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> I know someone who saved companies from bankruptcy, usually heavy industries. When he get hired he install security cameras and other measures and after a few

> I know someone who saved companies from bankruptcy, usually heavy industries. When he get hired he install security cameras and other measures and after a few week usually find out that a lot of people are constantly stealing valuable materials from the company. It’s always people in the union with some friends that work on the floor. It always strikes me how unions in the US are subject to these kinds of casual stereotyping attacks that would be totally outside the pale anywhere else. Well, that can go both ways. Maybe your friend is an union-busting crook hired by those companies to push out union leaders via fake investigations! It could be that he got caught trying to have a chilling effect on unions via electronic surveillance (a practice that the NLRB is cracking down on [1]), and made up stories about stealing in an effort to justify his snooping. (I don't actually mean that last paragraph, it just demonstrates how you can make up these sorts of stories out of thin air in order to appeal to people's existing prejudices. If you want to have a reasonable conversation, a good starting point would be some statistics about union v/s non-union employee workplace theft.) [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-general-counsel-issues-memo-on-unlawful-electronic-surveillance-and https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-general-c...

mc32 4y ago
The structure of unions is such that it facilitates and encourages seniority as well as corruption including ties to the mob. It's no accident that unions are targets of corruption by the feds for various forms of malfeasance.
- quadrifoliate 4y ago
  The exact same things could be said about companies themselves. "The structure of companies is such that it facilitates and encourages seniority as well as corruption including ties to the mob. It's no accident that companies are targets of corruption by the feds [1] for various forms of malfeasance." You're basically saying that crime exists among groups of people where there is a power differential. I mean, sure? I still don't understand [2] why unions are so specifically a target of it as compared to, say, insider traders. You don't typically see people saying we should just not have an executive board because some have been caught insider trading -- that would be absurd! [1] https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime [2] I suspect though, that it has something to do with the typical judgements of "blue-collar" crime as being more heinous than "white-collar" crime.
  - mc32 4y ago
    Union crime _is_ white collar crime (they may represent blue collar workers but the reps are starched white collar workers --and aside from intimidation and other forms of violence). But why are Unions such magnets for corruption? For corporations you have various forms of oversight like SEC, SOX, and many others. In unions there is more of an unspoken code not to whistleblow because they are "you" and you don't wanna be a rat and target of violence so corruption goes less checked.
    - westpfelia 4y ago
      EXACTLY no one can name a single crime committed by a company. Its only the union orgs within them. Look at Enron. The only crime commited by Enron was in its ultra left wing accounting depts. Those poor C levels were nothing but heros!
      - mc32 4y ago
        Yeah, I don't know why the Saintly unions get tarred like that. Just because some engage in racketeering and have ties to organized crime, right? It's so weird!
        7sidedmarble 4y ago
        Even if someone were to believe you that unions are inherently prone to crime and corruption in a way unique to any other organization, here in the states they have a tiny fraction of the influence they had 100 years ago. You're talking about the unions ties to the mob like we're all living in 1930s Chicago or something.
- dymk 4y ago
  You mean CEOs?

mc32 4y ago

The structure of unions is such that it facilitates and encourages seniority as well as corruption including ties to the mob. It's no accident that unions are targets of corruption by the feds for various forms of malfeasance.

quadrifoliate 4y ago
The exact same things could be said about companies themselves. "The structure of companies is such that it facilitates and encourages seniority as well as corruption including ties to the mob. It's no accident that companies are targets of corruption by the feds [1] for various forms of malfeasance." You're basically saying that crime exists among groups of people where there is a power differential. I mean, sure? I still don't understand [2] why unions are so specifically a target of it as compared to, say, insider traders. You don't typically see people saying we should just not have an executive board because some have been caught insider trading -- that would be absurd! [1] https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime [2] I suspect though, that it has something to do with the typical judgements of "blue-collar" crime as being more heinous than "white-collar" crime.
- mc32 4y ago
  Union crime _is_ white collar crime (they may represent blue collar workers but the reps are starched white collar workers --and aside from intimidation and other forms of violence). But why are Unions such magnets for corruption? For corporations you have various forms of oversight like SEC, SOX, and many others. In unions there is more of an unspoken code not to whistleblow because they are "you" and you don't wanna be a rat and target of violence so corruption goes less checked.
  - westpfelia 4y ago
    EXACTLY no one can name a single crime committed by a company. Its only the union orgs within them. Look at Enron. The only crime commited by Enron was in its ultra left wing accounting depts. Those poor C levels were nothing but heros!
    - mc32 4y ago
      Yeah, I don't know why the Saintly unions get tarred like that. Just because some engage in racketeering and have ties to organized crime, right? It's so weird!
      - 7sidedmarble 4y ago
        Even if someone were to believe you that unions are inherently prone to crime and corruption in a way unique to any other organization, here in the states they have a tiny fraction of the influence they had 100 years ago. You're talking about the unions ties to the mob like we're all living in 1930s Chicago or something.
dymk 4y ago
You mean CEOs?