5 ms·

Unionization is amazing. I do not know why especially people in US are so against this. Did they just gave up and are okay with the big corps fucking them over

by fHr 4y ago

Unionization is amazing. I do not know why especially people in US are so against this. Did they just gave up and are okay with the big corps fucking them over withouth having any leverage?

mistrial9 4y ago
more than a hundred years ago, the USA was not a large world power.. more than half the country was frontier and a lot of raw agriculture that is dependent on labor. When the 'red' social flames burned through Europe at the end of the Great Monarchies, political people here in the USA were seriously worried. So an ugly deal was forged.. the hardcore lefts were jailed and harassed and beaten.. and insider right wing groups that knew how to play for the long term were elevated to power. This is not popular to say, but the history is there for the reading, about ethnic gangsters running unions across the USA. It never was completely cleared up and persisted well into the 1970s and perhaps later.. The public relations campaign by Big Media was very effective at smearing the name of Unions to the public, and the Unions made some dumb moves, too. High tech and Hollywood generated huge money, and Wall Street style money was always anti-Union. It is worth saying that Hollywood movie production is very heavily unionized, and that small system works pretty well.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Another interpretation is that the New Deal institutionalized labor. Labor got a seat at the table in exchange for removing radical elements.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    new movie out -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irishman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irishman
dfxm12 4y ago
I do not know why especially people in US are so against this. I think there's some truth to the old adage that there's a class of Americans, especially represented among the HN crowd that "see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." There are many reasons for the decline of organized labor in the US. Some cultural yeah, but just as much, if not more, legal... "Right to work" legislation Employers fighting harder against unionization Decreased enforcement of labor laws Judges (including SCOTUS) who keep striking down labor protections Media portrayal of unions
- bawolff 4y ago
  Tech industry generally has a shortage of skilled labour. That gives labour a lot of power, which makes unions seem less important. At least when times are good.
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
Living in America is expensive, wages are relatively low, and long labor fights result in financial devastation that might take years to recover from despite some of the gains being virtually negligible in terms of real impact on the wallets of employees. There are many people, especially of boomer age, who are still haunted by long-term strikes. Strikes have more of an effect when they're against smaller companies. Huge conglomerates like Shell and Exxon don't care. They can afford to wait them out.
- mattmcknight 4y ago
  > wages are relatively low source?
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    If wages matched the increase in housing prices alone, then where I live $260K house in 2019 would cost $295K today, not $387K. Wages also do not reflect the necessary change in borrowing habits for many people. Prices have gotten so high that people are being forced to borrow money that they wouldn't have needed to in the past, usually at insanely usurious rates. People are being bled dry by unsustainably high interest rates and housing costs due to the insatiable appetites of big business.
    - mattmcknight 4y ago
      >> wages are relatively low >source? >> If wages matched the increase in housing prices alone Ah. I thought you meant wages were low relative to other countries, when they are actually among the highest. This is sort of the nature of inflation though, prices increasing faster than wages- but there is a feedback loop, as increasing wages increases prices. > People are being bled dry by unsustainably high interest rates Asset price inflation is probably more driven by low interest rates. Higher rates should bring down asset prices, ceteris paribus.
pyuser583 4y ago
My mom was a nurse. She helped unionize her profession back in the 1960s. By the time she retired in 21st century, she hated her union. She particularly hated their support for Obamacare. They had an exception so it didn’t affect their agreements. But that ignored the fact that the nurses had to actually implement it. It was an administrative clusterf*ck. Nurses spent hours listening to consultants telling them how to improve patient reviews, which were now tied to compensation. The unions were like “the Democrats now owe us, so we will get paid back down the road.” She literally quit over that.
anonuser123456 4y ago
Maybe you should stop thinking that the working class is stupid and start thinking about why they rejected unions. My working class family members (all in the same trade) universally hate unions and their reasons are quite reasonable; my grandfather was in union leadership until he was run out by the mob and my cousin had to pay tribute (e.g a protection racket) to the new leadership.
- smugma 4y ago
  My brother in law is a Pepsi truck driver (has been for almost 25 years). He’s always bragged that he gets paid the same pay and benefits as those in a union, but doesn’t have to deal with dues “etc.”. Recently he had to go on medical leave. When he was ready to go back to work he had to take a physical. He had to go a week without pay until the results of the physical came back. It is total bullshit but he didn’t have a Union to back him and not worth it to sue. Update: He’s only had a few of these issues in his career, so maybe the union dues he would have paid outweighed the cost of getting stiffed. Adding this because my point wasn’t that unions are awesome, but they can have value… the question is at what cost.
chinchilla2020 4y ago
The union can be good or bad. I'm a former IBEW member. The reality is that you are adding a lot of extra 'management' on top of the existing company management when you bring in a union. At the end of the day, a union is a business and it is a profit-seeking business. Employees have to raise a massive fuss and get momentum from members in the union to receive any sort of defense from the union for their grievances. The rotation aspect is also annoying. If you enjoy a particular job, you are forced to rotate out so that other members can have a chance. The juiciest roles always seem to go to the senior members. If you an apprentice, you just have to take what you get, and endure whatever hazing, teasing, and abuse you receive (tech workers jaws would hit the floor if they witnessed what I lived through). At the end of the day you have to remember that there is one pie. Everyone wants a piece of the pie... management, employees, and union. Adding more overhead and more bosses is not always an effective way of getting more pie to the employees.
smegger001 4y ago
Because many American labor unions became infiltrated by the mafia giving them a bad rep.

