interest.
        • ohCh6zos 4y ago
          Any time I hear the claim that people are against their best interests it does not quite make sense to me. My own observation leads me to believe that everyone is good at optimizing for their own priorities.
      • thepasswordis 4y ago
        It won’t benefit them. Maybe you should try to understand their perspective from a place of you being ignorant of the subject and wrong about unions.
      • bombolo 4y ago
        They think "oh no my lazy coworkers might get a bigger bonus!" rather than realising that their boss is the former lazy coworker. Basically the american idea that deserving people (aka myself) will magically prevail.
        • Zeyka 4y ago
          But that's the thing, meritocracy isn't a thing, and saying no to more protections (from unions or from pro-worker laws) just doesn't make sense. Granted there was some things I didn't know about how unions worked in the US, which I learned more about in this thread, but the same questions remain for pro worker and worker protection laws, why do Americans oppose them so much.
          • yucky 4y ago
            > meritocracy isn't a thing One of many examples I can give to disprove this as I'm sitting here watching Croatia & Morocco in the World Cup, is looking at some of the contracts some of these players get from their clubs. Wide disparity and definitely seems to be based on a meritocracy. Taken further, why are none of these fans in the stands, many of whom who also play for fun not equally compensated or even compensated at all? After all, they can kick a ball too. So now that we've established that meritocracy is obviously a real thing, we have to ask what evidence you have that a meritocracy wouldn't exist in other fields, like programming for instance.
            • bombolo 4y ago
              > So now that we've established that meritocracy is obviously a real thing We have? Because… a football match was played? What did it prove exactly?
              • yucky 4y ago
                Uh...no. Better players make more money (due to meritocracy). Do you think the better players should make the same as the worst players?
    • formercoder 4y ago
      I really don’t understand the push for white collar tech employees to be in unions. It’s my understanding that in most union jobs, compensation and benefits are strictly based on time in role, not performance. I try and excel in my role and others are less interested in doing so. I should be promoted faster and compensated higher.
      • thepasswordis 4y ago
        Generally the people who are advocating for a union are doing it to level the playing field for themselves against you.
        • bombolo 4y ago
          Yes for example an immigrant that is under threat of being deported might want a more level playing field.
          • dantheman 4y ago
            Unions are anti-immigrant.
            • bombolo 4y ago
              And companies are pro-exploitation-of-immigrants… and not very pro-immigrants.
            • wpietri 4y ago
              Do you have any current data on that? I think it was true of the "Reagan Democrat" variety of union worker in the 1980s, but I suspect it's an outdated stereotype now. For example, SEIU, one of America's largest unions, represents a lot of immigrants and is strongly pro-immigrant: https://www.seiu.org/justice-for-immigrants/ https://www.seiu.org/justice-for-immigrants/
              • ThrowawayR2 4y ago
    • throwaway6734 4y ago
      But American tech companies would be even less likely to be created in the first place under European labor laws
      • pjmlp 4y ago
        Spotify, SAP, Skype, Unity, Sitecore, OutSystems, Bayer, Pfizer, Nokia, Ericson, Vodafone.... Managed just fine.
        • throwaway6734 4y ago
          Do you think tech companies are more likely to come out of Europe or the US?
          • pjmlp 4y ago
            Moving goal posts, but yeah, Europe lacks a SV with venture capitalists raining money on every crazy idea, with Tony Stark like feudal lords pushing their minions to sleep in office with promises of free drinks and pizza, hoping to capitalize on the startup being sold. Thankfully.
            • throwaway6734 4y ago
              Not moving goalposts. Read my original post.
              • pjmlp 4y ago
                Examples were given, we enjoy our unions, thank you very much.
            • bartart 4y ago
              I am curious, is putting up with the occasional self-obsessed ceo not worth it? For example Tesla has a market value greater than every European carmaker combined, having gone from approximately 0 annual car deliveries to over a million in just a few years while revolutionizing electric travel. Or with space x developing reusable rockets that have utterly transformed the industry. These companies will contribute to economic dynamism and wealth creation for years and decades. Macron said of American space companies, “Unfortunately they’re not European, but they took a bet”. Perhaps at a certain level you need people with lots of money who are willing to risk it
    • logicalmonster 4y ago
      If the European standards are so good, where are all of the influential European tech companies? To properly weigh all of the tradeoffs, you might consider asking if those Twitter jobs would even emerge in the European system and if there's a link between European labor standards and the lack of influential European tech companies. Europe is a large market that is filled with many capable and educated technology workers, yet almost always all of the tech companies we're ever talking about are American. Why is this?
      • BigRedDog1669 4y ago
        Good company to work for is not the same as big company everyone is talking about on hacker news. Those are two different things. Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige? I might not care to work for Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Influential can be a bad thing if they are negatively influencing society.
