7 ms·

??? Customers won't give you, hapless employee, job security if your employers can easily replace you with someone cheaper because you have a flimsy (or no!) c

by kenko 14y ago

??? Customers won't give you, hapless employee, job security if your employers can easily replace you with someone cheaper because you have a flimsy (or no!) contract, nor will customers help you with disputes with management, or wrongful termination, or promotion from within, or even the too-little-emphasized increased potential for synergy between the ranks that unions afford, or any of the many other things that unions afford. Customers might help prevent a company going out of business, and that, to be sure, is good for job security. But a company that's flourishing customerwise can still have rapacious or simply bad management.

gxs 14y ago
Having customers is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.
saraid216 14y ago
I don't understand why you're being downvoted. I don't know what Welch said, but as it was characterized by the grandparent, Welch's statement is stupid, for exactly the reasons kenko explained.
briandear 14y ago
You shouldn't need a contract if you're adding value to the organization. If you can get replaced by someone cheaper, then you weren't worth what you were getting. Why the heck should a business pay more for the same outputs? If you're adding more value than you cost, your job is always safe. The union mentality is exactly the reason American manufacturing has left for cheaper pastures. Union employees aren't about adding value, they're about protecting their own ass rather that striving to find ways to add value to the organization. Business owners do not have an obligation to keep everyone employed, they have an obligation to make a profit, if there's no profit, then they won't be able to employ anyone for very long. Good employees are an asset to any company. You don't get "wrongfully" terminated if you are adding value of a company. I will never hire union labor ever. I would close down a business before I submitted to the extortion of unions. If I hire people, I treat them really well because they add value not because a contract says I must. Google employees aren't unionized -- Google understands that to attract the best talent you have to treat people well. Google employees don't need a union -- they know that if they're providing value, their jobs are very secure. It's the lower-skilled workers with chips on their shoulders that are the first to cry about needing a contract to "protect" their rights. Contracts protect the employees that strive to do the minimal possible under the terms of the contract. Unions have made employees interchangeable because you get paid based on your job title and seniority, not necessarily the value you bring to the organization. The big tragedy is that in union shops, when layoffs happen it's the junior guys that go first, even if they're better workers than the more senior. It's disgusting that years on the job mean more than actual job output. Unions had their place before OSHA came along, but now they are corrupt labor monopolies where the bosses get paid millions each year cronyism and corruption are the norm. If you don't like a company, you're free to quit, but in closed-shop states, if you don't like the union, too bad, you have to be a member (or pay the dues) if you want to be employed in that field in your state. Detroit is 1993 Sarajevo because of unions, while North Carolina is doing pretty well. The difference is the unions.
- kenko 14y ago
  Let's stipulate to the first sentence of your comment (and ignore everything that comes after it). If you're adding value to an organization, you shouldn't need a contract. Wonderful! There you are, being a positive influence on your organization, knowing that you shouldn't need a contract. But! Suppose some manager doesn't recognize that you're being a positive influence? Or just wants to throw his weight around? Certainly, a person in a position of power who wants to throw his weight around shouldn't target someone who's a benefit to his organization. But perhaps he's perverse, or doesn't care, or views you as a threat, or (again) has made a mistake in his estimation of who's "adding value" and who isn't. You shouldn't need a contract in part because your superiors shouldn't do that kind of thing. But hey! They might do it anyway! The wonderful thing about being contract-free, or in an at-will employment state (i.e. almost any state) is that there's no such thing as wrongful termination and you have no recourse if you're fired---"but I was adding value!", in particular, is not going to be effective. In this sublunary world, you'd have to be delusional to maintain that if you're adding value, you don't need a contract. Actually, I can't resist; let's look at the rest of the first paragraph in this light. How do you know that union employees in, say, Flint, were uninterested in "adding value" to the manufacturers who shut down the factories? People working manufacturing jobs---a skilled trade, you know---take pride in their work and I'm willing to assert, just as blithely as you were willing to assert the opposite, that they'd be plenty willing to try to improve the product, improve processes, etc., if they were but asked (and lots of improvements can, indeed, come from the rank-and-file in that way). It's true, of course, that when residents of Michigan are asked to add value to the company by accepting wages no greater than those commanded in Mexico, they are likely to balk.
