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Recent blog post about unions that I found interesting: >Let’s say a nation is concerned about poverty. So it passes a law that says the rich will have some of

Recent blog post about unions that I found interesting: >Let’s say a nation is concerned about poverty. So it passes a law that says the rich will have some of their money redistributed to the poor. But instead of a progressive income tax used to fund cash payments to the unfortunate, the government decides that wealthy people who happened to be born in the spring will give their money to poor people whose birthdays are in the summer. Moreover, this redistribution won’t go to anyone who is too poor. You have to already have a job to qualify, and a certain kind of job at that. In fact, you are going to make the poorest of the poor worse off through the policy. Finally, instead of cash payments that they can spend on whatever they actually need, the recipients of aid get gift cards to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. >I think, regardless of how they feel about the redistribution of wealth, most people would find this to be a pretty stupid policy for reasons that are self-evident. Yet this is similar to how laws protecting organized labor function, which in effect involve the “right” of workers in an industry to form a cartel that prevents other people from being hired by an employer... https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-labor-unions-are-evil https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-labor-unions-are-evil I wonder if the highly unionized Swedish economy is part of why Sweden has trouble assimilating immigrants. Native Swedes enforcing a cartel to prevent new arrivals from competing in low-wage occupations.

ponector 3y ago
You say that only a cartel of CEO could exist? In a regular employee-employer relations there is a big difference in negotiating power. Unions can mitigate that.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  >In a regular employee-employer relations there is a big difference in negotiating power. Not necessarily, it depends on the state of the labor market. You remember a few years ago when the Valley was incredibly hot. Workers had a lot of negotiating power despite being non-unionized.
  - ponector 3y ago
    Some workers had. Don't forget there are millions people on visa, in wait-list for green card. They always have been screwed.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
      Indeed. If the government got out of the way and allowed them to work, things would be better.
      - soco 3y ago
        All Swedish comments here from both immigrants and locals shows them apparently enjoying the unions' work and the backpressure put on the companies. Which is the point of any agreement: I give you my work under my conditions, you pay me under your conditions, and both sides must meet somewhere in the middle. And lo it's even done without government involvement - we talk about negotiations between unions and the company. So although your intention was to be against the union, you're basically making their same point.
sisve 3y ago
Sorry, but I think you are way of here. I live in Norway, and as far as I know the reason for the immigration problems in sweden is mostly related to taking in a lot of immgrants, much more then other countries did (compared to swedens population) over a long period and then failing to integrated them. Basically creating ghettos. In addition to this the government was to slow with providing additional resources when needed (like severally years ago) If it was duo to unions you should see the same in Norway. Both the right and the left in the Scandinavian countries largely agree that unions are a good thing. But we also have a sosial safety net to help people.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  "Failing to integrate them" could be because they struggled to find jobs, due to unions acting as a cartel and shutting competitors out of the labor market. If Norway accepted fewer immigrants, that means that fewer jobs for immigrants are needed. If you accept a lot of immigrants, you'd like to have employment opportunities for _all_ of them. Unionization could cause this problem by lowering demand for unskilled workers, who are no longer profitable to hire due to union bargaining. If jobs for immigrants were plentiful, maybe government support wouldn't be necessary.
  - rangerelf 3y ago
    "Could be...", "what if...", "maybe it's..." ... So much wishy-washiness and absolutely zero concrete information. I don't think you're proving any points.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
      I'm not seeing any concrete pro-union info in this thread either.
  - sroussey 3y ago
    Failing to integrate works both ways. My family tree is filled with stories about never speaking anything at home other than English. It had some terrible side effects of communication in the family for that generation. Also, would have been cool to be bilingual. Maybe. My family tree makes me quite the mutt.
Snild 3y ago
Swedish unions do not mandate membership, and do not "prevent other people from being hired", unless they're talking about speculative indirect effects like "setting a minimum salary kills jobs". Members and non-members work together at the same companies, and the collective agreements between the unions and the employer organizations apply to all employees, not just members.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  From elsewhere in this thread: "A key reason for the sympathy strikes is that Tesla brought in scabs which is a big no-no in Scandinavian labor markets." Sounds like an attempt to prevent other people from being hired. Re: setting a minimum salary -- suppose we set the minimum price of burgers at $100/burger. Do you think that would cause people to buy fewer burgers? I don't think "minimum salary kills jobs" is speculative; I think it should be the default hypothesis. Force the price of something to be high and people will purchase it less. Force the price of labor to be high and unemployment will increase. Especially for low-skilled immigrants whose main way to compete is willingness to work for low wages.
  - Snild 3y ago
    No, that's a reaction to the employer trying to circumvent the strike. It's an attempt to ensure that the strike is effective, and wouldn't normally happen. (also, the sympathy strikers object to the hiring of other people _to do the strikers' tasks _, not hiring in general.) > Force the price of labor to be high and unemployment will increase. If you don't, there will be a race to the bottom and people won't have a liveable wage. Besides, Tesla is claiming that their compensation is better than the the collective agreement's minimum, and if that's to be taken at face value, clearly the agreement's cost of labor isn't too high.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
      >No, that's a reaction to the employer trying to circumvent the strike. It's an attempt to ensure that the strike is effective, and wouldn't normally happen. >(also, the sympathy strikers object to the hiring of other people _to do the strikers' tasks _, not hiring in general.) A mafioso could tell you "We broke his legs to ensure that people stay quiet. It wouldn't normally happen. It's fine for him to talk to the cops. Just don't talk to the cops about us." >If you don't, there will be a race to the bottom and people won't have a liveable wage. People looking for jobs will prefer to accept a job that has a higher wage. So you could just as easily argue that there will be a race to the top, as businesses compete over workers until businesses can no longer make a profit. The US economy has fewer unions than the Swedish economy, yet its median income is around 30% higher: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=t... People in this thread are comparing Norway to Sweden. One way of interpreting the median income data I linked is, if Sweden adopted the sort of capitalist approach you see in the US or Switzerland, the increased economic dynamism would be the equivalent of discovering $1.5 trillion in oil wealth, from the perspective of the median worker. I suggest reading up on basic microeconomics until you can explain concepts like "supply curve" or "demand curve". This book teaches you the approximate contents of an undergrad micro class in a way that's fun and entertaining: https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Introduction-Economics-I-Microeconomics/dp/0809094819/ https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Introduction-Economics-I-Micr... Then you'll have an idea of why the "race to the bottom" and "race to the top" scenarios aren't actually happening.