        • logicalmonster 4y ago
          > Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige? The thing I'd like to focus on isn't nerd prestige, but good jobs, as the article was about inequality as nothing fixes social alienation and inequality more than lots of people having a good income and being part of society. These big tech companies, whatever major negatives they provide to the culture in many ways, at least employ a lot of people and give them a path to being part of that comfy middle class. If the concern is inequality, then is a pile of great paying jobs with worse labor standards better than a few ok paying jobs with great labor standards? See where I'm going with that? These are complex issues...I don't think I have all of the answers, but I just want to point out that there might be some tradeoffs to the good sounding things like unions and much better labor protections.
      • rejectfinite 4y ago
        Spotify, Skype, Minecraft, Battlefield, Ericsson, SAAB oh and the Linux kernel. Is your brain broken?
        • 4y ago
    • missedthecue 4y ago
      Why are European wages so low? Why aren't their unions extracting more meaningful pay? Why do the non-unionized US workers make so much more money?
    • pxmpxm 4y ago
      Ha, if anything Twitter's the paragon of a European tech company. Overstaffed, politicized and unable to make money, all while their top talent flees to competitors in sf bay area.
  • gchamonlive 4y ago
    It's because you have the blessing and privilege of working two to three jobs in a capitalist society, a very small price to pay to access all capitalism has to offer: smartphones, TVs and cleaning machines that break in a month after warranty expires, cars, a healthcare system that will take your house and your dog as collateral... Unions? you should be thankful!
  • JasonFruit 4y ago
    In my experience, what they oppose isn't unions as such, but compulsory union membership. They consider that a union should arise from the expression of worker needs, and a union that they are forced to join and that exists whether they want it or not might lack incentives to represent their needs instead of the needs of the union. It's kind of like the saying about organizations in general: eventually they come to serve the needs of the organization instead of the purpose for which they were originally created.
    • Zeyka 4y ago
      I think that's fair enough, but it's not like workers in the USA have a lot of protections or are getting fairly compensated for their work. So unions, whether compulsory or not, still benefit them in one way or another.
      • nverno 4y ago
        This isn't just uniformly true, though. As a worker you may be better off without the union you're a part of- it depends as much on the union as the company.
      • dantheman 4y ago
        I mean Americans are paid far more highly than Europeans, so I don't see how this is correct.
        • Zeyka 4y ago
          Only highly skilled workers are paid more. Compare fast food workers and you'll see what I'm talking about.
        • mftrhu 4y ago
          Are they, really? How did they end up not having enough cash on hand to cover minor emergencies, then? How are they going bankrupt over healthcare costs - even when insured through their job - while having to worry about not being able to take a day off?
    • 4y ago
  • slater- 4y ago
    as we say in america when someone is right about something, "i think you just hit the nail on the head."
  • thepasswordis 4y ago
    Because some people take pride in their work, and being essentially forced to do a bad job hurts them psychologically. I want to get up early, set big goals, work hard on them, and then see the fruits of that hard work. I take immense pride in that, and seeing the output in some sense is a big part of the payment. Unions don’t allow for this attitude, at least none of the ones that I have ever interacted with. They’re not pro worker, they’re anti work. These people seem to believe that work is bad for workers. So some people don’t like unions. I don’t like unions.
    • CPLX 4y ago
      > I want to get up early, set big goals, work hard on them, and then see the fruits of that hard work. Perhaps you could serve as an example and role model that could inspire union members like Michael Jordan and Tom Brady to work harder.
    • dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Hypothesis #1: European unions aren't like American unions in this way: they are far less oppositional to the objectives of the companies. Hypothesis #2: This is a result of European unions having an origin as trade guilds whereas American unions have an origin as political organizers.
      • jltsiren 4y ago
        European unions have their roots in revolutionary communism. They then evolved towards social democracy, which is effectively a compromise between socialism and capitalism. This social compromise, where the unions accepted market economy and private property and the employers accepted moderate unions, made the unions what they are today. American unions evolved in another direction. Because there was no serious risk of a communist revolution, the employers had no need to comromise. Both the employers and the unions remain more confrontational than in Europe.
      • BurningFrog 4y ago
        As a Swede who emigrated to the US: # 1: Swedish unions are very different from US ones. They understand their companies and the country needs to be competitive on the world market. I have my problems with their power and policies, but they're vastly better for society than the US version. # 2: The Swedish unions formed the Social Democratic party, that's been the main political power center of the country for a century. Don't know what relations they may have had with guilds in the 1800s.
  • stri8ed 4y ago
    For the same reason that people oppose monopolies. Unions are effectively a monopoly on the labor market.
    • missedthecue 4y ago
      With specific exemption from federal anti trust legislation.
  • jasode 4y ago
    >It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone [...] can be against unions... America unions are structured differently from Europe and some can become as distrusted by the workers as the corporation. Your viewpoint is common but it's based on the mental model of "Unions are good. Period end of story." But for voters like your proverbial Jerry against unions, the mental model is more about tradeoffs like this, "the proposed union by these particular set of organizers has made some promises and wants to charge me $$$ per year to negotiate with the company. Things may turn out better -- or they may turn out worse (e.g. no job)." As an example, the Amazon union vote in Alabama failed and many blamed Amazon propaganda. No doubt that Amazon crafted many negative messages about unions. But outsiders forget that many voters had older relatives from Alabama coal mines telling them that "the union just took our dues money and didn't do shit for us". How can pro-union advocates counter those disillusioned union coal miners spreading negative information like that? These are the kinds of scenarios Europeans are unfamiliar with.
