5 ms·

>Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests. This is only true if you yourself do not possess greater bargaining power by having

>Unionized workers are the only real backstop against corporate interests. This is only true if you yourself do not possess greater bargaining power by having certain rare skills, that are in demand. Which is why the report shows that higher educated people benefit far less.

rightbyte 3y ago
Lawers are unionized but just name it something else. Etc.
- constantcrying 3y ago
  I think our are taking about a professional organization. Those do not perform the same function unions do. The point of unions is to gain bargaining power against massive corporations. If you are self employed, part of a small company or easily replaceable (which is the case for most lawyers), because your professional is only a tiny part of the company a union does nothing for you. Professional associations exist for different reasons and have different goals.
- jnwatson 3y ago
  Lawyers essentially have a guild. They set up systems like the Bar to prevent outsiders from plying their trade. It has similar functions as a union but predates it by several centuries.
bwestergard 3y ago
At some point, higher individual compensation doesn't matter much if everyone else in your community is overworked and underpaid. I think many Dutch or French software developers are living better lives than developers in California, all things considered.
- constantcrying 3y ago
  >At some point, higher individual compensation doesn't matter much if everyone else in your community is overworked and underpaid. I think that totally depends on the individual and their circumstances. >I think many Dutch or French software developers are living better lives than developers in California, all things considered. European developers generally earn much less than Americans, especially after taxes you can get to a 2x difference with comparable cost of living depending on area. In generally wages in Europe are much more even, here in Germany you have a heavily bracketed income tax system, even significant increases in wage usually become much smaller if you consider the additional taxes.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    Developers the world over earn much less than Americans. It's why I've always told American developers to be careful what they wish for when it comes to remote work. But it might just be possible that there's more to life than money.
    - Rinzler89 3y ago
      >But it might just be possible that there's more to life than money. There is yes, but a house is still paid in money.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - rsdfdfdfdf 3y ago
        Housing is universally messed up everywhere in Western world, no matter salaries. Where the salaries are higher, houses prices are accordingly higher as well. Only places where housing is affordable are the ones with no jobs. Good for remote workers, but not much else.
        Rinzler89 3y ago
        >Housing is universally messed up everywhere in Western world, no matter salaries. Not to the same scale though. IN Europe and especially Canada housing is way more expensive to buy than in the US relative to local wages. Americans forget how good the4y have it.
- harimau777 3y ago
  This is definitely the case for me. The number one thing bringing down my quality of life is that my friends don't have time/money to do things and I'm worried about their physical, mental, and financial health.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  All individual compensation is a delta over what a low skill worker would get. Pay fast food workers 80k a year and software engineers would start at 300k.
  - constantcrying 3y ago
    Also known as inflation.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      No. Independent from that. Jobs that require more skill or jobs that are more difficult have to offer more to get people to work for them. Raise the bar at the bottom and all wages will go up, otherwise workers will "demote" themselves. This is a distinct effect from prices raising and workers asking higher wages to counteract inflation (if they could do that why aren't they?).
      - avvvv 3y ago
        Then everyone gets to benefit, no? All developing nations have far lower wages than the west, but that's often offset by lower living costs. But try to buy something out of the international market and you'll quickly feel envy. If there is an issue with higher wages then I don't see it
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Nobody would benefit because if fast food workers start at 80k, then a basic hamburger would start at $20. And an iPhone pro would start at $2000.
        CapstanRoller 3y ago
        Your argument doesn't match reality. We don't need hypotheticals here: McDonalds workers in EU countries earn significantly more than their US counterparts, yet a Big Mac costs the same of just a few pennies more.
bluefirebrand 3y ago
Someone would have to be incredibly full of themselves to think they have more bargaining power than an entire union would. Unless you are literally one of a kind, there's always someone out there who could replace you. Replacing all of the workers that an entire union represents is a way more difficult proposition
- constantcrying 3y ago
  The overall bargaining power is greater, sure. But the relative power isn't. They can always just leave and work somewhere else, a union literally does not have that option. As an individual it is far easier to negotiate of you have an in demand skill. Which is obvious if you look at the study in the OP. College educated people benefit far less from unionization, they can negotiate for their own.
  - nickburns 3y ago
    spoken like a fairly recent grad. an ambitious young person's perspective. you will eventually learn that you are beyond expendable in this world, despite how 'skilled' or adept at 'negotiating' you believe yourself to be (or actually are for that matter). we all are. what you fail to see yet is that you are not more skilled nor more adept than 'The Man.' and you're characterizing yourself as being anything 'more' than non-'college educated people' is simply successful divide-and-conquer—a power struggle strategy immemorial.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      What people fail to realize is that the leadership systems of Corporations: Boards of Directors, Executives, Management and HR are all effectively organized against them, to make sure the business gets what it wants as much as possible When you ask your manager for a raise, they might be your biggest fan and want you to get that raise, but there is a whole system that is going to resist it, because paying you less is better for the company. You're not bargaining with a person you're bargaining with a system. And the system is built in such a way that it is incredibly difficult to persuade at an individual level Workers can benefit from having their own system inside of the larger corporate system that is working for them, instead of this every man for themselves stuff
avvvv 3y ago
That's very deluded and short-sighted. More often than not, investors and shareholders hold more weight in large companies than whatever you can bring to the table. Not to mention skills that are rare often don't have huge markets, otherwise there'd be colleges teaching it in a degree and it'd be no more rarer than other skills, don't you think?
edmundsauto 3y ago
I don’t think this is true - the development of the baseball players union in the 1970s is a quite strong counterpoint. I’d be interested how you think about that?
washadjeffmad 3y ago
Let's map that opinion to higher ed, where we can agree there's a high concentration of education: https://www.aaup.org/programs/collective-bargaining https://www.aaup.org/programs/collective-bargaining https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/labor-unionization/2024/03/26/higher-ed-workers-seek-coordinate-nationally https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/labor-uni... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graduate_student_employee_unions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graduate_student_emplo... Highly educated people (and I'm including more than terminal degree holders) may be more reluctant to join unions out of a misplaced sense of self-sufficiency and pride, or a perceived association with "class issues", despite constant pressure and complaints about their individual compensation.
forgotmyinfo 3y ago
Ah yes, as everyone knows, "having a trillion dollars" is famously no match for "being able to code".
- constantcrying 3y ago
  Yes. No trillion dollar company can tell me to work for them. If they want to employee me I have all of the bargaining power I could possibly have.
fakedang 3y ago
Funnily enough, even if they don't call it explicitly, some of the highest paying professions in the world - consulting, finance, law, medicine - all have pseudo-unionized structures in place. The only difference being uniformity in pay, which is a feature I've mostly seen only in US unions.