by fHr 4y ago

Unionization is amazing. I do not know why especially people in US are so against this. Did they just gave up and are okay with the big corps fucking them over withouth having any leverage?

mistrial9 4y ago

more than a hundred years ago, the USA was not a large world power.. more than half the country was frontier and a lot of raw agriculture that is dependent on labor. When the 'red' social flames burned through Europe at the end of the Great Monarchies, political people here in the USA were seriously worried. So an ugly deal was forged.. the hardcore lefts were jailed and harassed and beaten.. and insider right wing groups that knew how to play for the long term were elevated to power. This is not popular to say, but the history is there for the reading, about ethnic gangsters running unions across the USA. It never was completely cleared up and persisted well into the 1970s and perhaps later.. The public relations campaign by Big Media was very effective at smearing the name of Unions to the public, and the Unions made some dumb moves, too. High tech and Hollywood generated huge money, and Wall Street style money was always anti-Union. It is worth saying that Hollywood movie production is very heavily unionized, and that small system works pretty well.

pyuser583 4y ago
Another interpretation is that the New Deal institutionalized labor. Labor got a seat at the table in exchange for removing radical elements.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  new movie out -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irishman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irishman

dfxm12 4y ago

I do not know why especially people in US are so against this. I think there's some truth to the old adage that there's a class of Americans, especially represented among the HN crowd that "see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." There are many reasons for the decline of organized labor in the US. Some cultural yeah, but just as much, if not more, legal... "Right to work" legislation Employers fighting harder against unionization Decreased enforcement of labor laws Judges (including SCOTUS) who keep striking down labor protections Media portrayal of unions

bawolff 4y ago
Tech industry generally has a shortage of skilled labour. That gives labour a lot of power, which makes unions seem less important. At least when times are good.

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

Living in America is expensive, wages are relatively low, and long labor fights result in financial devastation that might take years to recover from despite some of the gains being virtually negligible in terms of real impact on the wallets of employees. There are many people, especially of boomer age, who are still haunted by long-term strikes. Strikes have more of an effect when they're against smaller companies. Huge conglomerates like Shell and Exxon don't care. They can afford to wait them out.

mattmcknight 4y ago
> wages are relatively low source?
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  If wages matched the increase in housing prices alone, then where I live $260K house in 2019 would cost $295K today, not $387K. Wages also do not reflect the necessary change in borrowing habits for many people. Prices have gotten so high that people are being forced to borrow money that they wouldn't have needed to in the past, usually at insanely usurious rates. People are being bled dry by unsustainably high interest rates and housing costs due to the insatiable appetites of big business.
  - mattmcknight 4y ago
    >> wages are relatively low >source? >> If wages matched the increase in housing prices alone Ah. I thought you meant wages were low relative to other countries, when they are actually among the highest. This is sort of the nature of inflation though, prices increasing faster than wages- but there is a feedback loop, as increasing wages increases prices. > People are being bled dry by unsustainably high interest rates Asset price inflation is probably more driven by low interest rates. Higher rates should bring down asset prices, ceteris paribus.

pyuser583 4y ago

My mom was a nurse. She helped unionize her profession back in the 1960s. By the time she retired in 21st century, she hated her union. She particularly hated their support for Obamacare. They had an exception so it didn’t affect their agreements. But that ignored the fact that the nurses had to actually implement it. It was an administrative clusterf*ck. Nurses spent hours listening to consultants telling them how to improve patient reviews, which were now tied to compensation. The unions were like “the Democrats now owe us, so we will get paid back down the road.” She literally quit over that.

anonuser123456 4y ago

Maybe you should stop thinking that the working class is stupid and start thinking about why they rejected unions. My working class family members (all in the same trade) universally hate unions and their reasons are quite reasonable; my grandfather was in union leadership until he was run out by the mob and my cousin had to pay tribute (e.g a protection racket) to the new leadership.

smugma 4y ago
My brother in law is a Pepsi truck driver (has been for almost 25 years). He’s always bragged that he gets paid the same pay and benefits as those in a union, but doesn’t have to deal with dues “etc.”. Recently he had to go on medical leave. When he was ready to go back to work he had to take a physical. He had to go a week without pay until the results of the physical came back. It is total bullshit but he didn’t have a Union to back him and not worth it to sue. Update: He’s only had a few of these issues in his career, so maybe the union dues he would have paid outweighed the cost of getting stiffed. Adding this because my point wasn’t that unions are awesome, but they can have value… the question is at what cost.

chinchilla2020 4y ago

The union can be good or bad. I'm a former IBEW member. The reality is that you are adding a lot of extra 'management' on top of the existing company management when you bring in a union. At the end of the day, a union is a business and it is a profit-seeking business. Employees have to raise a massive fuss and get momentum from members in the union to receive any sort of defense from the union for their grievances. The rotation aspect is also annoying. If you enjoy a particular job, you are forced to rotate out so that other members can have a chance. The juiciest roles always seem to go to the senior members. If you an apprentice, you just have to take what you get, and endure whatever hazing, teasing, and abuse you receive (tech workers jaws would hit the floor if they witnessed what I lived through). At the end of the day you have to remember that there is one pie. Everyone wants a piece of the pie... management, employees, and union. Adding more overhead and more bosses is not always an effective way of getting more pie to the employees.

smegger001 4y ago

Because many American labor unions became infiltrated by the mafia giving them a bad rep.