7 ms·

Except that unions typically form the other way round: workers feeling aggrieved by their employers unionize to apply leverage to improve things. You're probabl

Except that unions typically form the other way round: workers feeling aggrieved by their employers unionize to apply leverage to improve things. You're probably right that the lot of workers as a whole could be done better, but for an individual that's irrelevant.

WalterBright 4y ago
Unions always treat their employers as adversaries. This does not make for a win-win relationship.
- LightHugger 4y ago
  Employers often treat their employees as adversaries. Thus the need for unions in those situations... You appear to be placing blame for the situation on the party with less power in the situation, the employee, rather than the one with more power, the employer. this is a bit silly!
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Consider the union negotiating tactics. They don't negotiate, they demand. They carry signs and verbally attack the company. They threaten. They offer nothing in return. It's entirely framed as win-lose by the union. How do they expect the company to want to deal with them? Consider how businesses negotiate. Each side offers something in return for better terms. They come to a mutually agreeable win-win solution. That's what I do when I've negotiated with employers. I frame it as a friendly win-win negotiation, and both parties go away pleased with the result.
    - LightHugger 4y ago
      Uh, have you just not noticed employer tactics? They don't care about it being win-win. You clearly have extreme anti-union bias to the point you havent noticed how incredibly employee hostile the companies that unions form around are, to an absurd extent. It's gone so far that the magnitude of a win for the employer is so much higher than for the employee that the goal posts have shifted to absurdity. You're still putting the onus for improving the situation on the party with far, far less power. Which makes no sense.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        When I see a union offering win-win solutions, I will change my mind. I am not anti-union. I am anti the tactics they use. Unions are part of the free market. A union is a business that sells labor.
        atoav 4y ago
        And companies are businesses that exploit labor to make profits. One creates value for many people, the other for few. The ethics on this one is not hard.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under socialism, it's the other way around.
        atoav 4y ago
        And if someone tells you these are the only options, thats how you know they are from the US.
        nickpp 4y ago
        Please feel free to suggest a 3rd option. I live in Europe and I don't know any.
        satvikpendem 4y ago
        > exploit labor to make profits If you believe in the LTV, which many don't. Many instead believe in the subjective (market) theory of value.
        8note 4y ago
        It's the case only if you believe there's a transitive property to value, which has some evidence to it. You tend not to see somebody sell a gold watch for less than the gold that's in it. Especially so if there's profit being made on the watch
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Here's an example. Union says "we have ideas that will cut costs 10%. In exchange, we want half of that in the form of higher wages." Business says, "where do I sign?"
      - LightHugger 4y ago
        Uh, your thought process is operating on the level of what you as an individual can do. But as a result, you are seeing none of the systemic problems. While your thinking is probably individually beneficial, like that of a salmon knowing to swim upstream, this salmon has no way of addressing the dam that's being built upriver. Regardless of whether the dam is built or not, it is still best to do what you can to swim upriver. But it's better for the dam not to be built and ruin your habitat. But you're annoyed at other salmon trying to stop it, because they took a break from swimming upriver.
        satvikpendem 4y ago
        Yoir post reads to me as a non sequitur. The parent mentioned a union making that deal, but you are talking about "what you as an individual can do" which doesn't seem to be what they're talking about, since they're explicitly talking about the union making a deal with the business.
      - 988747 4y ago
        Businesses have such cost-cutting ideas all the time, the problem is that most of those ideas involve firing people. If the deal is: "we will fire 20% of staff, but those who remain will get 5% raise" no union will agree to it.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Taking the position of being the costly solution is never a winning pitch.
        satvikpendem 4y ago
        That is how you get rooted bureaucracies though. I'd rather be able to fire or get fired than sit through layers of bureaucracy simply because it's too difficult to fire people. I would know, I've been on both sides of the table.