rightbyte 3y ago

Lawers are unionized but just name it something else. Etc.

constantcrying 3y ago
I think our are taking about a professional organization. Those do not perform the same function unions do. The point of unions is to gain bargaining power against massive corporations. If you are self employed, part of a small company or easily replaceable (which is the case for most lawyers), because your professional is only a tiny part of the company a union does nothing for you. Professional associations exist for different reasons and have different goals.
jnwatson 3y ago
Lawyers essentially have a guild. They set up systems like the Bar to prevent outsiders from plying their trade. It has similar functions as a union but predates it by several centuries.

bwestergard 3y ago

At some point, higher individual compensation doesn't matter much if everyone else in your community is overworked and underpaid. I think many Dutch or French software developers are living better lives than developers in California, all things considered.

constantcrying 3y ago
>At some point, higher individual compensation doesn't matter much if everyone else in your community is overworked and underpaid. I think that totally depends on the individual and their circumstances. >I think many Dutch or French software developers are living better lives than developers in California, all things considered. European developers generally earn much less than Americans, especially after taxes you can get to a 2x difference with comparable cost of living depending on area. In generally wages in Europe are much more even, here in Germany you have a heavily bracketed income tax system, even significant increases in wage usually become much smaller if you consider the additional taxes.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  Developers the world over earn much less than Americans. It's why I've always told American developers to be careful what they wish for when it comes to remote work. But it might just be possible that there's more to life than money.
  - Rinzler89 3y ago
    >But it might just be possible that there's more to life than money. There is yes, but a house is still paid in money.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - rsdfdfdfdf 3y ago
      Housing is universally messed up everywhere in Western world, no matter salaries. Where the salaries are higher, houses prices are accordingly higher as well. Only places where housing is affordable are the ones with no jobs. Good for remote workers, but not much else.
      - Rinzler89 3y ago
        >Housing is universally messed up everywhere in Western world, no matter salaries. Not to the same scale though. IN Europe and especially Canada housing is way more expensive to buy than in the US relative to local wages. Americans forget how good the4y have it.
harimau777 3y ago
This is definitely the case for me. The number one thing bringing down my quality of life is that my friends don't have time/money to do things and I'm worried about their physical, mental, and financial health.
willcipriano 3y ago
All individual compensation is a delta over what a low skill worker would get. Pay fast food workers 80k a year and software engineers would start at 300k.
- constantcrying 3y ago
  Also known as inflation.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    No. Independent from that. Jobs that require more skill or jobs that are more difficult have to offer more to get people to work for them. Raise the bar at the bottom and all wages will go up, otherwise workers will "demote" themselves. This is a distinct effect from prices raising and workers asking higher wages to counteract inflation (if they could do that why aren't they?).
    - avvvv 3y ago
      Then everyone gets to benefit, no? All developing nations have far lower wages than the west, but that's often offset by lower living costs. But try to buy something out of the international market and you'll quickly feel envy. If there is an issue with higher wages then I don't see it
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Nobody would benefit because if fast food workers start at 80k, then a basic hamburger would start at $20. And an iPhone pro would start at $2000.
        CapstanRoller 3y ago
        Your argument doesn't match reality. We don't need hypotheticals here: McDonalds workers in EU countries earn significantly more than their US counterparts, yet a Big Mac costs the same of just a few pennies more.

