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My hard and fast rule in america is that everything aside from unions do not work in the interest of the people. The sooner this is taught to our kids, the bett

My hard and fast rule in america is that everything aside from unions do not work in the interest of the people. The sooner this is taught to our kids, the better off they'll be from being indoctrinated from the trash on instagram/tiktok.

aardvarkr 2y ago
That’s… honestly not a bad take. If we’re not paying for it then we’re the product, not the customer. Need to clarify that unions aren’t for ALL PEOPLE, just the people who pay for them
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
newshackr 2y ago
Unions also don't always work in the interest of everyone they represent. For instance, they tend to be protective of older and longer working members in exchange for limiting upward mobility of younger members. Or building policies that encourage the growth of the union as an organization, despite potential costs.
- CSSer 2y ago
  It’s true. My first job was as a cashier at Kroger. I remember looking at the pay tables and being shocked. You could make impressive money as a cashier at Kroger… if you worked there for 30 years. Virtually no one I worked with had even worked there for more than a few years either. Meanwhile, I earned just above the federal minimum wage and multiple hours of my weekly earnings went to little more than protecting my “right” to “no-call, no-show” for six straight days in a row before being fired. I never did this. It seemed unfair. Others did and I had to work that much harder on those days. One day a union rep stopped by. He was very well-dressed, and he had this beaming smile. He gave me a t-shirt. That pretty much summed up the benefits I experienced. I remain pro-union, but every time the subject comes up I think there’s a lot more nuance there than people would like to admit. My Dad, for example, has worked at a union job for over 30 years. Ironically, he’s a Republican. He makes decent money now, but the job is very labor intensive, and the healthcare sucks. He’s repeatedly turned down a promotion into management because he’d be out of the union and earning a salary that is not that much higher than what he currently earns per hour. He’s also told me repeatedly that kids just don’t want to work anymore because the turnover rate is high. Many starting out, especially those with dependents, complain that it’s not worth it for what they earn. He holds that although it’s not great it’s enough. Recently, in an attempt to persuade him to take a promotion, he learned that the healthcare plans offered to management are 2-3x cheaper for better benefits than what the union has negotiated. It’s been pretty crazy to watch his opinion slowly begin to shift.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    He is staying in for protection. The extra money doesn't make up for having your experience count as added protection (they can't fire him, they can reduce those jobs and employees with more service time will keep the job first). If a company can fire quickly and replace with cheaper options no one is going to last more than a few years. Many software shops do this (meta, Amazon, generic local company, etc. I share your experiences working in a union environment when younger and having family have live long jobs. In one case I felt the union was against me or my class of worker (student employee) because we took away from regular union jobs. Still had to pay dues. The other union job just took a few dollars from my paycheck but gave me a wage I couldn't earn elsewhere.
- crmd 2y ago
  When you become an older worker, and experience firsthand the vulnerability of seniority, you realize why your union was always so protective of older workers. I would think many tech workers over ~35 can relate.
- akira2501 2y ago
  The fundamental idea of most unions seems to be, that once labor recognizes that it is working for a monopoly, instead of working to break up that monopoly, they decide to form one of their own in order to gain some power of negotiation with their employer. Typically to the detriment of the consumer market and the labor market. For new entrants into the labor market, as you've flagged, now they have to successfully negotiate between two overly large entities with predictably unfortunate results. Labor is best served as a competitive market and unions should only be used in the few limited circumstances where they are otherwise unavoidable.
swatcoder 2y ago
The more complete and histocally evidenced rule is that all institutions eventually just work to continue and/or expand their existence in itself. They can get founded in the genuine interests of some cause (and often are), but each transition in leadership tends to find itself more professionalized in some way and more divorced from the founding cause, with process (and/or corruption) becoming their effective mandate instead. Unions, sadly, have shown no exception, which is what allowed public opinion to eventually swing against the post-war batch of them. We could use some fresh unions in many industries for sure, but there's no truth in putting them on a pedestal. They're prone to devolve and corrupt just like everything else, and there are people who still carry the experience of having seen them do so.
- zoidb 2y ago
  "First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. " It's the Iron Law of Bureaucracy https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
  - 7thaccount 2y ago
