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Factory workers could have higher output, housekeeping staff could be more efficient, retail workers could make more sales. No, they couldn't. Factory workers

Factory workers could have higher output, housekeeping staff could be more efficient, retail workers could make more sales. No, they couldn't. Factory workers don't control the speed of the line, so it doesn't help if one individual on a line is faster if that speed isn't replicated throughout the line. They'll end up with extra downtime, or with a backlog somewhere else. Similarly, the speed at which housekeeping staff clean depends on the cleanliness of the room before they start cleaning, and many guests, especially post-COVID, are absolutely disgusting pigs. And retail workers don't generally make sales, which is why they're classified as retail workers and not as salespeople. If there was genuinely no way to do a better job than anyone else then what excuse is there for seniority-based rewards or anything other than perfectly uniform compensation? That's your strawman. Merit being a meaningless measure doesn't mean that one employee can't do a better job than another, or that experience is irrelevant. It means that attempting to objectively measure merit is meaningless because the factors affecting that measure aren't within the employees' control. In which case the union becomes a gatekeeper excluding new entrants, because it benefits existing union members to keep out anyone who might displace them in well-paying jobs, and the prospective entrants don't get a vote. Ironically, that's what people outside of the tech community say about the leet code interviews that are specifically intended to gatekeep.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Factory workers don't control the speed of the line, so it doesn't help if one individual on a line is faster if that speed isn't replicated throughout the line. Sure it does. They can give your station more to do if you can still do it in the allotted time. > Similarly, the speed at which housekeeping staff clean depends on the cleanliness of the room before they start cleaning, and many guests, especially post-COVID, are absolutely disgusting pigs. It also depends on the efficiency of the staff, and you can measure this on a statistical basis across a period of weeks to smooth out the effects of the initial state of the room. > And retail workers don't generally make sales, which is why they're classified as retail workers and not as salespeople. Sales is a subset of retail. But even if you're talking about workers whose only job is to ring up orders, someone can still do it more efficiently or with higher customer satisfaction. > Merit being a meaningless measure doesn't mean that one employee can't do a better job than another, or that experience is irrelevant. But what? Doing a better job than someone else is merit. Experience may be a proxy for it, but you can often measure it directly, or at least measure a more direct proxy. > Ironically, that's what people outside of the tech community say about the leet code interviews that are specifically intended to gatekeep. Leet code is an attempt to measure merit. That's the intent, even if it's imperfect. You have to use something to choose between applicants. Plausibly it could be improved. Unions imposing requirements on membership isn't even an attempt to use merit, it's just an entity with a monopoly on the right to work leveraging that monopoly for its existing members at the expense of other workers who want to be members.
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AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> Factory workers don't control the speed of the line, so it doesn't help if one individual on a line is faster if that speed isn't replicated throughout the line. Sure it does. They can give your station more to do if you can still do it in the allotted time. > Similarly, the speed at which housekeeping staff clean depends on the cleanliness of the room before they start cleaning, and many guests, especially post-COVID, are absolutely disgusting pigs. It also depends on the efficiency of the staff, and you can measure this on a statistical basis across a period of weeks to smooth out the effects of the initial state of the room. > And retail workers don't generally make sales, which is why they're classified as retail workers and not as salespeople. Sales is a subset of retail. But even if you're talking about workers whose only job is to ring up orders, someone can still do it more efficiently or with higher customer satisfaction. > Merit being a meaningless measure doesn't mean that one employee can't do a better job than another, or that experience is irrelevant. But what? Doing a better job than someone else is merit. Experience may be a proxy for it, but you can often measure it directly, or at least measure a more direct proxy. > Ironically, that's what people outside of the tech community say about the leet code interviews that are specifically intended to gatekeep. Leet code is an attempt to measure merit. That's the intent, even if it's imperfect. You have to use something to choose between applicants. Plausibly it could be improved. Unions imposing requirements on membership isn't even an attempt to use merit, it's just an entity with a monopoly on the right to work leveraging that monopoly for its existing members at the expense of other workers who want to be members.

deleted 3y ago
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