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There is no good reason at all for society to accept and institutionalize the sense of entitlement that unionizing workers have. You don't get any moral right t

There is no good reason at all for society to accept and institutionalize the sense of entitlement that unionizing workers have. You don't get any moral right to extra-contractual benefits just because you agree to an employment contract. Almost all of the problems society has emanate from the ideological narratives of victimhood (e.g. the superficially plausible but fundamentally fallacious notion that parties with different levels wealth cannot engage in fair negotiations in the absence of a regulatory straightjacket being placed on the wealthier party) created to rationalize this sense of entitlement. This institutionalized entitlement creates massive rent-seeking/inefficiency: https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-workers-earn-143000-twice-much-private-sector-workers https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-... In the private sector, it guts industries, and thus harms workers at large, for the short term benefit of a select group of workers, e.g. Detroit was the richest city in the US, with the highest per capita, in 1950. 70 years later, after it was taken over by the UAW Union, it's a shadow of its former self.

nitwit005 4y ago
A free market means people can always walk off the job. They can do it in an organized way, as that just requires talking to each other. It's just a matter of bargaining power in the end. The, so called, fair negotiations you speak of.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Agreed. Compensation should depend on bargaining power. The problem and challenge is when striking workers actually dont have it. What if Temple is 100% OK with irreconcilable differences with the striking workers.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  The problem is not people walking away en masse from a job. The problem is laws that suppress the free market to favor unionization, like prohibiting employers from offering yellow dog contracts.
munk-a 4y ago
Along the same line of argument - why do employers feel entitled to continuously cut the effective wages of employees? The real wage in America has been on a steady decline while worker productivity has been increasing. Why do these employers get to play the victimhood card when denying employees fair benefits and wages? One of the benefits the unions is asking for is an extension of parental leave (maternity leave but for both parents). Grad students are currently allotted five days - a week after giving birth they're expected to be enthusiastically back at worth. I loathe this entitlement/victimhood argument because it's absolutely baseless - nobody is entitled to anything at all - no higher being came down and said "And thine workers shalt have two weeks of vacation gaining an additional week every five years" - things like those are benefits that are fought for and strikes are one of the ways we fight.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  >> why do employers feel entitled to continuously cut the effective wages of employees? They are entitled to offer anything they want, as it's their own money they are offering. See this is the sense of entitlement I'm referring to, which is implicit in your question. I spent years spreading the "gap between productivity and wages" graph on the internet. I later learned that this supposed gap was a distortion of reality, created by bad statistics: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stag... The reality is wage growth slowing since the 1970s due to slowing productivity growth. Where productivity growth is rapid, wage growth is rapid: https://www.statista.com/statistics/743509/china-average-yearly-wages-in-manufacturing/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/743509/china-average-yea...
fzeroracer 4y ago
It's funny that you complain about the 'ideological narratives of victimhood' while directly crafting a narrative where poor companies are victims to the vicious labor force. That said, you seem unfamiliar with the history of unionization and why these laws came into place. I recommend looking up what the Pinkertons did in order to stop companies being 'victimized' by workers.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  They are victims of laws that suppress their contract freedom. I am equally offended when such laws target workers, e.g. occupational licensing. I have read up on the history of unionization. The Pinkertons were brought in to stop unions from murdering replacement workers.

nitwit005 4y ago

A free market means people can always walk off the job. They can do it in an organized way, as that just requires talking to each other. It's just a matter of bargaining power in the end. The, so called, fair negotiations you speak of.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Agreed. Compensation should depend on bargaining power. The problem and challenge is when striking workers actually dont have it. What if Temple is 100% OK with irreconcilable differences with the striking workers.
ETH_start 4y ago
The problem is not people walking away en masse from a job. The problem is laws that suppress the free market to favor unionization, like prohibiting employers from offering yellow dog contracts.

munk-a 4y ago

Along the same line of argument - why do employers feel entitled to continuously cut the effective wages of employees? The real wage in America has been on a steady decline while worker productivity has been increasing. Why do these employers get to play the victimhood card when denying employees fair benefits and wages? One of the benefits the unions is asking for is an extension of parental leave (maternity leave but for both parents). Grad students are currently allotted five days - a week after giving birth they're expected to be enthusiastically back at worth. I loathe this entitlement/victimhood argument because it's absolutely baseless - nobody is entitled to anything at all - no higher being came down and said "And thine workers shalt have two weeks of vacation gaining an additional week every five years" - things like those are benefits that are fought for and strikes are one of the ways we fight.

ETH_start 4y ago
>> why do employers feel entitled to continuously cut the effective wages of employees? They are entitled to offer anything they want, as it's their own money they are offering. See this is the sense of entitlement I'm referring to, which is implicit in your question. I spent years spreading the "gap between productivity and wages" graph on the internet. I later learned that this supposed gap was a distortion of reality, created by bad statistics: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stag... The reality is wage growth slowing since the 1970s due to slowing productivity growth. Where productivity growth is rapid, wage growth is rapid: https://www.statista.com/statistics/743509/china-average-yearly-wages-in-manufacturing/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/743509/china-average-yea...

fzeroracer 4y ago

It's funny that you complain about the 'ideological narratives of victimhood' while directly crafting a narrative where poor companies are victims to the vicious labor force. That said, you seem unfamiliar with the history of unionization and why these laws came into place. I recommend looking up what the Pinkertons did in order to stop companies being 'victimized' by workers.

ETH_start 4y ago
They are victims of laws that suppress their contract freedom. I am equally offended when such laws target workers, e.g. occupational licensing. I have read up on the history of unionization. The Pinkertons were brought in to stop unions from murdering replacement workers.