4 ms·

I don't necessarily like unions but I struggle to come up with something better. Unions are the worst form of labor organizing except for all the others.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>but I struggle to come up with something better Regulation to properly make sure wages scale to be a living wage, and a proper safety net for those who lose jobs, including retraining support. Or even just capping executive pay based on the lowest wages of the labor they pay. But I live in fairy tales. Unions are indeed the best of the worst.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Most of the negotiated terms in union contracts aren't pay which makes me think mandating pay isn't a silver bullet.
- morkalork 2y ago
  There's also the case of public sector where unions are needed because the government making the regulations is also the employer so there's a conflict of interest going on.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > just capping executive pay based on the lowest wages of the labor they pay. I really don’t see a problem with this, executives are employees too. Make their incentives align
  - chgs 2y ago
    Lowest paid employees get outsourced. We already see it in most companies - they buy in cleaning services rather than employing the cleaners for example.
    - Aerroon 2y ago
      Furthermore, CEO responsibility will not be scaled if their pay is capped. People keep citing the "CEOs earn X times more than they used to", but they conveniently leave out the this only applies to a tiny fraction of companies and that these companies have scaled up by a very large amount. Walmart has 2.1 million employees. No company 50 years ago had anywhere near that many employees. The comparisons don't really hold up, which is why they don't use metrics about all companies.
      - RHSeeger 2y ago
        CEO work/responsibility doesn't really scale up with company size, though. Sure, they're "responsible" for more people; but it's really the people that work for them that are responsible, and the people that work for them. Scaling up the size of a company generally adds more layers; it doesn't add more work for any individual at a layer. Admittedly, that doesn't really hold true for the initial "small company to large company" growth, but that's not really what we're talking about; and _that_ hasn't really changed at all in a long time.
      - chgs 2y ago
        Is the risk for a ceo of a billion dollar company 10 times that of a 100m dollar company? Or 10 times lesss than a 10b company? Are they personally accountable?
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Yeah, that's the biggest and most obvious loophole that came to mind with the idea. The ideal view is "well that's another probably million dollar company and they are subject to the same rules", but it feels like a game of Matryoshka. How many layers of outsourcing to we get to before the next doll is unsustainable? I think at the very least a company should be taxed for contracting a service they are able to pay for in-house. But there's a lot of factors to consider.
      - throwaway48476 2y ago
        You're 15 years late. https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ
roenxi 2y ago
I dunno, that seems like a pretty easy challenge to overcome. Workers should be trying to invest in capital too. We've had centuries of experience now, we know that capital tends to win vs labour and the answer to that is that everyone should be trying to sign up as a capitalist. If the workers had banded together and put their efforts into creating a path to become part-owners of the businesses they worked in (and taken on some of the risk involved in that) they'd have made real progress over the last however long. Instead they put their efforts into fighting for wage raises and have basically achieved nothing except, as showcased today, big demonstrations about how they are making everyone worse off. There are countless models of how workers could be better off that the unions have not explored. They're horrible institutions that strategically lock workers in to being the losing side of a conflict that didn't need to be fought in the first place.
- tech_ken 2y ago
  > If the workers had banded together and put their efforts into creating a path to become part-owners of the businesses they worked in (and taken on some of the risk involved in that) they'd have made real progress over the last however long. Instead they put their efforts into fighting for wage raises and have basically achieved nothing... Unless that part-ownership comes with actual control over the workplace it's a worse deal than the wage increases (which you can just re-invest in a more diverse portfolio anyways, if all you're after is the type of financial gains typically seen through investment). Stockholder-employees are in double jeopardy, since they can lose both savings and income if the company takes a tumble. This is even more perilous for the typical wage worker, who is way closer to the bone than your typical big capital investor. To make this level of risk worth it you need (a lot) more than 1-share=1-vote, which is usually how part-ownership works in the US, otherwise you're going to get clowned by the 51% as soon as the chips are down. Here's an example of what happens to workers in the US who've pursued this model: https://labornotes.org/2009/05/employee-stock-ownership-not-control https://labornotes.org/2009/05/employee-stock-ownership-not-... I would point to Germany as a place where this is done way better, but importantly there are regulations in place that force management to cede a big chunk of tangible power to labor unions (and even non-union workers): https://blog.dol.gov/2024/09/18/labor-management-cooperation-in-germany#:~:text=German%20law%20not%20only%20enforces,how%20these%20companies%20are%20run%20 https://blog.dol.gov/2024/09/18/labor-management-cooperation.... Co-ownership is definitely viable IMO, but it needs to paired with legitimate co-management to succeed, otherwise workers are just taking on way more risk than they can reasonably survive, and without any assurances that someone is actually looking out for their interests when times get lean.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>but I struggle to come up with something better Regulation to properly make sure wages scale to be a living wage, and a proper safety net for those who lose jobs, including retraining support. Or even just capping executive pay based on the lowest wages of the labor they pay. But I live in fairy tales. Unions are indeed the best of the worst.