    • toomuchtodo 4y ago
      > How can pro-union advocates counter those disillusioned union coal miners spreading negative information like that? Because coal mining is in no way the same as Amazon’s retail business? Now, I will say, some of these folks are beyond hope. In an energy transition documentary done by one of the HGTV property brothers, they interview a coal miner dying of black lung in Appalachia, and they believe that’s the job their kids and grandkids should do versus renewables or “new tech” even when considering there are other options available. [1] Belief systems are deeply ingrained and have defense mechanisms. Persuade the open minded whenever possible, of course, but ignore those who aren’t. The effort is better spent elsewhere. As Max Planck said, “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Same deal. [1] https://youtu.be/MgRa5spkfXw https://youtu.be/MgRa5spkfXw
      • argiopetech 4y ago
        Both involve manual labor acquiring, packing, and shipping valuable good for use by others; in enclosed areas, surrounded by large, dangerous equipment; where workers are paid below the perceived value of the position, and with top management who grow richer daily while ignoring the plight of the "little man"... I'd rather work in the warehouse, personally, but I can certainly see how the positions are analogous to the level we could compare expected results of a union.
  • Aunche 4y ago
    A lot of people have had bad experience with unions. Often times, it's only people with high seniority that see the most benefit from unions. This is why the railroad unions negotiated for more pay instead of paid sick days. Pension payouts are based on the average of the highest 60 paying months. Senior employees who are due to retire in a few years just need bear a few more tough years to enjoy their significantly fatter pensions.
    • danaris 4y ago
      Have they really? Personal bad experiences? Or is this just the prevailing narrative that's been sold to us over the past 30-50 years, and there are too few actual unions and union jobs left to effectively counter it?
  • jccalhoun 4y ago
    Because all they see is "that union is taking money out of my pay check!" and they don't see the positives. And there actually are bad unions. I worked in a casino and out union was a non-striking union so even if the casino gave use some shitty contract we weren't able to strike. So what was the point?
    • Zeyka 4y ago
      Replace the word unions with cops (in the us) and then see if you come to the conclusion that there should be no cops because the system isn't working right now. The answer is most likely "No, of course not". So why do so many come to the conclusion that since unions aren't working well right now, you should just get rid of them altogether?
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • wallawe 4y ago
    If this is your take, you're not being honest about the downsides of unions. Here is a list of reasons for not wanting a union[1]: - I want my underperforming colleagues to be fired quickly. It's unfair and annoying that laggards are protected and free riding off their colleagues' (my) effort, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I don't want seniority or rank to be rewarded. It's unfair to young people (me) who are more competent and ambitious, and it leads to ineffective orgs. - I want to negotiate individually because I believe I will make more money as an outperformer. I don't want a centralized handicapper to blunt my compensation. - I don't like that unions are rent seeking in nature. - I don't like that unions often are exploited by organized crime. - I don't like that unions interfere in the broader political process and democracy via activism and political pressure (e.g look at the fact that the new EV subsidies will be going to everyone except Tesla, it's a perversion). - I think people should be free to organize, but I don't like that the state grants special asymmetric powers to unions. - I don't like especially public sector unions that I believe are doing significant damage to society broadly. For example police unions that shielded Chauvin after a large number of complaints. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28958674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28958674
    • larksimian 4y ago
      Beautiful sentiments. Young programmers in the hottest job market in history don't need a union. Fortunately for your ability to empathize with the plebeians in the regular world, Musk has shown that software companies are probably employing at least twice as many programmers as they need, so this job market should be turning south soon. After ten-twenty years of being employed half the time and your salary going down with every new job I'm sure you'll be mentally broken down enough to empathize with the blue collar pro-union perspective.
      • dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Musk has shown that software companies are probably employing at least twice as many programmers as they need No, he hasn’t; he hasn’t even shown that Twitter was doing that.
  • JustSomeNobody 4y ago
    I think it in part comes from being trained generation after generation that if I work harder than you, I deserve more than you. So if people want to make things more equal, I will have worked so hard for nothing and that makes me unhappy. * Note: I used "I", but I don't personally feel this way. If I found out a fast food worker made more than me as an engineer, I wouldn't care. In some ways they work harder. Also, I don't think CEOs bring as much worth to a company as engineers do and they make way more, so...
  • lisper 4y ago
    Two big factors: 1. American capitalists have waged a very effective propaganda campaign against unions and 2. American unions have had a history of corruption. (Or maybe I just think that because I've been taken in by the propaganda campaign.)