    I found this revelatory at one point in my career, but this shouldn't have been a surprise as the administrators literally control all promotions and will thus turn the organization into one that serves the managerial class over actual technical ability and knowledge. As a technical worker, your best option is to try to become extremely valuable and make it known that your continued employment is predicated upon promotions when they should be due. For example, if senior engineer is available at 5 years and you're working your butt off, you need to make it known that you're expecting it or they may just push it out to 6 years if they think they won't lose you. If you're really good at your job and it would be difficult to replace you and put your manager behind schedule, they'll be incentivized to take care of you. It's all a game. On the flip side... don't try this if they're trying to get rid of you. Be prepared to walk away if you can if they're not taking care of you. Another thing I learned is that if you want to join management, you have to pretty much stop acting technical. They usually don't like adding technical staff to management as 1.) it may make them look incompetent, 2.) you provide more value to the company doing technical work at a lower salary, and 3.) it shows you might actually not be a good fit for that kind of work, although this isn't necessarily true.
hawkice 2y ago
Unions aren't acting in the interest of the people generically, often not even the members of the union. Otherwise they wouldn't go to court to force people who don't even want to be in the union to pay dues, even when the dues go to political campaigns unrelated to the purpose of the union, as in Janus v. AFSCME (where the support for political causes by the union meant it violated public sector workers freedom of speech if they are compelling fees from non-members, a relatively narrow ruling not impacting most unions).
- elicash 2y ago
  I strongly disagree with you about Janus. The point of that decision by a right-wing court was to make it harder for public sector workers to stand together in unions. Unions are democratic institutions, with dues and leadership decided by the membership, and the idea that some people pay and some don't even though the entire unit is represented doesn't make a ton of sense. Just like it wouldn't make sense if 2 people in a unit of 1000 wanted to be in a particular union to just say those 2 can bargain collectively. The weird "speech" argument was basically that their worksite issues are inherently political. I disagree. Unions have separate political funds from the worksite stuff that are optional.
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    > public sector workers A group for whom even FDR, the great co-opter of unions, had to pretend to be opposed to unionization. Seriously, civil service protections are there for you and don't apply to private-sector employees. But you claim the right to strike against your fellow citizens and deprive them of government services? This isn't Andrew Carnegie; it's your fellow citizens.
    - elicash 2y ago
      1. I’m not a public sector worker, weird assumption. 2. I advocate for private sector to unionize as well. I’m not the one who brought up Janus/private sector. 3. You’re telling me people with important jobs (private or public) shouldn’t be able to strike to improve the very services we all depend on? Hospital workers striking for better patient ratios? Teachers for their students? Taking away those freedoms is wrong and dangerous.
goto11 2y ago
There is no "the interest of the people". There are lots of different people with different and often conflicting interests.
hn_version_0023 2y ago
There’s a movie clip I’ve seen with Brad Pitt of all people, explaining how America isn’t a nation, it’s a business. A business you don’t own and can’t escape. And you’re on your own. Something to that effect anyway. I’d love to know the movie or show! Its such a perfect example of a truth we all know but that never gets spoken aloud. The Founding Fathers would be deeply ashamed of us, I think.
- 7speter 2y ago
  >The Founding Fathers would be deeply ashamed of us, I think. Sorry, but the founding fathers who held other humans in bondage for all sorts of free labor? Those founding fathers, or did I wake up in a parallel universe this morning? Let me check wikipedia…
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    > the founding fathers who held other humans in bondage for all sorts of free labor Actually, slavery was a bitter dividing line among the founders of the USA. It is intellectually lazy to ascribe slavery to all of the founders of the USA. It also insults those who were vocally and politically against slavery, from the very earliest days. You can find many examples with any effort at all.
    - sapphicsnail 2y ago
      Almost all of the founding fathers either owned slaves or weren't willing to stick their necks out to stop it. We absolutely should question their judgement.
      - mistrial9 2y ago
        less than ten seconds of research: $googlesearch "how many signers of the US Constitution were slave owners?" 25 Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, about 25 owned slaves. Many of the framers harbored moral qualms about slavery. Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery
citizen_friend 2y ago
What property do unions possess that makes them different?
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  The standard rhetorical sleight of hand that is standard any time "the people" are cited. To be fair unions are slightly better than most users in that department as they have actual votes.
rpmisms 2y ago
Unions work in their own favor, not necessarily the workers'. That's the real rule: everything tries to benefit itself.
yongjik 2y ago
I'm not sure why you're complaining about instagram/tiktok, because "everything aside from unions do not work in the interest of the people" is the kind of facile, black-and-white statement that is perfectly suited for the modern ragebait industry.

aardvarkr 2y ago

That’s… honestly not a bad take. If we’re not paying for it then we’re the product, not the customer. Need to clarify that unions aren’t for ALL PEOPLE, just the people who pay for them

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

newshackr 2y ago

Unions also don't always work in the interest of everyone they represent. For instance, they tend to be protective of older and longer working members in exchange for limiting upward mobility of younger members. Or building policies that encourage the growth of the union as an organization, despite potential costs.