bluefirebrand 3y ago

Someone would have to be incredibly full of themselves to think they have more bargaining power than an entire union would. Unless you are literally one of a kind, there's always someone out there who could replace you. Replacing all of the workers that an entire union represents is a way more difficult proposition

constantcrying 3y ago
The overall bargaining power is greater, sure. But the relative power isn't. They can always just leave and work somewhere else, a union literally does not have that option. As an individual it is far easier to negotiate of you have an in demand skill. Which is obvious if you look at the study in the OP. College educated people benefit far less from unionization, they can negotiate for their own.
- nickburns 3y ago
  spoken like a fairly recent grad. an ambitious young person's perspective. you will eventually learn that you are beyond expendable in this world, despite how 'skilled' or adept at 'negotiating' you believe yourself to be (or actually are for that matter). we all are. what you fail to see yet is that you are not more skilled nor more adept than 'The Man.' and you're characterizing yourself as being anything 'more' than non-'college educated people' is simply successful divide-and-conquer—a power struggle strategy immemorial.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    What people fail to realize is that the leadership systems of Corporations: Boards of Directors, Executives, Management and HR are all effectively organized against them, to make sure the business gets what it wants as much as possible When you ask your manager for a raise, they might be your biggest fan and want you to get that raise, but there is a whole system that is going to resist it, because paying you less is better for the company. You're not bargaining with a person you're bargaining with a system. And the system is built in such a way that it is incredibly difficult to persuade at an individual level Workers can benefit from having their own system inside of the larger corporate system that is working for them, instead of this every man for themselves stuff

avvvv 3y ago

That's very deluded and short-sighted. More often than not, investors and shareholders hold more weight in large companies than whatever you can bring to the table. Not to mention skills that are rare often don't have huge markets, otherwise there'd be colleges teaching it in a degree and it'd be no more rarer than other skills, don't you think?

edmundsauto 3y ago

I don’t think this is true - the development of the baseball players union in the 1970s is a quite strong counterpoint. I’d be interested how you think about that?

washadjeffmad 3y ago

Let's map that opinion to higher ed, where we can agree there's a high concentration of education: https://www.aaup.org/programs/collective-bargaining https://www.aaup.org/programs/collective-bargaining https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/labor-unionization/2024/03/26/higher-ed-workers-seek-coordinate-nationally https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/labor-uni... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graduate_student_employee_unions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graduate_student_emplo... Highly educated people (and I'm including more than terminal degree holders) may be more reluctant to join unions out of a misplaced sense of self-sufficiency and pride, or a perceived association with "class issues", despite constant pressure and complaints about their individual compensation.

forgotmyinfo 3y ago

Ah yes, as everyone knows, "having a trillion dollars" is famously no match for "being able to code".

constantcrying 3y ago
Yes. No trillion dollar company can tell me to work for them. If they want to employee me I have all of the bargaining power I could possibly have.

fakedang 3y ago

Funnily enough, even if they don't call it explicitly, some of the highest paying professions in the world - consulting, finance, law, medicine - all have pseudo-unionized structures in place. The only difference being uniformity in pay, which is a feature I've mostly seen only in US unions.