    • mistrial9 4y ago
      as an American, my casual observation is that "real, political Leftists in Unions of America" were pushed out by any means (media,legal pressure,illegal intimidation and harassment), leaving the far-Right shady people to run them (literally Mafia in many locations, and with the Teamsters). This is a political trade-off paralleling other anti-Communist countries. USA Americans do not have a real impression of the horrific power struggles that can occur within a labor & tax system, and as these comments show, also do not have a real impression of a working, daily Union doing it's job without drama.
      • mgraf1 4y ago
        I'm curious what you mean when you say "leaving the far-Right shady people to run them (literally Mafia in many locations, and with the Teamsters)". How are you defining "far-right" in this context?
        • mistrial9 4y ago
          sustained, organized indentured servitude was a fact of work life in many populated parts of the world for more than a thousand years, and is found today in most military structures, hotels and casinos, for example. Here, a working definition of "far-Right" is, descendants of those that enable hierarchical work structures parallel to indentured work, with control & reward structures associated with that.
  • otikik 4y ago
    It has been demonized and propagandized against by people with the deepest pockets in the world, and it’s working in some cases.
    • Zeyka 4y ago
      A quick look at the comments on here answers that pretty well... It's quite sad that those that are against unions for various reasons are also against any changes to them. It just seems like bad faith.
  • JKCalhoun 4y ago
    > I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions It seems as though decades of corporate puppets have done a wonderful job of convincing the blue-collar worker that unions are corrupt and exist solely to milk worker's dues. I don't understand it either.
  • mikem170 4y ago
    > I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions I've wondered if this is because unions in the U.S. are considerably different than unions in other places? This was an interesting article [0] I bumped into titled "Europe could have the secret to saving America’s unions". It said that in the U.S. unionization happens at the enterprise level, leaving unionized companies at a disadvantage relative to their competitors, so individual companies are very much incentivized to fight against unionization. In other countries when a certain amount of workers call for unionization negotiations happen between the union and a federation representing all employers in the sector, and the entire sector unionizes at once, not individual companies. The article also talked about employees receiving benefits from their unions in some (fewer) countries, like unemployment insurance, instead of from the government. This incentives workers to join the union and pay union dues, instead of forcing them to do so. The idea was thrown out there that things like health care and retirement plans could also be included with union dues for people in gig-work jobs that would otherwise not receive these benefits. I'd add that the article didn't address a concern many in the U.S. have about unions protecting under-performing workers, to the detriment of others. I've heard that this is different in other countries, at least to a point, but the article did not get into this. Also in the U.S. there have been a lot of corrupt unions, and public employee unions that receive (expensive) preferential treatment by law, I don't know if these problems exist in other countries. [0] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/17/15290674/union-labor-movement-europe-bargaining-fight-15-ghent https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/17/15290674/u...
    • Zeyka 4y ago
      Thanks for the interesting read, I think that US unions should definitely change, and this is still in line with my original comment, because of course you can dislike the way unions work right now, but still be pro-union in the long term. Opposing unions is just going to lead to no changes on the union side and it's going to let the companies be as harsh on workers as they want, even on the "hard workers", because in the end, companies just care about the value that you are producing, not what you once produced. If you aren't valuable now, they'll just throw you out. All the comments on here that say "well i don't want my lazy coworker to get paid more" highlight how well the "hustle"/"grind" and meritocracy propaganda worked on US workers. The other type of comments that talk about the bad side of unions just seem like bad faith arguments, It's just like the police violence in the US, there are a lot of bad actors and the system is ultimately flawed, but does that mean that there should be no police? No, of course not, so why is that in this context, they are actively against unions and against workers right? It quite literally makes no sense, but then again we're talking about the USA here so the notion of logic just goes out of the window.
  • 2devnull 4y ago
    You don’t know many working class Americans or you could ask them. I do and have and they report exploitation and misaligned incentives. Unions are like corporations, they can have poor leadership with goals that are incongruous with the goals of the members. Union dues can feel like you pay a lot of your hard earned cash to just have your money siphoned off to a politicians that literally hate you. But usually they have agreed that in general it’s good that unions exist. Better to have them around than to not have them, in the abstract.
  • defphysics 4y ago
    > see themselves as embarrassed millionaires I see this "embarrassed millionaires" line a lot. It seems unbelievably cynical. Do you really think a meaningful fraction of workers are thinking "I'll oppose unions because even though I'm hurting workers, it'll be good for me when I'm rich"?
    • danaris 4y ago
      It's rarely a specific and conscious line of thought during the decision-making process. The more common case is making the working class feel like they're "just like" the wealthy—playing on the narrative that "anyone can get rich in America"—and then selling them on policies that actively work against their own interests, and for the interests of the wealthy. This step often looks like talking about things that would primarily affect the very wealthy as if they would hurt everyone. Things like "taxation is theft", "increasing taxes punishes success", "government small enough to drown in a bathtub", etc.
  • surement 4y ago
    > maybe they just see themselves as embarrassed millionaires that would want to crush their workers to squeeze money out of them? What a lazy take. Unions only protect their current members. It's common for companies to hire fewer people or hire more people at only part time schedules because full time employees are required to cost exaggeratedly more or are harder to fire due to union contracts. What organization represents the people who are unemployed or underemployed because of unions? These people are much worse off than if the unions didn't exist.