CSSer 2y ago
It’s true. My first job was as a cashier at Kroger. I remember looking at the pay tables and being shocked. You could make impressive money as a cashier at Kroger… if you worked there for 30 years. Virtually no one I worked with had even worked there for more than a few years either. Meanwhile, I earned just above the federal minimum wage and multiple hours of my weekly earnings went to little more than protecting my “right” to “no-call, no-show” for six straight days in a row before being fired. I never did this. It seemed unfair. Others did and I had to work that much harder on those days. One day a union rep stopped by. He was very well-dressed, and he had this beaming smile. He gave me a t-shirt. That pretty much summed up the benefits I experienced. I remain pro-union, but every time the subject comes up I think there’s a lot more nuance there than people would like to admit. My Dad, for example, has worked at a union job for over 30 years. Ironically, he’s a Republican. He makes decent money now, but the job is very labor intensive, and the healthcare sucks. He’s repeatedly turned down a promotion into management because he’d be out of the union and earning a salary that is not that much higher than what he currently earns per hour. He’s also told me repeatedly that kids just don’t want to work anymore because the turnover rate is high. Many starting out, especially those with dependents, complain that it’s not worth it for what they earn. He holds that although it’s not great it’s enough. Recently, in an attempt to persuade him to take a promotion, he learned that the healthcare plans offered to management are 2-3x cheaper for better benefits than what the union has negotiated. It’s been pretty crazy to watch his opinion slowly begin to shift.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  He is staying in for protection. The extra money doesn't make up for having your experience count as added protection (they can't fire him, they can reduce those jobs and employees with more service time will keep the job first). If a company can fire quickly and replace with cheaper options no one is going to last more than a few years. Many software shops do this (meta, Amazon, generic local company, etc. I share your experiences working in a union environment when younger and having family have live long jobs. In one case I felt the union was against me or my class of worker (student employee) because we took away from regular union jobs. Still had to pay dues. The other union job just took a few dollars from my paycheck but gave me a wage I couldn't earn elsewhere.
crmd 2y ago
When you become an older worker, and experience firsthand the vulnerability of seniority, you realize why your union was always so protective of older workers. I would think many tech workers over ~35 can relate.
akira2501 2y ago
The fundamental idea of most unions seems to be, that once labor recognizes that it is working for a monopoly, instead of working to break up that monopoly, they decide to form one of their own in order to gain some power of negotiation with their employer. Typically to the detriment of the consumer market and the labor market. For new entrants into the labor market, as you've flagged, now they have to successfully negotiate between two overly large entities with predictably unfortunate results. Labor is best served as a competitive market and unions should only be used in the few limited circumstances where they are otherwise unavoidable.

swatcoder 2y ago

The more complete and histocally evidenced rule is that all institutions eventually just work to continue and/or expand their existence in itself. They can get founded in the genuine interests of some cause (and often are), but each transition in leadership tends to find itself more professionalized in some way and more divorced from the founding cause, with process (and/or corruption) becoming their effective mandate instead. Unions, sadly, have shown no exception, which is what allowed public opinion to eventually swing against the post-war batch of them. We could use some fresh unions in many industries for sure, but there's no truth in putting them on a pedestal. They're prone to devolve and corrupt just like everything else, and there are people who still carry the experience of having seen them do so.