throwaway48476 2y ago
Most of the negotiated terms in union contracts aren't pay which makes me think mandating pay isn't a silver bullet.
morkalork 2y ago
There's also the case of public sector where unions are needed because the government making the regulations is also the employer so there's a conflict of interest going on.
ClumsyPilot 2y ago
> just capping executive pay based on the lowest wages of the labor they pay. I really don’t see a problem with this, executives are employees too. Make their incentives align
- chgs 2y ago
  Lowest paid employees get outsourced. We already see it in most companies - they buy in cleaning services rather than employing the cleaners for example.
  - Aerroon 2y ago
    Furthermore, CEO responsibility will not be scaled if their pay is capped. People keep citing the "CEOs earn X times more than they used to", but they conveniently leave out the this only applies to a tiny fraction of companies and that these companies have scaled up by a very large amount. Walmart has 2.1 million employees. No company 50 years ago had anywhere near that many employees. The comparisons don't really hold up, which is why they don't use metrics about all companies.
    - RHSeeger 2y ago
      CEO work/responsibility doesn't really scale up with company size, though. Sure, they're "responsible" for more people; but it's really the people that work for them that are responsible, and the people that work for them. Scaling up the size of a company generally adds more layers; it doesn't add more work for any individual at a layer. Admittedly, that doesn't really hold true for the initial "small company to large company" growth, but that's not really what we're talking about; and _that_ hasn't really changed at all in a long time.
    - chgs 2y ago
      Is the risk for a ceo of a billion dollar company 10 times that of a 100m dollar company? Or 10 times lesss than a 10b company? Are they personally accountable?
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Yeah, that's the biggest and most obvious loophole that came to mind with the idea. The ideal view is "well that's another probably million dollar company and they are subject to the same rules", but it feels like a game of Matryoshka. How many layers of outsourcing to we get to before the next doll is unsustainable? I think at the very least a company should be taxed for contracting a service they are able to pay for in-house. But there's a lot of factors to consider.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      You're 15 years late. https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ

roenxi 2y ago

I dunno, that seems like a pretty easy challenge to overcome. Workers should be trying to invest in capital too. We've had centuries of experience now, we know that capital tends to win vs labour and the answer to that is that everyone should be trying to sign up as a capitalist. If the workers had banded together and put their efforts into creating a path to become part-owners of the businesses they worked in (and taken on some of the risk involved in that) they'd have made real progress over the last however long. Instead they put their efforts into fighting for wage raises and have basically achieved nothing except, as showcased today, big demonstrations about how they are making everyone worse off. There are countless models of how workers could be better off that the unions have not explored. They're horrible institutions that strategically lock workers in to being the losing side of a conflict that didn't need to be fought in the first place.

tech_ken 2y ago
> If the workers had banded together and put their efforts into creating a path to become part-owners of the businesses they worked in (and taken on some of the risk involved in that) they'd have made real progress over the last however long. Instead they put their efforts into fighting for wage raises and have basically achieved nothing... Unless that part-ownership comes with actual control over the workplace it's a worse deal than the wage increases (which you can just re-invest in a more diverse portfolio anyways, if all you're after is the type of financial gains typically seen through investment). Stockholder-employees are in double jeopardy, since they can lose both savings and income if the company takes a tumble. This is even more perilous for the typical wage worker, who is way closer to the bone than your typical big capital investor. To make this level of risk worth it you need (a lot) more than 1-share=1-vote, which is usually how part-ownership works in the US, otherwise you're going to get clowned by the 51% as soon as the chips are down. Here's an example of what happens to workers in the US who've pursued this model: https://labornotes.org/2009/05/employee-stock-ownership-not-control https://labornotes.org/2009/05/employee-stock-ownership-not-... I would point to Germany as a place where this is done way better, but importantly there are regulations in place that force management to cede a big chunk of tangible power to labor unions (and even non-union workers): https://blog.dol.gov/2024/09/18/labor-management-cooperation-in-germany#:~:text=German%20law%20not%20only%20enforces,how%20these%20companies%20are%20run%20 https://blog.dol.gov/2024/09/18/labor-management-cooperation.... Co-ownership is definitely viable IMO, but it needs to paired with legitimate co-management to succeed, otherwise workers are just taking on way more risk than they can reasonably survive, and without any assurances that someone is actually looking out for their interests when times get lean.