  • musictubes 4y ago
    You say you will never understand why some American working class workers oppose unions. Well then I guess you will need be able to convince them otherwise. If your starting point is that the union experience is obviously a good one and you must be stupid to not see that, you have lost any chance of a serious conversation. People have reasons for feeling the way they do. Dismissing them as falling for propaganda is once again just calling them stupid. I'm an American and I admit to having a very negative view of modern unions. When the word union comes up I immediately think of: 1) The Teamsters and their ties to organized crime 2) Police unions that shield officers from consequences 3) Teacher unions that prevent awful teachers from being fired 4) Ridiculous rules around duties on film/theater sets 5) The UAW is seen by many former workers as letting them down. Many other people feel the UAW bears some responsibilities for plant closures. 6) As supermarkets in my area started to unionize the service noticeably suffered. 7) Several friends were Verizon workers and felt that they were screwed by their union. 8) It is common for unions to fund candidates that many workers do not like. If someone like myself has a negative view of unions it is up to people like yourself to change that perception if you want unions to gain traction in the US. Distrust of unions in the US are not always (usually?) driven by ignorance or propaganda. Unions themselves have done a very good job of alienating workers.
    • rejectfinite 4y ago
      Here is how Swedish unions work :) Maybe urs are just shit :) https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen
• factfindingisfn 4y ago
  Ha! This is a best loosely coupled. EPI discloses labor unions fund them. Labor Unions did nothing for families in the 60s,70s,80s, and 90s when all manufacturer jobs were driven out of the US due to bad labor negotiations. Joining a union is about as helpful for your job as joining a country club except you don’t get any real perks.
  • wpietri 4y ago
    Laying all of the US's industrial decline at the feet of unions is a bit much. I think a lot of the management-hostile, zero-sum thinking that drove bad union behavior was a clear response to previous management behavior filled with both exploitation that drove the rise of unions and hostility when they couldn't get away with as much. An instructive example here is the story of the NUMMI plant in the 1980s, which clearly shows the awfulness of GM's internal culture, the cluelessness of management in the face of existential threat, and how much things can be different, even with the exact same union workers: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 If we want unions that have a collaborative, win-win approach with management, I think we first need management that has that spirit toward the workers. But looking at how US companies are reacting to the recent uptick in unionization, I'm not very hopeful.
• pmoriarty 4y ago
  Many people don't want equality... especially those who see themselves as superior.
  • atsuzaki 4y ago
    You can see it in the comments of this thread, even.
    • bombolo 4y ago
      Yep, like the people who say they are better than their coworkers and say unions would make them compensated less… USA propaganda succeeded… they don't even realise the enemy is their CEO.
      • ohCh6zos 4y ago
        Why would the CEO be my enemy? A specific CEO maybe but that is a very broad claim to make.
        • bombolo 4y ago
          > Why would the CEO be my enemy? I studied some basic economics. The goal for a player seems to be to obtain the maximum, giving the least. For his very role, the CEO will pay you the least amount he can get away with. Ok he won't think of a few dollars or cents, because it's not worth to think about it… but when you negotiate your salary he would give you a negative raise if he could get away with it. And during normal work days he wants you to work as much as possible. Of course a good CEO understands that working 20h today means that you won't do a good job tomorrow… but the long term goal is that.
          • MoreSEMI 4y ago
            Would you not try to do something similar in working as minimally as possible for the pay? Does that make someone a bad person? Everyone tries to min-max life. Doesn’t make them enemies or bad people, it just makes them…people.
• kaputmi 4y ago
  I have mixed feelings about unions. On one hand – should workers be able to associate freely and bargain collectively against employers? Yes! But, should some groups of workers be able to impose on everyone that they must join their association in order to be a worker at X company, or an actor, or something? No, I don't see why.
  • dnissley 4y ago
    Exactly! If conditions are so bad in a company that 99% of it's workers immediately sign on to a union then that means something very different than when you can only get 51% of workers to eventually sign on. Collective bargaining is a escape valve against shit employers for employees that don't have a lot of options. A standing union with mandated membership and support from laws and regulations very easily becomes something far more twisted.
  • throw0101c 4y ago
    > But, should some groups of workers be able to impose on everyone that they must join their association in order to be a worker at X company, or an actor, or something? No, I don't see why. We then get into: > In the social sciences, the free-rider problem is a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from resources, public goods (such as public roads or public library), or services of a communal nature do not pay for them[1] or under-pay. Free riders are a problem because while not paying for the good (either directly through fees or tolls or indirectly through taxes), they may continue to access or consume it. Thus, the good may be under-produced, overused or degraded.[2] Additionally, it has been shown that despite evidence that people tend to be cooperative by nature, the presence of free-riders cause this prosocial behaviour to deteriorate, perpetuating the free-rider problem.[3] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem
  • danuker 4y ago
    A company should be able to set different salaries for unionized vs. non-unionized workers.
