5 ms·

Indeed. Companies hate unions because they increase labor costs and benefits. Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their worker

by ethbr0 3y ago

Indeed. Companies hate unions because they increase labor costs and benefits. Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest? Unions have their faults (e.g. bureaucracy), but corporations aren't fighting them for their employees' benefit.

93po 3y ago
> Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest? Yes, usually at least half the workforce. But but but the monthly dues!!!
- treeman79 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - imachine1980_ 3y ago
    Car companies left cities not Detroit, the cost of labor was high but also thw cost of the space
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - birdyrooster 3y ago
    This completely ignores globalization and the fact it was geopolitics that took the jobs away.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      The unions were instrumental in getting the people pushing globalism elected.
      - birdyrooster 3y ago
        Hardly. Labor Unions were against immigration and globalization and demanded tariffs to protect US industries. Chavez was prolific in his anti-immigration arguments. It was the capital holders who pushed globalization, outsourcing and mass immigration.
      - bugglebeetle 3y ago
        The two flavors of US political parties were both right wing, neoliberal globalists. Clinton allying with Republicans to pass NAFTA is clear evidence of this. Only recently have they also both postured away from this stance, largely in response to the new Cold War with China.
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > The two flavors of US political parties were both right wing, neoliberal globalists. There were significant (but not always dominant) factions of that type in each party during the period of ideologically incoherent parties in the period of the long post-Depression realignment, and overlapping the very end of that period there was the brief neoliberal consensus period from the late 1980s into the 1990s.
  - rqtwteye 3y ago
    Gotta love how people blame lack of a company's success on those bad workers. How about actually doing the unimaginable and build decent cars? Almost every time I get a rental from a US car company I am reminded that they don't seem to care about building good cars. They just throw a bunch of options together and make the car bigger. Nobody seems to actually try the car and see if it drives well.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      Separate issues. Yes American car designs sucked, but they were moving production to Mexico either way. It's not like they closed all the detorit plants because they didn't have any money, they just wanted to make more.
    - linksnapzz 3y ago
      It takes two to tango. The problem with industrial unions in the US is not so much the salary and benefits paid to one, or even to a set, of individual workers. It's the demands by the union to maximize union membership (and dues) that make it impossible to take advantage of improving efficiency (which could lead to fewer employees). The story I've heard...was that steelmaking in the US went into decline after WWII, because US mills weren't destroyed in the war. USX, Bethlehem et al. kept making steel using inefficient prewar methods, with equivalent staffing costs. Foreign (ex-Axis) steelmakers invested in brand-new, more efficient methods to replace what had been bombed, and these new mills gave them a cost advantage. So why didn't the US mills upgrade? Because their contracts with the union more or less made sure that no matter how many fewer staff it would take to run, the number of United Ironworkers members on the payroll would never decrease. It wasn't worth the capital cost to upgrade in the '50s-'6s, and by the '80s, when it would've been, it was too late. There was a possibility, if the unions were a bit more farsighted, to accept a gradual drawdown in staffing, and consolidation of job definitions by attrition, with no real loss of individual wages or benefits. But that never happened. A similar dynamic occurred in the auto industry...labor (and the UAW is a bad, bad, bad, union for this) was very short-sighted, and Detroit purchased peace with them at a very high cost in terms of productivity per worker; partly because they had the money to, partly because it was seen as a necessary evil, and partly because the idea of being more efficient in operations was seen as intractable-they didn't listen to Deming when he first started to talk about it.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    [flagged]
jvmfjvfjvf 3y ago
Well, Walmart non union workers still have their jobs while the ones that did unionize all lost theirs.
- myspy 3y ago
  Well, if the States allow such practices it's super sad. Nobody gets fired when joining a union in Germany.
  - colpabar 3y ago
    Railroad workers can face _prison_ here if they strike and the government doesn't want them to. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-r... > WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy. And of course, it's all for our own good!
- jug 3y ago
  What a shitshow. In Socialist Sweden this would be illegal grounds.
  - boeingUH60 3y ago
    In capitalist Sweden with stronger labor laws.
  - ixwt 3y ago
    It's also illegal in the US as well. Just less protections, and thus harder to prove.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Non-union workers get to keep their jobs with pay so low many need food stamps to survive. I think everyone loses, even the shareholders as the market for Walmart wares shrinks.
- 3y ago
randomdata 3y ago
> Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest? Sure. What do the C-suite employees stand to gain from it other than a whole new set of headaches when they have to deal with the union?
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Ideally more consistent and reliable workers, since they should be less likely to need multiple jobs to cover healthcare and rent.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    "No one wants to work anymore" - [Insert most hated C exec here who has never gone hungry or had to worry about rent]
xhkkffbf 3y ago
> corporations aren't fighting them for their employees' benefit. But they are. The long-term profitability of the company is essential for ensuring the jobs of everyone. History is filled with the bankruptcies of unionized companies where the workers asked for more than what the market would support. I hate to rain on your parade, but in my experience the union leadership were much more like a parallel track of management. They definitely played favorites and took sides in political battles to protect some people and hurt others. Everyone dreams that the unions will be neutral protectors of the workers. That wasn't what I saw.
- pixl97 3y ago
  History is filled with non unionized companies going bankrupt too, seems like an issue that affects both. Corporations are Moloch. They do not have human interests in mine. They are setup to grow and spread like cancer. Unions at least give some grounding back to human needs rather than the never ending pursuit of profit.
- afavour 3y ago
  > The long-term profitability of the company is essential for ensuring the jobs of everyone Long-term profitability is the goal of company management? In my experience that’s often not the case. Short term profit going straight to shareholder dividend, seeking a sale at the highest possible price… Maybe I’m too cynical but it feels like these are the primary goals of corporate America these days. Boost, boost, boost then cash out. If anything a unionized workforce can help keep management on the straight and narrow path to long term profitability because unions make the short term cashouts more difficult. I’m not going to try to claim that all union management is wonderful but a great number of employees in the US would still be in a better place represented by selfish, inefficient union bosses than left to the company’s whims.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aksss 3y ago
> Unions have their faults (e.g. bureaucracy) Corruption, protecting shit employees from being fired, seniority preference over merit, politics, wage caps for individual contributors (not just wage floors), dues, inefficient administrative overhead, to name a few others. For a lot of workers, especially knowledge workers and pro services, the value proposition doesn’t make sense. Companies fight unions for the efficiency of the machine, which may or may not benefit employees (depends on context, right?). Employees fight unions because the value prop looks like shit in many cases - at best a bargain with the devil - circumstances need to be pretty bad to make the deal, or the union needs to have captured the right to work (at company or industry) already. I say all this as someone with a small union pension waiting for me and as someone who managed union employees. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly with unions.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >For a lot of workers, especially knowledge workers and pro services, the value proposition doesn’t make sense. yeah, there's no needs for unions in tech. The most ambitious are spending 2-3 years at a job, switching jobs, and getting 20%+ pay raises as well as negotiating stock benefits and all the like. A union would do nothing for that kind of worker that they can't do in a matter of weeks by walking.