  - anamax 14y ago
    > Suppose some manager doesn't recognize that you're being a positive influence? Then one of you is wrong. Yes, bad managers make bad decisions. A contract doesn't protect you from bad managers - it merely makes it easier to stay around to be subject to their badness. Why do you think that's worth something? Contracts actually make bad managers look better that they would otherwise. Yes, bad managers survive longer when unions are involved. Why do you want that? Life's too short to work for a bad manager. Of course, if all managers are bad (for you), maybe they're not the problem. > People working manufacturing jobs---a skilled trade, you know---take pride in their work and I'm willing to assert, just as blithely as you were willing to assert the opposite, that they'd be plenty willing to try to improve the product, improve processes, etc., if they were but asked (and lots of improvements can, indeed, come from the rank-and-file in that way). We can test that hypothesis by looking at what they demanded through their union representatives. Care to predict the result of said "look"? I'll save you the trouble - they didn't demand anything to improve product quality or increase productivity. On a related note, the head of one of the US teachers unions said that he'd start caring about kids when they started paying dues.
philwelch 14y ago
If your employer has been infested by unions and there is a competitor, customers will rush to the competitor and your union will be of no help. Even if your union has managed to infest all your competitors in the same country, imports will ruin you all.
- kenko 14y ago
  God knows the first thing I do when deciding whether to shop at a supermarket is find out whether it's unionized, and avoid it if it is.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    If there's two supermarkets in town and one is unionized, the other one will probably be better for the customer in some way, usually because they'll have lower prices. Customers either don't care about unions or slightly favor them, but the end results of a union do drive customers away. I don't think it's at all arguable that unions--at least American unions--are detrimental to the health of the businesses their employees work for. Fundamentally, these unions are parasitic. They treat the wealth of its host as a given and find ways to extract more of that wealth. The flaw behind this is that the wealth of a company is not a given--it depends upon the customers, and the more you try to extract wealth from the company, the greater the impact on the customer. Either that, or the company just goes flat broke[1]. A company that doesn't have these additional costs and distractions is more able to focus on the customer, or at the very least can do just as good a job without going flat broke. The experience of US automakers vs foreign competitors, or Boeing vs Airbus, or unionized retail vs. Wal-Mart and Amazon, bears this out. [1] If the company just goes flat broke, then the union isn't a problem per se, just a con game on shareholders. Airlines are an example: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines
    - hackinthebochs 14y ago
      Unions are simply a balancing force to that of the management whose sole purpose is to extract as much profit from the enterprise. Yes, a lot of bad things can happen when unions gain too much power. But that doesn't mean unions are necessarily evil. On the contrary, they are a necessary evil, as a balancing force of the evil of the profit incentive. The free market generally does not have the power to correct for overreaching management. In many cases the signal necessary to make a judgement is not propagated to consumers, at least not in such a way that it will cause a change in consumers purchasing decisions. This is where unions are necessary to correct against overbearing and unrealistic management. Society is stronger, and the economy is stronger, when the "wealth" of a nation is well distributed among everyone. Wealth here being everything from health, leisure time, assurances against bodily injury, etc. Unions are but one tool to ensure this equitable distribution.
anamax 14y ago
> But a company that's flourishing customerwise can still have rapacious or simply bad management. If true, so what? You're assuming that this undefined "good management" has value that isn't reflected in the customer experience. That's simply not true. Even if the bad management only directly affects employees, they affect customers. (Good employees leave unless shackled by seniority rules, which is the only rational way to run a union.)