  • ljw1001 4y ago
    Only management should be able to impose their will on employees and should be able to do so without competition. On the job, and during their “free-time”. More seriously, imagine where not everyone is required to be in the union and think about how easy it then becomes for management to manipulate the environment to the detriment of union employees until the union is wiped out.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  This analysis ignores the effects of WWII. At the end of WWII, the USA was the only industrial economy in the world, not significantly damaged by the fighting. If you see, the spike of worker union participation is right after the end of WWII. Basically, for a couple of decades the USA had a monopoly on advanced manufacturing. Then as Europe and Japan caught up, there was more of a push towards efficiency as US companies faced more competition
  • rejectfinite 4y ago
    Sweeden too cope cope cope cope cope cope https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_Sweden#Second_industrial_revolution_(1890%E2%80%931950) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_Sweden#Secon...
• stri8ed 4y ago
  As does global warming, and pandemics. Why assume their is a causal relationship?
• mannyv 4y ago
  What does inequality mean in this context? The USSR, North Korea, and Cuba all have/had lower levels of inequality than the west...by making everyone poor. That is the easy way to reduce inequality/ What the left fails to realize is that absolute inequality doesn't matter. The real questions is the vast majority feel better off? In China, hundreds of millions are wealthier than they were two generations ago. They have increased absolute inequaliry and increased equality at the same time. In fact, inequality as a concept is a ridiculous measure. What does equality in that context even mean? That everyone should make the same amount, no matter the ability or position? 90% of humanity would vehemently disagree with that. In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation.
  • bombolo 4y ago
    So you are saying there is nothing wrong with a country where a few own everything and everyone else doesn't even have access to healthcare? > In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation. Yes, rich people, lol. People who GET access to things like housing and healthcare remain.
    • kneebonian 4y ago
      I feel like you are mischarecterizing OPs argument. His argument is that rather than focus on inequality we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall.
      • JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
        > > we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall The most important quality of life metric is mental health. There is no way around the fact that mental health is heavily impacted by the fact that citizens feel worthless when they assess their social status vis-a-vis the top 1% And no amount of stuff will solve this problem because social status is a zero-sum game. It's one of those problems that simply cannot be solved.
        • 4y ago
• jostmey 4y ago
  Politics aside, there might not be a causative link between unions and inequality—just a correlation. Supporting unions may or may not reduce inequality
• thepasswordis 4y ago
  The exact attitude in this thread is why people don’t like unions. It’s this smug idea that the workers are simply too stupid to understand that they should join the special club. Not that they don’t don’t like jt, or have made an informed decision about it, it’s because they are dumb and not capable of advocating for themselves. I don’t want to be in your weird HOA club. Leave me alone and let me do my work and go get a job in HR so you can be a part of the PMC, which is obviously what you are after anyway.
  • leach 4y ago
    It's quite annoying when people just assume that a union would be the best thing for you. They clearly have no idea and just read on the internet that a union would be good for workers so obviously they have to align with that view. The last thing I want is for freeloaders to essentially never get fired and for some parasitic entity to collect dues for "bargaining" that usually isn't even worth it by the time they finish negotiations. Especially in todays climate. Sure the threat of a union may mobilize a company to be more competitive and pay more, but the actual unions themselves just seem to never work out. Expecting an entity that doesn't do much to get you all these benefits is almost insane. When has any union actually got everything they promised? Never, at least not in America.
• dzink 4y ago
  World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this. There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic. I’d argue the unions were a bi-product of a historically rare moment in time vs cause of equality. The market bust and global world war increased taxation, demand for workers, and value of each worker in the early 40s. Much more importantly, for a few decades after WWII all other global world powers were rebuilding after being leveled by the war. The US instead remained as the last productive developed nation standing for decades and enjoyed likely huge margins as a result of both lack of competition and demand for supplies by the rest of the developed world. Those margins and the unscathed living conditions, also turned the US into a magnet for technical and scientific talent from everywhere else. The more competition recovered in Japan and elsewhere, the less bargaining power and surplus could be captured by Unions. The Union-driven higher costs of manufacturing also drove outsourcing, off-shoring, and did not lead to higher quality output, (if Unions were producing higher quality that would have kept Japanese-manufactured cars from dominating US car sales shortly after). Even further, exorbitant labor costs make it worthwhile for manufacturers to do capital investments in automation, and we are seeing the output of that. The rise in middle class should probably be attributed to investments - in equities, bonds, house purchases. Growing up in Eastern Europe, where only housing investment was an option, and unions were abundant, the middle class that sprouted came from those who invested in property and business. Labor union power and wealth was too politically and corruption influenced to be a sustainable source of growth for the country.
  • soco 4y ago
    Re. unions: especially in the Eastern Europe I don't think unions deserve to be called like that "unions". They were just facades for the "communist" political power to reach into every corner of worker's lives. Unions real meaning is negotiation power against the employers, and you must agree there was exactly zero of this in the EE. Might have been something before communism took over, but after WW2 there was no union left worth their name behind the iron curtain.