by ethbr0 3y ago

93po 3y ago

> Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest? Yes, usually at least half the workforce. But but but the monthly dues!!!

treeman79 3y ago
[flagged]
- imachine1980_ 3y ago
  Car companies left cities not Detroit, the cost of labor was high but also thw cost of the space
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- birdyrooster 3y ago
  This completely ignores globalization and the fact it was geopolitics that took the jobs away.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    The unions were instrumental in getting the people pushing globalism elected.
    - birdyrooster 3y ago
      Hardly. Labor Unions were against immigration and globalization and demanded tariffs to protect US industries. Chavez was prolific in his anti-immigration arguments. It was the capital holders who pushed globalization, outsourcing and mass immigration.
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      The two flavors of US political parties were both right wing, neoliberal globalists. Clinton allying with Republicans to pass NAFTA is clear evidence of this. Only recently have they also both postured away from this stance, largely in response to the new Cold War with China.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > The two flavors of US political parties were both right wing, neoliberal globalists. There were significant (but not always dominant) factions of that type in each party during the period of ideologically incoherent parties in the period of the long post-Depression realignment, and overlapping the very end of that period there was the brief neoliberal consensus period from the late 1980s into the 1990s.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  Gotta love how people blame lack of a company's success on those bad workers. How about actually doing the unimaginable and build decent cars? Almost every time I get a rental from a US car company I am reminded that they don't seem to care about building good cars. They just throw a bunch of options together and make the car bigger. Nobody seems to actually try the car and see if it drives well.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Separate issues. Yes American car designs sucked, but they were moving production to Mexico either way. It's not like they closed all the detorit plants because they didn't have any money, they just wanted to make more.
  - linksnapzz 3y ago
    It takes two to tango. The problem with industrial unions in the US is not so much the salary and benefits paid to one, or even to a set, of individual workers. It's the demands by the union to maximize union membership (and dues) that make it impossible to take advantage of improving efficiency (which could lead to fewer employees). The story I've heard...was that steelmaking in the US went into decline after WWII, because US mills weren't destroyed in the war. USX, Bethlehem et al. kept making steel using inefficient prewar methods, with equivalent staffing costs. Foreign (ex-Axis) steelmakers invested in brand-new, more efficient methods to replace what had been bombed, and these new mills gave them a cost advantage. So why didn't the US mills upgrade? Because their contracts with the union more or less made sure that no matter how many fewer staff it would take to run, the number of United Ironworkers members on the payroll would never decrease. It wasn't worth the capital cost to upgrade in the '50s-'6s, and by the '80s, when it would've been, it was too late. There was a possibility, if the unions were a bit more farsighted, to accept a gradual drawdown in staffing, and consolidation of job definitions by attrition, with no real loss of individual wages or benefits. But that never happened. A similar dynamic occurred in the auto industry...labor (and the UAW is a bad, bad, bad, union for this) was very short-sighted, and Detroit purchased peace with them at a very high cost in terms of productivity per worker; partly because they had the money to, partly because it was seen as a necessary evil, and partly because the idea of being more efficient in operations was seen as intractable-they didn't listen to Deming when he first started to talk about it.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  [flagged]