    - tchaffee 4y ago
      > Consider how businesses negotiate With a highly trained management team and an HR department that is the friendly face to a highly trained legal department. You're either naive or full of hubris to think you're actually ending up with a win-win situation. Try getting the wording of a contract changed for example. Try proposing using your contract instead of theirs. Any contract you sign is in the company's favor to the full extent allowed by local law. The only thing that has ever changed that is labor negotiating as a team and with their own highly trained legal team. The reason you think things are win-win is because you've never had to go to court up against the contracts you've signed. > They offer nothing in return. They offer their labor in return. That's extremely valuable.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        > Try getting the wording of a contract changed I've gotten the wording of employment contracts changed. BTW, you're far more likely to get what you want by being nice than by threats. > you've never had to go to court up against the contracts you've signed Yeah, I have. And I won.
        tchaffee 4y ago
        You're far more likely to get what you want by having a well written contract. You may have gotten contract wording changed with a small company, but the Amazons of the world will not do that. And these are exactly the companies where labor needs unions so they can collectively bargain against a powerful and organized management and legal team. You simply don't have the resources as an individual. Being polite is always a good strategy but being nice would mean working for free. That would be very nice. Is that your approach? It's also not nice to take your employer to court. What happened to your be nice strategy there? Why did you threaten with legal action? It sounds like you can't even follow your own advice.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Being polite and nice certainly does not require capitulation. You can be nice, polite, and quite firm in what you want. Ceding things you don't care about helps, too. For example, Starbucks benefits include free college tuition. I'm never going back to college, so I'd be willing to trade that benefit for mo' money. I'm told time and again that lil' ol' me cannot negotiate. Yet I do it with department stores, doctors, dentists, car dealers, all sorts of "non-negotiable" contracts. Try it some time. I helped a friend recently negotiate a new car. The dealer started with a non-negotiable price. He settled for about 10% less. It was all very nice and polite and friendly, with lots of joking back and forth. We just made it clear the price had to come down or no deal.
    - atoav 4y ago
      When a company tells a employer to ignore $SAFETY_CODE or to pretend $NORMAL_HUMAN_NEED does not exist, they do NOT negoitate. They tend to go all "my way or the highway" on these things. The making-demands-phase typically happens after employees and unions argued for a certain thing for years without any changes. You don't need to demand something if you just asked for it and they said "Yes, but it would be best for the company to do it that way" and you go like "alright, fair enough". If the thing you want is that agreeable, you'd be silly to put in the energy to protest. Companies are not the victims here, for that you just have to compare the groth of profits to the groth of median salary over the past years. Unions form when companies take too much. And yeah, unions can be a thorn in a companies flesh after they get active. There is one simple trick to avoid unions: treat your employees in a way they don't need an union to defend their interest.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/benefits-and-perks/ https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/benef...
- thuridas 4y ago
  It doesn't need to be like this. There can be collaboration to find the best solution for all parties. They can become a communication channel for problems including security issues. And here is Amazon the one that is treating their employees both bad and as adversaries
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I don't know any specifics about that case. But in Seattle, the Starbucks employees went on strike to form a union, and they went into the street with signs saying how bad Starbucks was, and how they could afford to pay them more, lots of shouting and hate. Who wants to partner with people who do that?
    - fullsend 4y ago
      It’s just as easy to tell a story about how the employees tried to be decent, were ignored or silenced, and had to speak out more aggressively. Your view is clearly biased and it’s a take as old as time - if that darn Dr. King didn’t block the streets, he’d get better results. Just calm down and have a chat, says the already wealthy and happy worker.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        My story was as reported in the Seattle Times, which is consistently pro-union. Besides, even the wealthy like to make money. The employees show them how to make more, they'll listen. If the employer won't listen, the usual thing to do is quit, start their own business, and outcompete them. There are lots of small business coffeeshops. They aren't terribly hard to get going.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        fullsend 4y ago
        Talk about cherry picking. The first article I see is a plain report.
