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They can if they care; New York City’s municipal employee union negotiated just that. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/nyregion/adams-remote-work-dc37.html ht

They can if they care; New York City’s municipal employee union negotiated just that. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/nyregion/adams-remote-work-dc37.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/nyregion/adams-remote-wor...

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Municipal and government workers are different, as they can always demand whatever they want because they don't have competition and don't need to turn a profit so you're stuck with them whether you like it or not. What else are you gonna do, get your permit from another country's government? The government's monopoly is the real leverage here.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Many industries (in the US at least) are dominated by union labor. Some jobs even require union membership, even if you don't want to join the union. So these companies simply can't avoid union workers if they actually want staff.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge, unions in the US function very differently than unions in Germany/Europe. In Germany, the unions function more as partners of the business owners and collaborate together on finding the general compromise that won't disturb company profits or the way the business operates, while in the US it seems like unions must treat the business like antagonists even at the sake of company profits because "all business owners are evil so fuck them". So even if the US has fewer unions than in Europe, they're generally a lot more powerful, which is why many were infiltrated by the mob. If my memory serves me correctly the earliest unions in Germany were very similar to the unions in the US, as in they were started from clashes with the business owners, and they were in charge of handling stuff like healthcare and pensions pots of the workers, similar to the unions in north america today. But the Kaiser saw the growing unions and their pensions pots getting bigger along with their nation wide influence over the working class, as threats to the state's own influence and control over the workers, so he dismantled them and introduced them under the new state pension plan, so the modern state social pension in Germany stems form the Kaiser's fear of the workers' unions. :)
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      Generally speaking one major reason is that union representatives are also on company boards in the Europe. This gives them skin in the game and also the same knowledge that gets shared to the rest of the board. And they generally err on the side of employment; American unions have threatened, and successfully, brought down companies that ceased to be a going concern due to demanding unreasonable concessions. (See: Yellow Trucking) But German unions are also very subservient given their tacit approvals of things like Agenda 2010.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >But German unions are also very subservient given their tacit approvals of things like Agenda 2010. My point exactly. Unions aren't here to fight for even better working conditions for you like mandatory WFH for everyone, but just to overwatch to make sure the company adheres to existing labor regulations. That's it. So yeah, unions are relatively toothless and the QoL and the living standards of the working class in Germany has been on the decline for a while.
        bobthepanda 3y ago
        Unions can do whatever they set their mind to, and whatever their membership elects to do. Like humanity itself and other broad categories, saying as a matter of fact that unions can’t do X, when some unions do X, is pretty asinine, almost as much as lumping more than 3B people into “Asians” or other useless categorizations. Particularly if the article doesn’t mention a country of origin being Germany. You don’t even have to look very far from Germany to find a union negotiating WFH. https://rfi.fr/en/france/20201205-why-france-is-struggling-to-embrace-the-work-from-home-revolution-covid-19-telecommuting-unions https://rfi.fr/en/france/20201205-why-france-is-struggling-t... https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/a/1993852.html https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/a/1993852.html
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        Sure, unions can in theory demand whatever they want, but if they don't show enough teeth, as in actually having strikes, they usually don't ask because the corporate overlords will say 'no' anyway. Unions in Germany are usually a lot more submissively than in France and rarely fight for gaining new perks, they just look after maintain the existing ones, moistly following the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" mentality.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

Municipal and government workers are different, as they can always demand whatever they want because they don't have competition and don't need to turn a profit so you're stuck with them whether you like it or not. What else are you gonna do, get your permit from another country's government? The government's monopoly is the real leverage here.

kelnos 3y ago
Many industries (in the US at least) are dominated by union labor. Some jobs even require union membership, even if you don't want to join the union. So these companies simply can't avoid union workers if they actually want staff.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge, unions in the US function very differently than unions in Germany/Europe. In Germany, the unions function more as partners of the business owners and collaborate together on finding the general compromise that won't disturb company profits or the way the business operates, while in the US it seems like unions must treat the business like antagonists even at the sake of company profits because "all business owners are evil so fuck them". So even if the US has fewer unions than in Europe, they're generally a lot more powerful, which is why many were infiltrated by the mob. If my memory serves me correctly the earliest unions in Germany were very similar to the unions in the US, as in they were started from clashes with the business owners, and they were in charge of handling stuff like healthcare and pensions pots of the workers, similar to the unions in north america today. But the Kaiser saw the growing unions and their pensions pots getting bigger along with their nation wide influence over the working class, as threats to the state's own influence and control over the workers, so he dismantled them and introduced them under the new state pension plan, so the modern state social pension in Germany stems form the Kaiser's fear of the workers' unions. :)
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    Generally speaking one major reason is that union representatives are also on company boards in the Europe. This gives them skin in the game and also the same knowledge that gets shared to the rest of the board. And they generally err on the side of employment; American unions have threatened, and successfully, brought down companies that ceased to be a going concern due to demanding unreasonable concessions. (See: Yellow Trucking) But German unions are also very subservient given their tacit approvals of things like Agenda 2010.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >But German unions are also very subservient given their tacit approvals of things like Agenda 2010. My point exactly. Unions aren't here to fight for even better working conditions for you like mandatory WFH for everyone, but just to overwatch to make sure the company adheres to existing labor regulations. That's it. So yeah, unions are relatively toothless and the QoL and the living standards of the working class in Germany has been on the decline for a while.
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        Unions can do whatever they set their mind to, and whatever their membership elects to do. Like humanity itself and other broad categories, saying as a matter of fact that unions can’t do X, when some unions do X, is pretty asinine, almost as much as lumping more than 3B people into “Asians” or other useless categorizations. Particularly if the article doesn’t mention a country of origin being Germany. You don’t even have to look very far from Germany to find a union negotiating WFH. https://rfi.fr/en/france/20201205-why-france-is-struggling-to-embrace-the-work-from-home-revolution-covid-19-telecommuting-unions https://rfi.fr/en/france/20201205-why-france-is-struggling-t... https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/a/1993852.html https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/a/1993852.html
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        Sure, unions can in theory demand whatever they want, but if they don't show enough teeth, as in actually having strikes, they usually don't ask because the corporate overlords will say 'no' anyway. Unions in Germany are usually a lot more submissively than in France and rarely fight for gaining new perks, they just look after maintain the existing ones, moistly following the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" mentality.