jvmfjvfjvf 3y ago

Well, Walmart non union workers still have their jobs while the ones that did unionize all lost theirs.

myspy 3y ago
Well, if the States allow such practices it's super sad. Nobody gets fired when joining a union in Germany.
- colpabar 3y ago
  Railroad workers can face _prison_ here if they strike and the government doesn't want them to. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-r... > WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy. And of course, it's all for our own good!
jug 3y ago
What a shitshow. In Socialist Sweden this would be illegal grounds.
- boeingUH60 3y ago
  In capitalist Sweden with stronger labor laws.
- ixwt 3y ago
  It's also illegal in the US as well. Just less protections, and thus harder to prove.
paulryanrogers 3y ago
Non-union workers get to keep their jobs with pay so low many need food stamps to survive. I think everyone loses, even the shareholders as the market for Walmart wares shrinks.
3y ago

randomdata 3y ago

> Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest? Sure. What do the C-suite employees stand to gain from it other than a whole new set of headaches when they have to deal with the union?

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Ideally more consistent and reliable workers, since they should be less likely to need multiple jobs to cover healthcare and rent.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  "No one wants to work anymore" - [Insert most hated C exec here who has never gone hungry or had to worry about rent]

xhkkffbf 3y ago

> corporations aren't fighting them for their employees' benefit. But they are. The long-term profitability of the company is essential for ensuring the jobs of everyone. History is filled with the bankruptcies of unionized companies where the workers asked for more than what the market would support. I hate to rain on your parade, but in my experience the union leadership were much more like a parallel track of management. They definitely played favorites and took sides in political battles to protect some people and hurt others. Everyone dreams that the unions will be neutral protectors of the workers. That wasn't what I saw.

pixl97 3y ago
History is filled with non unionized companies going bankrupt too, seems like an issue that affects both. Corporations are Moloch. They do not have human interests in mine. They are setup to grow and spread like cancer. Unions at least give some grounding back to human needs rather than the never ending pursuit of profit.
afavour 3y ago
> The long-term profitability of the company is essential for ensuring the jobs of everyone Long-term profitability is the goal of company management? In my experience that’s often not the case. Short term profit going straight to shareholder dividend, seeking a sale at the highest possible price… Maybe I’m too cynical but it feels like these are the primary goals of corporate America these days. Boost, boost, boost then cash out. If anything a unionized workforce can help keep management on the straight and narrow path to long term profitability because unions make the short term cashouts more difficult. I’m not going to try to claim that all union management is wonderful but a great number of employees in the US would still be in a better place represented by selfish, inefficient union bosses than left to the company’s whims.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

aksss 3y ago

> Unions have their faults (e.g. bureaucracy) Corruption, protecting shit employees from being fired, seniority preference over merit, politics, wage caps for individual contributors (not just wage floors), dues, inefficient administrative overhead, to name a few others. For a lot of workers, especially knowledge workers and pro services, the value proposition doesn’t make sense. Companies fight unions for the efficiency of the machine, which may or may not benefit employees (depends on context, right?). Employees fight unions because the value prop looks like shit in many cases - at best a bargain with the devil - circumstances need to be pretty bad to make the deal, or the union needs to have captured the right to work (at company or industry) already. I say all this as someone with a small union pension waiting for me and as someone who managed union employees. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly with unions.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>For a lot of workers, especially knowledge workers and pro services, the value proposition doesn’t make sense. yeah, there's no needs for unions in tech. The most ambitious are spending 2-3 years at a job, switching jobs, and getting 20%+ pay raises as well as negotiating stock benefits and all the like. A union would do nothing for that kind of worker that they can't do in a matter of weeks by walking.