ponector 3y ago

You say that only a cartel of CEO could exist? In a regular employee-employer relations there is a big difference in negotiating power. Unions can mitigate that.

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
>In a regular employee-employer relations there is a big difference in negotiating power. Not necessarily, it depends on the state of the labor market. You remember a few years ago when the Valley was incredibly hot. Workers had a lot of negotiating power despite being non-unionized.
- ponector 3y ago
  Some workers had. Don't forget there are millions people on visa, in wait-list for green card. They always have been screwed.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
    Indeed. If the government got out of the way and allowed them to work, things would be better.
    - soco 3y ago
      All Swedish comments here from both immigrants and locals shows them apparently enjoying the unions' work and the backpressure put on the companies. Which is the point of any agreement: I give you my work under my conditions, you pay me under your conditions, and both sides must meet somewhere in the middle. And lo it's even done without government involvement - we talk about negotiations between unions and the company. So although your intention was to be against the union, you're basically making their same point.

sisve 3y ago

Sorry, but I think you are way of here. I live in Norway, and as far as I know the reason for the immigration problems in sweden is mostly related to taking in a lot of immgrants, much more then other countries did (compared to swedens population) over a long period and then failing to integrated them. Basically creating ghettos. In addition to this the government was to slow with providing additional resources when needed (like severally years ago) If it was duo to unions you should see the same in Norway. Both the right and the left in the Scandinavian countries largely agree that unions are a good thing. But we also have a sosial safety net to help people.

