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Yeah, like what the achieved in public schools, or police forces and blue wall, or American auto industry... not quite a union but AMA has also achieved a lot f

by sershe 4y ago

Yeah, like what the achieved in public schools, or police forces and blue wall, or American auto industry... not quite a union but AMA has also achieved a lot for US doctor pay vs the rest of the world. American West Coast port efficiency is also the laughing stock of the world, thanks in no small part to unions. And feather bedded and/or mafia-run infrastructure costs in places like New York.. oh yeah, I'm forgetting the glorious history of unions! That's where it really is, like explicitly racist exclusion during the Great Migration, or volunteer patrols Cesar Chavez used to run to intimidate undocumented immigrants with violence and bribe officials to look the other way. I personally think, with the exception of those explicitly dedicated to violence or war, American-style unions are the most evil organizations on the planet. If someone paid me to invent a social structure with worse all-around incentives, I probably couldn't do it.

atoav 4y ago
I am not an American and I profit from unions over here even if I am not a member of them. If your unions turn out to be evil, then organize them differently. What will however not work is hoping that governments and industries will protect the rights of employees and workers without them somehow organizing.
- sershe 4y ago
  This is a rather vague statement... Protecting the rights sounds noble but I'd look at the whole package. Workers are doing very well in industries like tech with ~0 unions. American auto workers are doing worse than they used to because they made their industry long-term uncompetitive for a short-run benefits. Police and teacher unions are great for their members (protecting the incompetents, make-work); so are guilds like AMA (artificially limiting the supply of doctors, including qualified immigrants) but terrible for society. The general pattern is that unions are parasites, so they can only go 2 ways - they can make the host weaker or kill it off; or if the host itself has captive audience (e.g. taxpayers) they just make it worse for everyone on average, while transfering some of the remaining reduced pie to their members. Note how much teacher unions hate private and charter schools - they really don't want people to be able to escape the system, it would interfere with milking the taxpayers with nothing to show for it.

by sershe 4y ago

atoav 4y ago

I am not an American and I profit from unions over here even if I am not a member of them. If your unions turn out to be evil, then organize them differently. What will however not work is hoping that governments and industries will protect the rights of employees and workers without them somehow organizing.

sershe 4y ago
This is a rather vague statement... Protecting the rights sounds noble but I'd look at the whole package. Workers are doing very well in industries like tech with ~0 unions. American auto workers are doing worse than they used to because they made their industry long-term uncompetitive for a short-run benefits. Police and teacher unions are great for their members (protecting the incompetents, make-work); so are guilds like AMA (artificially limiting the supply of doctors, including qualified immigrants) but terrible for society. The general pattern is that unions are parasites, so they can only go 2 ways - they can make the host weaker or kill it off; or if the host itself has captive audience (e.g. taxpayers) they just make it worse for everyone on average, while transfering some of the remaining reduced pie to their members. Note how much teacher unions hate private and charter schools - they really don't want people to be able to escape the system, it would interfere with milking the taxpayers with nothing to show for it.