    • scarmig 4y ago
      > after WW2 there was no union left worth their name behind the iron curtain. Solidarność.
• wendyshu 4y ago
  "The Economic Policy Institute is a 501 non-profit American, left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C."
• VeninVidiaVicii 4y ago
  I think that’s the point. Workers want to be paid more if they feel like they are more deserving.
• avereveard 4y ago
  This article puts together two graphs and absolutely give no backing as to which one is the causation of the other beyond "see?" or if there's any backing model for their correlation than one could go and test. This is sensationalistic propaganda, not research.
  • ed25519FUUU 4y ago
    You would honestly think that in 2022 someone would critically ask the author if they’re falling into a “correlation implies causation” fallacy.
    • avereveard 4y ago
      Considering I'm being downvoted on top of that, I might have overvalued this community as well.
• ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  Of course, correlation does not equal causation! But in some cities, the govt is required to do work only with labor unions. In that case, joining a union might help, because the government has taking away your competition!
• js8 4y ago
  To everybody who thinks this is just correlation and not causation - read the post properly. They mention: "Labor unions both sustained prosperity, and ensured that it was shared; union bargaining power has been shown to moderate the compensation of executives at unionized firms." And give a link to a study. This result has been seen across countries, and is the CAUSAL link you're looking for.
  • Gimpei 4y ago
    I don’t have any real opinion about the direction of causality. If anything the idea of unions contributing to more wage equality makes sense to me. But, linking to a single study as “proof” of anything is a big no no. It is very easy to cherry pick studies so that you get the “true” outcome. The only way to make a halfway convincing argument is to look at every piece of evidence on the question and aggregate them. This is why we believe global warming is man made and severe despite a few studies that suggest otherwise. One other caveat I would add is that if you read the linked study, they’re only reporting correlations. There doesn’t appear to be a causal identification strategy there. Which isn’t to say it isn’t interesting and worthwhile. Only that one should take the results with an appropriate level of caution.
  • next_xibalba 4y ago
    Let's just read the title: "As unions decline, inequality rises" That is very much a statement about correlation. Otherwise it would say, "Unions' Decline CAUSED Inequality". But, to anyone with a passing knowledge of statistics, that is clearly an impossible claim to make. This is one time series realization for one country. Let's go further. Is there any mention of causality in the article. And I do mean quantified causality. The answer is "no". Is there even any mention of correlation? Again, the answer is "no". Let's keep going. Let's evaluate the aims and intent of the article. Let's start with EPI, the publisher of this article. The Chair of EPI is "Elizabeth H. Shuler ... president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 58 unions and 12.5 million working people". Other board members include current and former union leadership from the United Steelworkers, the UAW, the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, Service Employees International Union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Communication Workers of America, and the American Federation of Teachers. All huge unions. In other words, this publication is not a work of science. It is not a credible academic publication. It is the motivated, self interested rhetoric of union leadership.
• TexanFeller 4y ago
  Do China and similar powers have pervasive unions? If the rest of the wold doesn't, unionizing in the US may be a very temporary victory as union demands encourage even more offshoring and automation. We compete globally now. Globalization may be the bigger source of inequality in the first place.
  • danuker 4y ago
    Globalization moves money to people most in need of it (i.e. developing countries with cheap labor/resources).
• k__ 4y ago
  In Germany at least, I have the feeling the Unions don't do much. I know a bunch of nurses, and they still are paid badly.
  • rejectfinite 4y ago
    Are you German? What if without unions, it would be worse?
• susanasj 4y ago
  I think this is a good article for tech workers to read to provide perspective on our place in the tech economy (particularly Americans): https://organizing.work/2020/12/there-is-something-missing-from-tech-worker-organizing/ https://organizing.work/2020/12/there-is-something-missing-f... particularly this part: > Early on in my own career in the industry, I felt guilty about making a “good” salary. Why did I deserve to make more money than a teacher or a nurse? Of course, I don’t — they deserve a lot more too. But if I was making less it would go straight into the pockets of investors, not other workers. Tech workers’ labor has made six of the world’s ten richest people, and today computing and the internet are an integral part of every industry. Although some workers are highly paid, the differential between investor profits and employee salary is as stark as in any other industry, because workers are not organized. it's true that tech workers frequently make good money and we should be grateful for that, but when our industry is producing oligarchs like Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, it means that they are profiting from the things that tech workers produce. It's how inequality is increased. It's no coincidence that the rise of the tech economy has coincided with American inequality rising sharply.
  • 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
    One of the memes that you frequently see in the upper middle class left-leaning tech worker circles is that anything less than a worker co-op is ultimately an organizational structure that is inequitable and exploitative to its labor force, leading to negative externalities for society at large. I'm 100% ignorant of the history of labor and of all philosophical dialectic around it, but I would love to form an opinion on this. Would someone mind steel manning both sides of that argument? E.g. I have questions like, if I'm the founder of a company and I sell it 10 years later and make most of the upside, did I exploit my employees because they didn't make as much as I did in the end?
