7 ms·

Defeat for the company or defeat for shareholders? These things are not the same.

Y-bar 2y ago
Depends on if you are a shareholder for the long terms (many years) or a short-term trader. I don't own stock in Boeing (or any of their main competitors), but when there is a strike like this in a company I hold stock in I generally get more bullish for the long term because it means that: 1. It signals employees still care about the company enough to not just quit and go elsewhere. And employees who care make a better product. 2. Negotiating better benefits generally helps retain the solid "middle class" who make the brunt of the work in a company. It might not entice the "rock-stars" or so, but they generally are not dis-incentivised by their colleagues getting better benefits either. 3. The C-suite gets to know they are not untouchable, this also helps keep them level when answering to the board of directors.
- csomar 2y ago
  [dead]
  - immibis 2y ago
    How do you measure a company's "health"?
  - notrealyme123 2y ago
    Such a black and white view of things. But for simplicity, remind me again who does the work, and who cheaps out on plane parts to drive up revenue?
  - photonthug 2y ago
    > There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. Since unions helped to end practices like child labor and what amounted to indentured service, I’m not sure you know what “tragic” or “long term” means. If what you mean is more like “what have they done for us lately”, you should probably just say it and start that conversation instead
    - radu_floricica 2y ago
      That's taking something that happened about a century ago and using it as an argument for the current situation. If you're looking for something much closer to home, look at how in the past half century unionized corporations were forced to take over pensions, and how they're doing now because of this. Pensions are a financial product, which should be paid for by each employee - quite likely with supervision and safety net from the state. Putting it on the employer's tab turned out to be more or less giving away the future of the company. And that's pretty much 100% on the unions.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        The alternative view is that, left to themselves, people don't save enough for retirement and, for better or worse, social security in the US really isn't enough for a comfortable retirement. That said, there are a lot of reasons why traditional defined benefit pensions aren't a good match for a lot of jobs today. I have one (for a non-union job) but it's mostly a positive because I'm sure I never gave it a second thought early career when I was earning into it.
        animal_spirits 2y ago
        This is patronizing and broadly not true for a majority of people. This myth was created during the Great Depression to sell Social Security. Some people do not save for their retirement, but vastly most of us do. Should I be forced to pay for those who waste their money on entertainment and high living?
        ghaff 2y ago
        One of the reasons it's broadly not true in the US is that, between social security and medicare, people are provided for at some level upon retirement based in no small part on their own contributions. I paid into both those pools so I'm not sure why you think that money (along with other savings) constitutes being "forced to pay for those who waste their money on entertainment and high living."
      - 2y ago
  - atoav 2y ago
    I live in Hamburg, Germany and there is a major Airbus-site nearby. By US standards these employees basically live under "socialism" and their union definitly did not hurt them in comparison to Boeing. Quite the contrary, certain safety violations wouldn't even remotely happen here, as the employees cannot be pressured into accepting them as easily. You know, when your boss can fire you with the snip of a finger and potentially your health care is on the line, it takes a special kind of guts to still do the right thing. Unions can can be bad if abused by powerhungy people, but the same is true for literally every other organization.
  - IntelMiner 2y ago
    >There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. For investors, it's both the short and long term that's f*ked. This is the most blatant disregard for or lack of understanding of labor history I have seen in a while
    - dmvdoug 2y ago
      Welcome to HN!
