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> UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The key being that UPS drivers are unionized. If your argument is that the increasingly obsolete humans need to ban

> UPS drivers now get paid close to $200k. The key being that UPS drivers are unionized. If your argument is that the increasingly obsolete humans need to band together and take wealth back from the owners of the robots, then I agree.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
The problem is that history shows there is no such thing as humans banding together and taking things back. As a group. The group has new “benevolent leaders” emerge, then they take everything and stop being benevolent very quickly, if not instantly. Animal Farm anyone? Animal Farm. Still relevant.
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  That sounds to me like you're repeating dogma, but even if it's true, that's fine by me. I'd rather my union steward was getting rich (for some low value of 'rich') than my CEO. Only one of them is on my side.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    It’s interesting, because this is how your response sounded to me. Is there no dogma about how everyone should group together and take back the means of production? There is a very large, prominent movement about this response to capitalism. My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs. The utopia does not occur. So clearly this is not the solution for solving our problems. There are problems. And there are solutions. But you need to search elsewhere. Your union leader is not necessarily on your side. Even if they are, not for long. The system decides how they act, and power corrupts. Watch the strike in Hollywood. Watch how the previous strike in 2007 caused the present situation in 2023, and watch how the union will end up dissolving itself as more and more people will start leaving it. I’m not happy about this. I think workers need to be able to band together in groups and negotiate in groups (called companies, for example). I’m not convinced it should be one all encompassing mob-like group with no alternatives, but that’s just me.
    - ForHackernews 3y ago
      Ok, well, as long as we're on the subject of the distinction between theory and practice I'm not worried that unionizing Amazon warehouses will bring about a new USSR. I've worked union jobs and I've worked non-union jobs: the union jobs paid better and came with better benefits than their non-union equivalents. QED.
      - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
        Unionized Amazon warehouses are the strongest kick in the butt that Amazon needs to automate this entire union out of existence. Once again. See Hollywood. Strike. “No AI” said the signs. Result? Studios amping up AI hiring like crazy. Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much. It doesn’t care about what substrate it’s made of. Its soul is made of money. Unions make things better for workers in the short term because a business can’t adapt that quick. It’s like a racket. Same like when a lone worker faces few gigantic corporations and they all offer bad jobs. It’s like a racket. But rackets don’t last. Adaptation kicks and the layers shift. And AI is the biggest adaptation ever. It adapts us out of being necessary. Human leverage drops to near zero and with it the union leverage, also.
        EGreg 3y ago
        “Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much.” I wish more people on HN would understand this. Capitalism isn’t your friend. It give you short term wins but in the end, the negative externalities can add up hurt everyone including the vast majority of those who were winning initially. At first, in all transactions, A and B win at the expense of C. Ancaps only look at A and B being better off. But in the end, almost everyone is a C, and the externalized costs add up for them all. We need to switch to a more sustainable system before it’s too late. Capitalism’s negative externalities are also destroying the environment and running up an ecological credit card that future generations will have to pay. “The bill always comes due!” - Mordo (great philosopher)
        ForHackernews 3y ago
        I wouldn't count your AI chickens yet. Path dependence is real and SAG/WGA are smart to pick this fight today not in 5 years' time. If they play their cards right now, while they have leverage, then they will gain additional legal/contractual leverage for the future. Slavery and child labor were once common and economically lucrative, today they're very rare in the developed world. It's simply not true that humans can never choose to collectively reject an economically compelling option.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  This is easy to demonstrate as false. The US Revolution and many others that followed put far more power into the hands of the average person. And unionized workers earn more almost everywhere you go. Union leaders probably do take more than they deserve, but not as much as the company owners would if you were negotiating as an individual against their organized management and legal team. So yeah, you do have to pay someone to lead your organization. But going without an organization is kind of nuts when the other side pays for one.
ghaff 3y ago
And being efficient enough and providing a service that's valued enough that both the companies doing the shipping and the people receiving the packages are willing to absorb the labor costs. If residential delivery cost a lot more/was less convenient (as it generally used to be), people would be much more inclined to just go into stores.
tchaffee 3y ago
Yes, we mostly agree. The part I disagree with is humans being obsolete. We don't manually weave cloth anymore. Which is why we can afford far more clothing than folks 100 years ago. The jobs are there. That most of the profit from that work goes to the uber wealthy is the problem.
pb7 3y ago
The actual key being that they get paid somewhere around half that. Other industries don't calculate the overtime potential or benefits in the total compensation figure but of course this gets clicks and misinformation spreads like wildfire.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  I was using this article for my source [1] which says: "By the end of the new contract, full-time UPS delivery drivers will make an average of $49 per hour, which works out to nearly $102,000 per year, assuming a 40-hour workweek, 52 weeks a year. Those employees are guaranteed an eight-hour workday, a UPS spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch. Drivers also receive $50,000 in benefits that include health, welfare and pension contributions, the spokesperson said." I think a base salary of $100k is a decent living for non-skilled labor. And the pension contributions, whatever they are, are reasonable to include. I'm also noting that the end of the new contract is in 5 years, so maybe it won't be as good of a living as I'm thinking, depending on inflation. In any case the important point is that UPS cut earnings forecasts because of this which means that workers did capture more of the profits that would have gone to owners. I consider it a win. Could it have been a bigger win? If most other workers were organized, I think so. With so many workers negotiating as individuals in the US, companies still have the upper hand as a whole. Workers continue to underestimate their value to the economy both in terms of labor and as consumers. The rich need labor, the rich need consumers. We should be getting a bigger piece of the huge profit pie that productivity increases result in. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-drivers-170000-pay-benefits-compensation/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-drivers-170000-pay-benefits...
  - pb7 3y ago
    >which works out to nearly $102,000 per year, assuming a 40-hour workweek, 52 weeks a year. Those employees are guaranteed an eight-hour workday Exactly the point I was making. They’re making $100K which is decidedly not almost $200K. This isn’t to say that it isn’t good, but every well paying job includes pension or 401k matching, paid time off, health insurance, sometimes education reimbursement, etc. It’s (intentionally, on the part of “journalists”) misleading to quote $170K when that is not how compensations are compared in the US. Rounding up a fudged number to $200K is even more misleading. Quoting a number including 5 years of merit increases and inflation is even more misleading. The numbers are good and impressive on their own, there is no need for this fudgery except to drive clicks.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

