13 ms·

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 cr

by 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

by Zeyka 4y ago

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