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    > This is delusional. Unions are generally bad for companies and almost always bad for shareholders. And? It's not the union's job to be good for companies or shareholders, it's their job to be good for workers. > Unions are rarely interested in the "health" of the company itself but rather in their control (which is at conflict with shareholder control) and their compensation (again, eating from shareholder compensation). Yes, and? You say this like it's a bad thing. > Unions also use aggressive measures (strikes, shutdowns, etc...) rather than negotiations. When you/workers are only used for their labour, withholding labour may be the only bargaining chip you have. Why not use said chip? Or perhaps companies can treat their workers well so that they don't feel compelled to form unions. There are a number of auto plants in southern Ontario, and most are union shops, except Toyota's: the CAW has been trying to organize for many years, but the workers always vote "no". Seems like Toyota treats them well that the workers don't need organization 'against' the company. Perhaps other companies can learn a lesson from that.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    Sure, but companies and shareholders are the most destructive forces on earth. I have a hard time seeing investor tears as anything but a glimmer of hope.
  - windexh8er 2y ago
    And we found the Jack Welch understudy comment here. The only thing that's delusional is how backwards this comment is with respect to the customer. While, yes, Boeing has different buyers than most organizations we can see things like tertiary customers being affected by Boeing's "health" in terms of the quality of it's products. And by that I mean the 737 MAX scandal. Shareholders shouldn't be afforded to drive the direction of the company, even though they have tools like voting rights. The purpose of a shareholder is that they provide capital because they trust Boeing will make great products that sell and potentially profit from. What a shareholder shouldn't be is someone who gets to tell Boeing to cut quality to artificially inflate the stock price. The shareholder doesn't matter in the case of Boeing employees and if it does then Boeing is not a company you should want to buy products from. Unions are interested in protecting employees from greed, in its simplest definition. Boeing, as we know at this point in time, has put short term profits well above both its employees and its products. Yet your delusion is that not having a union will somehow fix both? Amazing stretch of reasoning there.
    - anticensor 2y ago
      > Shareholders shouldn't be afforded to drive the direction of the company Unless they participate in said work themselves...
  - idiotsecant 2y ago
    Lol literally every point in this post completely dismisses the interest of the majority of people in our system, the workers. I'm very sorry if the capital class ends up with a temporary haircut so that workers can have safe, sane, and respectful conditions.
  - Cheer2171 2y ago
    Sure buddy, can't have pensions, how else would Boeing afford $43 billion in stock buybacks?
  - jjulius 2y ago
    >Unions also use aggressive measures rather than negotiations. Unions start with negotiations and move to strikes if those don't work. Literally what happened here. >There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. Do you have any proof to cite here, eg stats showing success rates of all unionized businesses? Boeing, much of Kroger, and a ton of other industries/companies have long used union labor without "tragic" results. >For investors, it's both the short and long term that's f-ked. I'm not gonna feel bad about the wealthy losing a bit of cash. >Source: Check the current Boeing union demands. Yeah, better wages, no forced overtime etc. - super shitty things to ask for. If you can't feel my eyes rolling right now, well...
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    > Source: Check the current Boeing union demands. Do you have a source for them? The only one on the article is that Boeing stops breaking the law.
mrdevlar 2y ago
It's a Washington Post article, owned by who? Who has what kind of relationship with labour?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Depends on if you are a shareholder for the long terms (many years) or a short-term trader. I don't own stock in Boeing (or any of their main competitors), but when there is a strike like this in a company I hold stock in I generally get more bullish for the long term because it means that: 1. It signals employees still care about the company enough to not just quit and go elsewhere. And employees who care make a better product. 2. Negotiating better benefits generally helps retain the solid "middle class" who make the brunt of the work in a company. It might not entice the "rock-stars" or so, but they generally are not dis-incentivised by their colleagues getting better benefits either. 3. The C-suite gets to know they are not untouchable, this also helps keep them level when answering to the board of directors.