zoidb 2y ago
"First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. " It's the Iron Law of Bureaucracy https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
- 7thaccount 2y ago
  I found this revelatory at one point in my career, but this shouldn't have been a surprise as the administrators literally control all promotions and will thus turn the organization into one that serves the managerial class over actual technical ability and knowledge. As a technical worker, your best option is to try to become extremely valuable and make it known that your continued employment is predicated upon promotions when they should be due. For example, if senior engineer is available at 5 years and you're working your butt off, you need to make it known that you're expecting it or they may just push it out to 6 years if they think they won't lose you. If you're really good at your job and it would be difficult to replace you and put your manager behind schedule, they'll be incentivized to take care of you. It's all a game. On the flip side... don't try this if they're trying to get rid of you. Be prepared to walk away if you can if they're not taking care of you. Another thing I learned is that if you want to join management, you have to pretty much stop acting technical. They usually don't like adding technical staff to management as 1.) it may make them look incompetent, 2.) you provide more value to the company doing technical work at a lower salary, and 3.) it shows you might actually not be a good fit for that kind of work, although this isn't necessarily true.

hawkice 2y ago

Unions aren't acting in the interest of the people generically, often not even the members of the union. Otherwise they wouldn't go to court to force people who don't even want to be in the union to pay dues, even when the dues go to political campaigns unrelated to the purpose of the union, as in Janus v. AFSCME (where the support for political causes by the union meant it violated public sector workers freedom of speech if they are compelling fees from non-members, a relatively narrow ruling not impacting most unions).

elicash 2y ago
I strongly disagree with you about Janus. The point of that decision by a right-wing court was to make it harder for public sector workers to stand together in unions. Unions are democratic institutions, with dues and leadership decided by the membership, and the idea that some people pay and some don't even though the entire unit is represented doesn't make a ton of sense. Just like it wouldn't make sense if 2 people in a unit of 1000 wanted to be in a particular union to just say those 2 can bargain collectively. The weird "speech" argument was basically that their worksite issues are inherently political. I disagree. Unions have separate political funds from the worksite stuff that are optional.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  > public sector workers A group for whom even FDR, the great co-opter of unions, had to pretend to be opposed to unionization. Seriously, civil service protections are there for you and don't apply to private-sector employees. But you claim the right to strike against your fellow citizens and deprive them of government services? This isn't Andrew Carnegie; it's your fellow citizens.
  - elicash 2y ago
    1. I’m not a public sector worker, weird assumption. 2. I advocate for private sector to unionize as well. I’m not the one who brought up Janus/private sector. 3. You’re telling me people with important jobs (private or public) shouldn’t be able to strike to improve the very services we all depend on? Hospital workers striking for better patient ratios? Teachers for their students? Taking away those freedoms is wrong and dangerous.

goto11 2y ago

There is no "the interest of the people". There are lots of different people with different and often conflicting interests.

hn_version_0023 2y ago

There’s a movie clip I’ve seen with Brad Pitt of all people, explaining how America isn’t a nation, it’s a business. A business you don’t own and can’t escape. And you’re on your own. Something to that effect anyway. I’d love to know the movie or show! Its such a perfect example of a truth we all know but that never gets spoken aloud. The Founding Fathers would be deeply ashamed of us, I think.

7speter 2y ago
>The Founding Fathers would be deeply ashamed of us, I think. Sorry, but the founding fathers who held other humans in bondage for all sorts of free labor? Those founding fathers, or did I wake up in a parallel universe this morning? Let me check wikipedia…
- mistrial9 2y ago
  > the founding fathers who held other humans in bondage for all sorts of free labor Actually, slavery was a bitter dividing line among the founders of the USA. It is intellectually lazy to ascribe slavery to all of the founders of the USA. It also insults those who were vocally and politically against slavery, from the very earliest days. You can find many examples with any effort at all.
  - sapphicsnail 2y ago
    Almost all of the founding fathers either owned slaves or weren't willing to stick their necks out to stop it. We absolutely should question their judgement.
    - mistrial9 2y ago
      less than ten seconds of research: $googlesearch "how many signers of the US Constitution were slave owners?" 25 Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, about 25 owned slaves. Many of the framers harbored moral qualms about slavery. Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery

citizen_friend 2y ago

What property do unions possess that makes them different?

Nasrudith 2y ago
The standard rhetorical sleight of hand that is standard any time "the people" are cited. To be fair unions are slightly better than most users in that department as they have actual votes.

rpmisms 2y ago

Unions work in their own favor, not necessarily the workers'. That's the real rule: everything tries to benefit itself.

yongjik 2y ago

I'm not sure why you're complaining about instagram/tiktok, because "everything aside from unions do not work in the interest of the people" is the kind of facile, black-and-white statement that is perfectly suited for the modern ragebait industry.