- danielheath 4y ago
  That's a common talking point, and I have no doubt it matches what you've seen, but as a counterpoint to "always" - I've only seen unions deal with management twice, and both times it was productive and mutually respectful. Negotiations like "The industry has moved and we are going to be out of business if we don't cut costs" lead to unions asking for concessions like voluntary redundancies (before involuntary ones to make up the difference) and on-site cross-training. In return, the employers got buy-in from staff, which meant smoother knowledge transfer from departing employees.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Thank you, that is a good example of the right way to do things. Normally what I see, and what is abundantly clear in this thread, is unions are going for win-lose deals.
    - danielheath 4y ago
      So, the other thing to bear in mind is that in a jurisdiction like the USA a union can’t meaningfully exist without a threat, because there needs to be something they can offer before a negotiation makes sense. Where I live, the government sets quite a few conditions on employment, but many of them can be bargained away by a union, meaning there’s meaningful incentive to negotiating with one.
- atoav 4y ago
  Employers tend to view their employees at adversaries first. Nobody wastes time with an union if their employer aims to treat them in a way that both sides win. You unionize, when your employer fucks you over once too much. Employers typically do all of that to extract more value than is rightfully theirs from their employers or to make their own lives easier at the expense of their employers (e.g. by ignoring safety regulations). So unions naturally form when employers go to far. A clever employer who is after an actual win-win situation might anticipate this and skip the entire thing by providing actual countermeasures against the tendency to fuck over ones employess themselves.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > Employers tend to view their employees at adversaries first. Then take the high road first. > e.g. by ignoring safety regulations If employers do that, then the employees need to report them to the regulators. Don't need a union for that.
    - atoav 4y ago
      > If employers do that, then the employees need to report them to the regulators. Don't need a union for that. Good luck on thst. The regulator is in the same country club as your boss. On top of that most of the worker rights and safety rules that regulator is meant to check came to be because unions fought for them. Read on the history of these rights and regulations in the dawn of worker movements. This is not some new unknown topic, but something people have fought for over centuries. The incentives of the regulators and governing bodies will rarely align with workers rights, hence the need for those people to organize for their own good. Don't get me wrong here I do not suggest that employers are always evil and unions always good, this is not what history shows. Far from it. Yet historically whenever workers lives improved, there is a big chance unions were involved as a driving force. I'd love to see a world where companies would treat their employees in such a way, unions don't need to exist. But that is not how companies operate in most cases.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
- newswasboring 4y ago
  A win win relationship can only occur when both parties start from the same position. When one party is starting from not even having basics in their favor (pay, working hours etc.) the other side has to give a lot more. You cannot start with all the bananas and then declare all new bananas will be split evenly as a win win.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > A win win relationship can only occur when both parties start from the same position. I'm so sad hearing people believe this. Your power is the value you provide. That is worth money. Negotiating is a matter of convincing the other party that you will provide more value.
    - newswasboring 4y ago
      I am going to be incredibly rude now. This comment is so out of touch with reality I wonder if I'm falling for a troll. I am probably in the same boat as you. I've negotiated my contract with biggest monopolies in my industry. That was done despite the existence of a thankfully good union. Unions only negotiated for basic stuff, pay, hours, healthcare etc. Perks were negotiated by me. But if you think for a second we are in the same boat as a Starbucks barista or Amazon warehouse worker, I'm sorry but you need to sit down with some of these people and hear their stories. If money is your language, then think of it like this, it takes close to hundred thousand euros to replace me while it takes orders or magnitude less to replace labor in a warehouse. Or maybe think about how if a store closes down it doesn't put that much of a dent in Starbucks' 7billion dollar bottom line, but workers can lose homes and sometimes healthcare. In what universe is this an equal position to start from? They are arguing over most basic things like pee breaks man, do you really think management is arguing in good faith if this is a talking point? I know I'm not going to change your mind on an internet forum, but you probably have this issue (also just like me) where it's hard to imagine other people's life situations. That's why I talk with people before judging their movement. Posting a marketing link to show what Starbucks advertises as perks (doesn't even address the low pay) is at best a bad argument and at worst deliberately insulting to a lot of people.

