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> I know one union that was perfectly happy letting government workers make sox figures while "working" from home, while they produced objectively zero work ove

> I know one union that was perfectly happy letting government workers make sox figures while "working" from home, while they produced objectively zero work over a period of months. "Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles" is fraud. If you do not like unions because ONE did something that you do not like , how much do you hate companies were you have thousands of examples of bad behavior? > As much as I dislike Thune power corporations can hold, unions are not a fix all and can become the same overlords. I do not know what concept do you have about unions, but it seems come from anti-union propaganda and not from any reasonable definition of what a union is. Unions gave us the eight hour work week, vacations and many more rights. That is not "overlord" behavior but being able to negotiate with powerful corporations.

wobbly_bush 4y ago
>If you do not like unions because ONE did something that you do not like Not the person you are replying to, but I think discounting the behavior of unions as one-off is not helping. The examples I have are from outside US though - there are entire states where union presence is strong. Those states had a good industrial sector but over several decades the unions made it so problematic for the industries there that majority of businesses moved to states where there were no unions. Public calls for "strikes" and other work-stopping behavior and violence is common occurence in those states. So the risk of a union becoming mafia-like is more than just propaganda - it has plenty of examples worldwide in several countries.
JamesBarney 4y ago
On hackernews most of the complaints I see about unions are people who've had direct experience with unions. My experience with unions was they were shady, jobs were given out based on nepotism, work was given out solely based on seniority and most work you did for them involved kickbacks.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  We must read different HNs. Most of the what I see is anti-union FUD from people raised on horror stories about unions but without any actual contact with them except for possibly being inconvenienced by someone else's strike.
- quantified 4y ago
  I have direct experience with both types of unions and it's super frustrating. SF labor unions whose members threaten you with violence over who can move your own property to your car: screw them. Harvard University union trying to get basic benefits for staff of which my wife was one: love them. Every system is only as good as the people in them.
bmitc 4y ago
I described something that literally took place, and the behavior was performed by a union, not me. This isn't propaganda. It is a description of something that happened involving a union. If I am anti anything, it is anti-"institutions that have mismatched incentives and conflicts of interest", and so that involves both corporations and unions, but not all of them. Note that my original comment said very clearly that "unions are not a fix all and can become the same overlords". Your comment that I replied to seemed to imply that unions are a silver bullet that fixes anything wrong with corporation and worker relations, and that is what I was replying to that that is not always the case. There are plenty examples of this.

wobbly_bush 4y ago

>If you do not like unions because ONE did something that you do not like Not the person you are replying to, but I think discounting the behavior of unions as one-off is not helping. The examples I have are from outside US though - there are entire states where union presence is strong. Those states had a good industrial sector but over several decades the unions made it so problematic for the industries there that majority of businesses moved to states where there were no unions. Public calls for "strikes" and other work-stopping behavior and violence is common occurence in those states. So the risk of a union becoming mafia-like is more than just propaganda - it has plenty of examples worldwide in several countries.

JamesBarney 4y ago

On hackernews most of the complaints I see about unions are people who've had direct experience with unions. My experience with unions was they were shady, jobs were given out based on nepotism, work was given out solely based on seniority and most work you did for them involved kickbacks.

drewcoo 4y ago
We must read different HNs. Most of the what I see is anti-union FUD from people raised on horror stories about unions but without any actual contact with them except for possibly being inconvenienced by someone else's strike.
quantified 4y ago
I have direct experience with both types of unions and it's super frustrating. SF labor unions whose members threaten you with violence over who can move your own property to your car: screw them. Harvard University union trying to get basic benefits for staff of which my wife was one: love them. Every system is only as good as the people in them.

bmitc 4y ago

I described something that literally took place, and the behavior was performed by a union, not me. This isn't propaganda. It is a description of something that happened involving a union. If I am anti anything, it is anti-"institutions that have mismatched incentives and conflicts of interest", and so that involves both corporations and unions, but not all of them. Note that my original comment said very clearly that "unions are not a fix all and can become the same overlords". Your comment that I replied to seemed to imply that unions are a silver bullet that fixes anything wrong with corporation and worker relations, and that is what I was replying to that that is not always the case. There are plenty examples of this.