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
"Failing to integrate them" could be because they struggled to find jobs, due to unions acting as a cartel and shutting competitors out of the labor market. If Norway accepted fewer immigrants, that means that fewer jobs for immigrants are needed. If you accept a lot of immigrants, you'd like to have employment opportunities for _all_ of them. Unionization could cause this problem by lowering demand for unskilled workers, who are no longer profitable to hire due to union bargaining. If jobs for immigrants were plentiful, maybe government support wouldn't be necessary.
- rangerelf 3y ago
  "Could be...", "what if...", "maybe it's..." ... So much wishy-washiness and absolutely zero concrete information. I don't think you're proving any points.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
    I'm not seeing any concrete pro-union info in this thread either.
- sroussey 3y ago
  Failing to integrate works both ways. My family tree is filled with stories about never speaking anything at home other than English. It had some terrible side effects of communication in the family for that generation. Also, would have been cool to be bilingual. Maybe. My family tree makes me quite the mutt.

Snild 3y ago

Swedish unions do not mandate membership, and do not "prevent other people from being hired", unless they're talking about speculative indirect effects like "setting a minimum salary kills jobs". Members and non-members work together at the same companies, and the collective agreements between the unions and the employer organizations apply to all employees, not just members.

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
From elsewhere in this thread: "A key reason for the sympathy strikes is that Tesla brought in scabs which is a big no-no in Scandinavian labor markets." Sounds like an attempt to prevent other people from being hired. Re: setting a minimum salary -- suppose we set the minimum price of burgers at $100/burger. Do you think that would cause people to buy fewer burgers? I don't think "minimum salary kills jobs" is speculative; I think it should be the default hypothesis. Force the price of something to be high and people will purchase it less. Force the price of labor to be high and unemployment will increase. Especially for low-skilled immigrants whose main way to compete is willingness to work for low wages.
- Snild 3y ago
  No, that's a reaction to the employer trying to circumvent the strike. It's an attempt to ensure that the strike is effective, and wouldn't normally happen. (also, the sympathy strikers object to the hiring of other people _to do the strikers' tasks _, not hiring in general.) > Force the price of labor to be high and unemployment will increase. If you don't, there will be a race to the bottom and people won't have a liveable wage. Besides, Tesla is claiming that their compensation is better than the the collective agreement's minimum, and if that's to be taken at face value, clearly the agreement's cost of labor isn't too high.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
    >No, that's a reaction to the employer trying to circumvent the strike. It's an attempt to ensure that the strike is effective, and wouldn't normally happen. >(also, the sympathy strikers object to the hiring of other people _to do the strikers' tasks _, not hiring in general.) A mafioso could tell you "We broke his legs to ensure that people stay quiet. It wouldn't normally happen. It's fine for him to talk to the cops. Just don't talk to the cops about us." >If you don't, there will be a race to the bottom and people won't have a liveable wage. People looking for jobs will prefer to accept a job that has a higher wage. So you could just as easily argue that there will be a race to the top, as businesses compete over workers until businesses can no longer make a profit. The US economy has fewer unions than the Swedish economy, yet its median income is around 30% higher: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=t... People in this thread are comparing Norway to Sweden. One way of interpreting the median income data I linked is, if Sweden adopted the sort of capitalist approach you see in the US or Switzerland, the increased economic dynamism would be the equivalent of discovering $1.5 trillion in oil wealth, from the perspective of the median worker. I suggest reading up on basic microeconomics until you can explain concepts like "supply curve" or "demand curve". This book teaches you the approximate contents of an undergrad micro class in a way that's fun and entertaining: https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Introduction-Economics-I-Microeconomics/dp/0809094819/ https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Introduction-Economics-I-Micr... Then you'll have an idea of why the "race to the bottom" and "race to the top" scenarios aren't actually happening.