WalterBright 4y ago

Unions always treat their employers as adversaries. This does not make for a win-win relationship.

LightHugger 4y ago
Employers often treat their employees as adversaries. Thus the need for unions in those situations... You appear to be placing blame for the situation on the party with less power in the situation, the employee, rather than the one with more power, the employer. this is a bit silly!
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Consider the union negotiating tactics. They don't negotiate, they demand. They carry signs and verbally attack the company. They threaten. They offer nothing in return. It's entirely framed as win-lose by the union. How do they expect the company to want to deal with them? Consider how businesses negotiate. Each side offers something in return for better terms. They come to a mutually agreeable win-win solution. That's what I do when I've negotiated with employers. I frame it as a friendly win-win negotiation, and both parties go away pleased with the result.
  - LightHugger 4y ago
    Uh, have you just not noticed employer tactics? They don't care about it being win-win. You clearly have extreme anti-union bias to the point you havent noticed how incredibly employee hostile the companies that unions form around are, to an absurd extent. It's gone so far that the magnitude of a win for the employer is so much higher than for the employee that the goal posts have shifted to absurdity. You're still putting the onus for improving the situation on the party with far, far less power. Which makes no sense.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      When I see a union offering win-win solutions, I will change my mind. I am not anti-union. I am anti the tactics they use. Unions are part of the free market. A union is a business that sells labor.
      - atoav 4y ago
        And companies are businesses that exploit labor to make profits. One creates value for many people, the other for few. The ethics on this one is not hard.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under socialism, it's the other way around.
        atoav 4y ago
        And if someone tells you these are the only options, thats how you know they are from the US.
        nickpp 4y ago
        Please feel free to suggest a 3rd option. I live in Europe and I don't know any.
        satvikpendem 4y ago
        > exploit labor to make profits If you believe in the LTV, which many don't. Many instead believe in the subjective (market) theory of value.
        8note 4y ago
        It's the case only if you believe there's a transitive property to value, which has some evidence to it. You tend not to see somebody sell a gold watch for less than the gold that's in it. Especially so if there's profit being made on the watch
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Here's an example. Union says "we have ideas that will cut costs 10%. In exchange, we want half of that in the form of higher wages." Business says, "where do I sign?"
    - LightHugger 4y ago
      Uh, your thought process is operating on the level of what you as an individual can do. But as a result, you are seeing none of the systemic problems. While your thinking is probably individually beneficial, like that of a salmon knowing to swim upstream, this salmon has no way of addressing the dam that's being built upriver. Regardless of whether the dam is built or not, it is still best to do what you can to swim upriver. But it's better for the dam not to be built and ruin your habitat. But you're annoyed at other salmon trying to stop it, because they took a break from swimming upriver.
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        Yoir post reads to me as a non sequitur. The parent mentioned a union making that deal, but you are talking about "what you as an individual can do" which doesn't seem to be what they're talking about, since they're explicitly talking about the union making a deal with the business.
    - 988747 4y ago
      Businesses have such cost-cutting ideas all the time, the problem is that most of those ideas involve firing people. If the deal is: "we will fire 20% of staff, but those who remain will get 5% raise" no union will agree to it.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Taking the position of being the costly solution is never a winning pitch.
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        That is how you get rooted bureaucracies though. I'd rather be able to fire or get fired than sit through layers of bureaucracy simply because it's too difficult to fire people. I would know, I've been on both sides of the table.