csomar 2y ago
[dead]
- immibis 2y ago
  How do you measure a company's "health"?
- notrealyme123 2y ago
  Such a black and white view of things. But for simplicity, remind me again who does the work, and who cheaps out on plane parts to drive up revenue?
- photonthug 2y ago
  > There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. Since unions helped to end practices like child labor and what amounted to indentured service, I’m not sure you know what “tragic” or “long term” means. If what you mean is more like “what have they done for us lately”, you should probably just say it and start that conversation instead
  - radu_floricica 2y ago
    That's taking something that happened about a century ago and using it as an argument for the current situation. If you're looking for something much closer to home, look at how in the past half century unionized corporations were forced to take over pensions, and how they're doing now because of this. Pensions are a financial product, which should be paid for by each employee - quite likely with supervision and safety net from the state. Putting it on the employer's tab turned out to be more or less giving away the future of the company. And that's pretty much 100% on the unions.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      The alternative view is that, left to themselves, people don't save enough for retirement and, for better or worse, social security in the US really isn't enough for a comfortable retirement. That said, there are a lot of reasons why traditional defined benefit pensions aren't a good match for a lot of jobs today. I have one (for a non-union job) but it's mostly a positive because I'm sure I never gave it a second thought early career when I was earning into it.
      - animal_spirits 2y ago
        This is patronizing and broadly not true for a majority of people. This myth was created during the Great Depression to sell Social Security. Some people do not save for their retirement, but vastly most of us do. Should I be forced to pay for those who waste their money on entertainment and high living?
        ghaff 2y ago
        One of the reasons it's broadly not true in the US is that, between social security and medicare, people are provided for at some level upon retirement based in no small part on their own contributions. I paid into both those pools so I'm not sure why you think that money (along with other savings) constitutes being "forced to pay for those who waste their money on entertainment and high living."
    - 2y ago
- atoav 2y ago
  I live in Hamburg, Germany and there is a major Airbus-site nearby. By US standards these employees basically live under "socialism" and their union definitly did not hurt them in comparison to Boeing. Quite the contrary, certain safety violations wouldn't even remotely happen here, as the employees cannot be pressured into accepting them as easily. You know, when your boss can fire you with the snip of a finger and potentially your health care is on the line, it takes a special kind of guts to still do the right thing. Unions can can be bad if abused by powerhungy people, but the same is true for literally every other organization.
- IntelMiner 2y ago
  >There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. For investors, it's both the short and long term that's f*ked. This is the most blatant disregard for or lack of understanding of labor history I have seen in a while
  - dmvdoug 2y ago
    Welcome to HN!
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > This is delusional. Unions are generally bad for companies and almost always bad for shareholders. And? It's not the union's job to be good for companies or shareholders, it's their job to be good for workers. > Unions are rarely interested in the "health" of the company itself but rather in their control (which is at conflict with shareholder control) and their compensation (again, eating from shareholder compensation). Yes, and? You say this like it's a bad thing. > Unions also use aggressive measures (strikes, shutdowns, etc...) rather than negotiations. When you/workers are only used for their labour, withholding labour may be the only bargaining chip you have. Why not use said chip? Or perhaps companies can treat their workers well so that they don't feel compelled to form unions. There are a number of auto plants in southern Ontario, and most are union shops, except Toyota's: the CAW has been trying to organize for many years, but the workers always vote "no". Seems like Toyota treats them well that the workers don't need organization 'against' the company. Perhaps other companies can learn a lesson from that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- darby_nine 2y ago
  Sure, but companies and shareholders are the most destructive forces on earth. I have a hard time seeing investor tears as anything but a glimmer of hope.
- windexh8er 2y ago
  And we found the Jack Welch understudy comment here. The only thing that's delusional is how backwards this comment is with respect to the customer. While, yes, Boeing has different buyers than most organizations we can see things like tertiary customers being affected by Boeing's "health" in terms of the quality of it's products. And by that I mean the 737 MAX scandal. Shareholders shouldn't be afforded to drive the direction of the company, even though they have tools like voting rights. The purpose of a shareholder is that they provide capital because they trust Boeing will make great products that sell and potentially profit from. What a shareholder shouldn't be is someone who gets to tell Boeing to cut quality to artificially inflate the stock price. The shareholder doesn't matter in the case of Boeing employees and if it does then Boeing is not a company you should want to buy products from. Unions are interested in protecting employees from greed, in its simplest definition. Boeing, as we know at this point in time, has put short term profits well above both its employees and its products. Yet your delusion is that not having a union will somehow fix both? Amazing stretch of reasoning there.
  - anticensor 2y ago
    > Shareholders shouldn't be afforded to drive the direction of the company Unless they participate in said work themselves...
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  Lol literally every point in this post completely dismisses the interest of the majority of people in our system, the workers. I'm very sorry if the capital class ends up with a temporary haircut so that workers can have safe, sane, and respectful conditions.
- Cheer2171 2y ago
  Sure buddy, can't have pensions, how else would Boeing afford $43 billion in stock buybacks?
- jjulius 2y ago
  >Unions also use aggressive measures rather than negotiations. Unions start with negotiations and move to strikes if those don't work. Literally what happened here. >There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. Do you have any proof to cite here, eg stats showing success rates of all unionized businesses? Boeing, much of Kroger, and a ton of other industries/companies have long used union labor without "tragic" results. >For investors, it's both the short and long term that's f-ked. I'm not gonna feel bad about the wealthy losing a bit of cash. >Source: Check the current Boeing union demands. Yeah, better wages, no forced overtime etc. - super shitty things to ask for. If you can't feel my eyes rolling right now, well...
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  > Source: Check the current Boeing union demands. Do you have a source for them? The only one on the article is that Boeing stops breaking the law.

mrdevlar 2y ago

It's a Washington Post article, owned by who? Who has what kind of relationship with labour?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]