The problem is that history shows there is no such thing as humans banding together and taking things back. As a group. The group has new “benevolent leaders” emerge, then they take everything and stop being benevolent very quickly, if not instantly. Animal Farm anyone? Animal Farm. Still relevant.

ForHackernews 3y ago
That sounds to me like you're repeating dogma, but even if it's true, that's fine by me. I'd rather my union steward was getting rich (for some low value of 'rich') than my CEO. Only one of them is on my side.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  It’s interesting, because this is how your response sounded to me. Is there no dogma about how everyone should group together and take back the means of production? There is a very large, prominent movement about this response to capitalism. My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs. The utopia does not occur. So clearly this is not the solution for solving our problems. There are problems. And there are solutions. But you need to search elsewhere. Your union leader is not necessarily on your side. Even if they are, not for long. The system decides how they act, and power corrupts. Watch the strike in Hollywood. Watch how the previous strike in 2007 caused the present situation in 2023, and watch how the union will end up dissolving itself as more and more people will start leaving it. I’m not happy about this. I think workers need to be able to band together in groups and negotiate in groups (called companies, for example). I’m not convinced it should be one all encompassing mob-like group with no alternatives, but that’s just me.
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    Ok, well, as long as we're on the subject of the distinction between theory and practice I'm not worried that unionizing Amazon warehouses will bring about a new USSR. I've worked union jobs and I've worked non-union jobs: the union jobs paid better and came with better benefits than their non-union equivalents. QED.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      Unionized Amazon warehouses are the strongest kick in the butt that Amazon needs to automate this entire union out of existence. Once again. See Hollywood. Strike. “No AI” said the signs. Result? Studios amping up AI hiring like crazy. Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much. It doesn’t care about what substrate it’s made of. Its soul is made of money. Unions make things better for workers in the short term because a business can’t adapt that quick. It’s like a racket. Same like when a lone worker faces few gigantic corporations and they all offer bad jobs. It’s like a racket. But rackets don’t last. Adaptation kicks and the layers shift. And AI is the biggest adaptation ever. It adapts us out of being necessary. Human leverage drops to near zero and with it the union leverage, also.
      - EGreg 3y ago
        “Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much.” I wish more people on HN would understand this. Capitalism isn’t your friend. It give you short term wins but in the end, the negative externalities can add up hurt everyone including the vast majority of those who were winning initially. At first, in all transactions, A and B win at the expense of C. Ancaps only look at A and B being better off. But in the end, almost everyone is a C, and the externalized costs add up for them all. We need to switch to a more sustainable system before it’s too late. Capitalism’s negative externalities are also destroying the environment and running up an ecological credit card that future generations will have to pay. “The bill always comes due!” - Mordo (great philosopher)
      - ForHackernews 3y ago
        I wouldn't count your AI chickens yet. Path dependence is real and SAG/WGA are smart to pick this fight today not in 5 years' time. If they play their cards right now, while they have leverage, then they will gain additional legal/contractual leverage for the future. Slavery and child labor were once common and economically lucrative, today they're very rare in the developed world. It's simply not true that humans can never choose to collectively reject an economically compelling option.
tchaffee 3y ago
This is easy to demonstrate as false. The US Revolution and many others that followed put far more power into the hands of the average person. And unionized workers earn more almost everywhere you go. Union leaders probably do take more than they deserve, but not as much as the company owners would if you were negotiating as an individual against their organized management and legal team. So yeah, you do have to pay someone to lead your organization. But going without an organization is kind of nuts when the other side pays for one.