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    > Consider how businesses negotiate With a highly trained management team and an HR department that is the friendly face to a highly trained legal department. You're either naive or full of hubris to think you're actually ending up with a win-win situation. Try getting the wording of a contract changed for example. Try proposing using your contract instead of theirs. Any contract you sign is in the company's favor to the full extent allowed by local law. The only thing that has ever changed that is labor negotiating as a team and with their own highly trained legal team. The reason you think things are win-win is because you've never had to go to court up against the contracts you've signed. > They offer nothing in return. They offer their labor in return. That's extremely valuable.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > Try getting the wording of a contract changed I've gotten the wording of employment contracts changed. BTW, you're far more likely to get what you want by being nice than by threats. > you've never had to go to court up against the contracts you've signed Yeah, I have. And I won.
      - tchaffee 4y ago
        You're far more likely to get what you want by having a well written contract. You may have gotten contract wording changed with a small company, but the Amazons of the world will not do that. And these are exactly the companies where labor needs unions so they can collectively bargain against a powerful and organized management and legal team. You simply don't have the resources as an individual. Being polite is always a good strategy but being nice would mean working for free. That would be very nice. Is that your approach? It's also not nice to take your employer to court. What happened to your be nice strategy there? Why did you threaten with legal action? It sounds like you can't even follow your own advice.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Being polite and nice certainly does not require capitulation. You can be nice, polite, and quite firm in what you want. Ceding things you don't care about helps, too. For example, Starbucks benefits include free college tuition. I'm never going back to college, so I'd be willing to trade that benefit for mo' money. I'm told time and again that lil' ol' me cannot negotiate. Yet I do it with department stores, doctors, dentists, car dealers, all sorts of "non-negotiable" contracts. Try it some time. I helped a friend recently negotiate a new car. The dealer started with a non-negotiable price. He settled for about 10% less. It was all very nice and polite and friendly, with lots of joking back and forth. We just made it clear the price had to come down or no deal.
  - atoav 4y ago
    When a company tells a employer to ignore $SAFETY_CODE or to pretend $NORMAL_HUMAN_NEED does not exist, they do NOT negoitate. They tend to go all "my way or the highway" on these things. The making-demands-phase typically happens after employees and unions argued for a certain thing for years without any changes. You don't need to demand something if you just asked for it and they said "Yes, but it would be best for the company to do it that way" and you go like "alright, fair enough". If the thing you want is that agreeable, you'd be silly to put in the energy to protest. Companies are not the victims here, for that you just have to compare the groth of profits to the groth of median salary over the past years. Unions form when companies take too much. And yeah, unions can be a thorn in a companies flesh after they get active. There is one simple trick to avoid unions: treat your employees in a way they don't need an union to defend their interest.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/benefits-and-perks/ https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/benef...
thuridas 4y ago
It doesn't need to be like this. There can be collaboration to find the best solution for all parties. They can become a communication channel for problems including security issues. And here is Amazon the one that is treating their employees both bad and as adversaries
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I don't know any specifics about that case. But in Seattle, the Starbucks employees went on strike to form a union, and they went into the street with signs saying how bad Starbucks was, and how they could afford to pay them more, lots of shouting and hate. Who wants to partner with people who do that?
  - fullsend 4y ago
    It’s just as easy to tell a story about how the employees tried to be decent, were ignored or silenced, and had to speak out more aggressively. Your view is clearly biased and it’s a take as old as time - if that darn Dr. King didn’t block the streets, he’d get better results. Just calm down and have a chat, says the already wealthy and happy worker.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      My story was as reported in the Seattle Times, which is consistently pro-union. Besides, even the wealthy like to make money. The employees show them how to make more, they'll listen. If the employer won't listen, the usual thing to do is quit, start their own business, and outcompete them. There are lots of small business coffeeshops. They aren't terribly hard to get going.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - fullsend 4y ago
        Talk about cherry picking. The first article I see is a plain report.
danielheath 4y ago
That's a common talking point, and I have no doubt it matches what you've seen, but as a counterpoint to "always" - I've only seen unions deal with management twice, and both times it was productive and mutually respectful. Negotiations like "The industry has moved and we are going to be out of business if we don't cut costs" lead to unions asking for concessions like voluntary redundancies (before involuntary ones to make up the difference) and on-site cross-training. In return, the employers got buy-in from staff, which meant smoother knowledge transfer from departing employees.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Thank you, that is a good example of the right way to do things. Normally what I see, and what is abundantly clear in this thread, is unions are going for win-lose deals.