    • susanasj 4y ago
      I forgot I posted this comment so just seeing this but as an upper middle class lefty tech worker I'll offer an answer. I think your question is a bit too focused on the individual and not the system. I think it's actually difficult for founders to share the upside "equitably", whatever that means. Like, are there any examples of it actually happening? I suspect that the acquiring company frequently dictates terms that won't allow you to make every employee a millionaire because then what incentive do they have to work anymore. I think once you get to the multi billion dollar level of wealth it's difficult to get objective advice - many of the people surrounding you are just trying to please you to continue getting their slice of the vast wealth that you control. So just as a human it's hard to navigate that I think (this is me being sympathetic to billionaires, which I'm generally not). The much easier answer to me is just much higher taxes on wealth. Capitalism is not a system built to share resources equitably, but inequality can be tamed through taxes. If you as a founder see most of the upside, fine, but a lot of it will get redistributed to society through taxes, and theoretically your workers benefit from that. It also means it's not up to the whims of the individual people or companies involved in something like an acquisition to try to make it equitable. (another way inequality in capitalism can be tamed is through unions, but I don't know if there are any examples of unions being involved in something like an acquisition or IPO in tech)
• WalterBright 4y ago
  As the government share of gdp rises, so does inequality. Increasing tax rates, and increasingly progressive tax rates, provide an increasing barrier to moving up.
• renewiltord 4y ago
  Every time I read something on HN about immigrants I know what a tech union would look like. Like the AFL CIO of old, it will be anti-immigrant. That specifically does not work for me. Confoederationes commercii delendae sunt
• option 4y ago
  we should stop worrying about inequality and instead fixate on these two metrics: (1) how well off are the poorest and those unable to work and (2) how well off is the middle class
• hintymad 4y ago
  I think unions in private companies have value. The unions at least know they can’t demand too much or their companies will be out of business. On the other hand, I don’t get unions in public institutions: the government is unlikely to go out of business, so what is possibly the check and balance of the unions?
• jmyeet 4y ago
  This is spot on. The evisceration of unions is the legacy of the Reagan/Thatcher years (ie the 1980s). Real wages have been stagnant for 40+ years [1]. Much of modern American culture can be summed up with this quote [2]: > “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The Cold War and the hugely successful propaganda against communism spilled over to utterly decimate the labor movement in the US. You will however immediately lose most Americans as soon as you use the word "socialism". Let me summarize the usual rebuttals: 1. Socialism isn't communisum. The first is more about equality of opportunity. The second is more equality of outcome; 2. Socialism is not a poverty cult. Society is insanely wealthy. It's simply about sharing the wealth such that like 8 people don't own 50% of the economy; 3. Debt is built into your existence. Student debt, medical debt, housing debt, etc. This is by design to rob you of autonomy and keep you as compliant workers. Often this is referred to as "neofeudalism" or "neoserfdom". 5. There is no value without labor; 6. "The workers owning the means of production" simply means labor sharing in the value they create. And no, an Amazon warehouse worker getting paid minimum hour and being penalized for taking bathroom breaks is not "sharing"; 7. Too many people have unrealistic views about their ability to negotiate and their overall ability, which is why you'll see so many comments like "I don't want to be kept down by low performers". 8. The financialization of housing turns people into NIMBYs who want to see their home values go up even though cost of housing is the leading factor in homelessness and has historically been used as a tool for segregation after explicit segregation was outlawed; 9. Creating monopolies such that companies can charge $1000/month and otherwise bankrupt you for needing lifesaving healthcare is state violence; 10. The police as an institution that exists today is a tool for protecting capital and those who own it; and 11. You are not Elon Musk. You will never be Elon Musk. Elon Musk doesn't know who you are. Elon Musk would melt you down for rocket fuel if it increased profits. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-said-that-socialism-never-took-root-in https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-...
• amelius 4y ago
  Can we start a union for developers that sell in the App Store?
• jelliclesfarm 4y ago
  Inequality rises due to overpopulation. It’s a numbers game.
• Buttons840 4y ago
  As unions grow they begin to resemble that which they were meant to counter-balance. I've wondered, if a subgroup of union members are unhappy, can they organize? Can they form a union within the union? For example, if my workplace has an exclusive contract with one union, and me and my coworkers (who are all union members) don't believe the union is representing us, can we organize to take collective action against both the union and our actual employer? I known little about unions, so feel free to explain the basics if you need.
• steve76 4y ago
• candyman 4y ago
  Seems like less regulation and less government leads to greater efficiency. The rich get richer often because of government loopholes. Carried interest is a simple one but in the 77,000+ pages of the tax code the rich have the resources to use lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes. Anyone getting a W2 has very limited wiggle room on avoiding the tax bite.
• rejectfinite 4y ago
  Lots of American cope in this thread. Read this. This is a Swedish general office worker union. Yes even IT https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen
• navane 4y ago
  Not saying unions don't equalize, but 1940-1945 had something else going on besides being peak union.
• timka 4y ago
  Fair means inequal.