ghaff 3y ago

And being efficient enough and providing a service that's valued enough that both the companies doing the shipping and the people receiving the packages are willing to absorb the labor costs. If residential delivery cost a lot more/was less convenient (as it generally used to be), people would be much more inclined to just go into stores.

tchaffee 3y ago

Yes, we mostly agree. The part I disagree with is humans being obsolete. We don't manually weave cloth anymore. Which is why we can afford far more clothing than folks 100 years ago. The jobs are there. That most of the profit from that work goes to the uber wealthy is the problem.

pb7 3y ago

The actual key being that they get paid somewhere around half that. Other industries don't calculate the overtime potential or benefits in the total compensation figure but of course this gets clicks and misinformation spreads like wildfire.

tchaffee 3y ago
I was using this article for my source [1] which says: "By the end of the new contract, full-time UPS delivery drivers will make an average of $49 per hour, which works out to nearly $102,000 per year, assuming a 40-hour workweek, 52 weeks a year. Those employees are guaranteed an eight-hour workday, a UPS spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch. Drivers also receive $50,000 in benefits that include health, welfare and pension contributions, the spokesperson said." I think a base salary of $100k is a decent living for non-skilled labor. And the pension contributions, whatever they are, are reasonable to include. I'm also noting that the end of the new contract is in 5 years, so maybe it won't be as good of a living as I'm thinking, depending on inflation. In any case the important point is that UPS cut earnings forecasts because of this which means that workers did capture more of the profits that would have gone to owners. I consider it a win. Could it have been a bigger win? If most other workers were organized, I think so. With so many workers negotiating as individuals in the US, companies still have the upper hand as a whole. Workers continue to underestimate their value to the economy both in terms of labor and as consumers. The rich need labor, the rich need consumers. We should be getting a bigger piece of the huge profit pie that productivity increases result in. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-drivers-170000-pay-benefits-compensation/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-drivers-170000-pay-benefits...
- pb7 3y ago
  >which works out to nearly $102,000 per year, assuming a 40-hour workweek, 52 weeks a year. Those employees are guaranteed an eight-hour workday Exactly the point I was making. They’re making $100K which is decidedly not almost $200K. This isn’t to say that it isn’t good, but every well paying job includes pension or 401k matching, paid time off, health insurance, sometimes education reimbursement, etc. It’s (intentionally, on the part of “journalists”) misleading to quote $170K when that is not how compensations are compared in the US. Rounding up a fudged number to $200K is even more misleading. Quoting a number including 5 years of merit increases and inflation is even more misleading. The numbers are good and impressive on their own, there is no need for this fudgery except to drive clicks.