  - danielheath 4y ago
    So, the other thing to bear in mind is that in a jurisdiction like the USA a union can’t meaningfully exist without a threat, because there needs to be something they can offer before a negotiation makes sense. Where I live, the government sets quite a few conditions on employment, but many of them can be bargained away by a union, meaning there’s meaningful incentive to negotiating with one.
atoav 4y ago
Employers tend to view their employees at adversaries first. Nobody wastes time with an union if their employer aims to treat them in a way that both sides win. You unionize, when your employer fucks you over once too much. Employers typically do all of that to extract more value than is rightfully theirs from their employers or to make their own lives easier at the expense of their employers (e.g. by ignoring safety regulations). So unions naturally form when employers go to far. A clever employer who is after an actual win-win situation might anticipate this and skip the entire thing by providing actual countermeasures against the tendency to fuck over ones employess themselves.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Employers tend to view their employees at adversaries first. Then take the high road first. > e.g. by ignoring safety regulations If employers do that, then the employees need to report them to the regulators. Don't need a union for that.
  - atoav 4y ago
    > If employers do that, then the employees need to report them to the regulators. Don't need a union for that. Good luck on thst. The regulator is in the same country club as your boss. On top of that most of the worker rights and safety rules that regulator is meant to check came to be because unions fought for them. Read on the history of these rights and regulations in the dawn of worker movements. This is not some new unknown topic, but something people have fought for over centuries. The incentives of the regulators and governing bodies will rarely align with workers rights, hence the need for those people to organize for their own good. Don't get me wrong here I do not suggest that employers are always evil and unions always good, this is not what history shows. Far from it. Yet historically whenever workers lives improved, there is a big chance unions were involved as a driving force. I'd love to see a world where companies would treat their employees in such a way, unions don't need to exist. But that is not how companies operate in most cases.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
newswasboring 4y ago
A win win relationship can only occur when both parties start from the same position. When one party is starting from not even having basics in their favor (pay, working hours etc.) the other side has to give a lot more. You cannot start with all the bananas and then declare all new bananas will be split evenly as a win win.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > A win win relationship can only occur when both parties start from the same position. I'm so sad hearing people believe this. Your power is the value you provide. That is worth money. Negotiating is a matter of convincing the other party that you will provide more value.
  - newswasboring 4y ago
    I am going to be incredibly rude now. This comment is so out of touch with reality I wonder if I'm falling for a troll. I am probably in the same boat as you. I've negotiated my contract with biggest monopolies in my industry. That was done despite the existence of a thankfully good union. Unions only negotiated for basic stuff, pay, hours, healthcare etc. Perks were negotiated by me. But if you think for a second we are in the same boat as a Starbucks barista or Amazon warehouse worker, I'm sorry but you need to sit down with some of these people and hear their stories. If money is your language, then think of it like this, it takes close to hundred thousand euros to replace me while it takes orders or magnitude less to replace labor in a warehouse. Or maybe think about how if a store closes down it doesn't put that much of a dent in Starbucks' 7billion dollar bottom line, but workers can lose homes and sometimes healthcare. In what universe is this an equal position to start from? They are arguing over most basic things like pee breaks man, do you really think management is arguing in good faith if this is a talking point? I know I'm not going to change your mind on an internet forum, but you probably have this issue (also just like me) where it's hard to imagine other people's life situations. That's why I talk with people before judging their movement. Posting a marketing link to show what Starbucks advertises as perks (doesn't even address the low pay) is at best a bad argument and at worst deliberately insulting to a lot of people.