by kenko 14y ago

gxs 14y ago

Having customers is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.

saraid216 14y ago

I don't understand why you're being downvoted. I don't know what Welch said, but as it was characterized by the grandparent, Welch's statement is stupid, for exactly the reasons kenko explained.

briandear 14y ago

You shouldn't need a contract if you're adding value to the organization. If you can get replaced by someone cheaper, then you weren't worth what you were getting. Why the heck should a business pay more for the same outputs? If you're adding more value than you cost, your job is always safe. The union mentality is exactly the reason American manufacturing has left for cheaper pastures. Union employees aren't about adding value, they're about protecting their own ass rather that striving to find ways to add value to the organization. Business owners do not have an obligation to keep everyone employed, they have an obligation to make a profit, if there's no profit, then they won't be able to employ anyone for very long. Good employees are an asset to any company. You don't get "wrongfully" terminated if you are adding value of a company. I will never hire union labor ever. I would close down a business before I submitted to the extortion of unions. If I hire people, I treat them really well because they add value not because a contract says I must. Google employees aren't unionized -- Google understands that to attract the best talent you have to treat people well. Google employees don't need a union -- they know that if they're providing value, their jobs are very secure. It's the lower-skilled workers with chips on their shoulders that are the first to cry about needing a contract to "protect" their rights. Contracts protect the employees that strive to do the minimal possible under the terms of the contract. Unions have made employees interchangeable because you get paid based on your job title and seniority, not necessarily the value you bring to the organization. The big tragedy is that in union shops, when layoffs happen it's the junior guys that go first, even if they're better workers than the more senior. It's disgusting that years on the job mean more than actual job output. Unions had their place before OSHA came along, but now they are corrupt labor monopolies where the bosses get paid millions each year cronyism and corruption are the norm. If you don't like a company, you're free to quit, but in closed-shop states, if you don't like the union, too bad, you have to be a member (or pay the dues) if you want to be employed in that field in your state. Detroit is 1993 Sarajevo because of unions, while North Carolina is doing pretty well. The difference is the unions.

kenko 14y ago
Let's stipulate to the first sentence of your comment (and ignore everything that comes after it). If you're adding value to an organization, you shouldn't need a contract. Wonderful! There you are, being a positive influence on your organization, knowing that you shouldn't need a contract. But! Suppose some manager doesn't recognize that you're being a positive influence? Or just wants to throw his weight around? Certainly, a person in a position of power who wants to throw his weight around shouldn't target someone who's a benefit to his organization. But perhaps he's perverse, or doesn't care, or views you as a threat, or (again) has made a mistake in his estimation of who's "adding value" and who isn't. You shouldn't need a contract in part because your superiors shouldn't do that kind of thing. But hey! They might do it anyway! The wonderful thing about being contract-free, or in an at-will employment state (i.e. almost any state) is that there's no such thing as wrongful termination and you have no recourse if you're fired---"but I was adding value!", in particular, is not going to be effective. In this sublunary world, you'd have to be delusional to maintain that if you're adding value, you don't need a contract. Actually, I can't resist; let's look at the rest of the first paragraph in this light. How do you know that union employees in, say, Flint, were uninterested in "adding value" to the manufacturers who shut down the factories? People working manufacturing jobs---a skilled trade, you know---take pride in their work and I'm willing to assert, just as blithely as you were willing to assert the opposite, that they'd be plenty willing to try to improve the product, improve processes, etc., if they were but asked (and lots of improvements can, indeed, come from the rank-and-file in that way). It's true, of course, that when residents of Michigan are asked to add value to the company by accepting wages no greater than those commanded in Mexico, they are likely to balk.
- anamax 14y ago
  > Suppose some manager doesn't recognize that you're being a positive influence? Then one of you is wrong. Yes, bad managers make bad decisions. A contract doesn't protect you from bad managers - it merely makes it easier to stay around to be subject to their badness. Why do you think that's worth something? Contracts actually make bad managers look better that they would otherwise. Yes, bad managers survive longer when unions are involved. Why do you want that? Life's too short to work for a bad manager. Of course, if all managers are bad (for you), maybe they're not the problem. > People working manufacturing jobs---a skilled trade, you know---take pride in their work and I'm willing to assert, just as blithely as you were willing to assert the opposite, that they'd be plenty willing to try to improve the product, improve processes, etc., if they were but asked (and lots of improvements can, indeed, come from the rank-and-file in that way). We can test that hypothesis by looking at what they demanded through their union representatives. Care to predict the result of said "look"? I'll save you the trouble - they didn't demand anything to improve product quality or increase productivity. On a related note, the head of one of the US teachers unions said that he'd start caring about kids when they started paying dues.

philwelch 14y ago

If your employer has been infested by unions and there is a competitor, customers will rush to the competitor and your union will be of no help. Even if your union has managed to infest all your competitors in the same country, imports will ruin you all.

kenko 14y ago
God knows the first thing I do when deciding whether to shop at a supermarket is find out whether it's unionized, and avoid it if it is.
- philwelch 14y ago
  If there's two supermarkets in town and one is unionized, the other one will probably be better for the customer in some way, usually because they'll have lower prices. Customers either don't care about unions or slightly favor them, but the end results of a union do drive customers away. I don't think it's at all arguable that unions--at least American unions--are detrimental to the health of the businesses their employees work for. Fundamentally, these unions are parasitic. They treat the wealth of its host as a given and find ways to extract more of that wealth. The flaw behind this is that the wealth of a company is not a given--it depends upon the customers, and the more you try to extract wealth from the company, the greater the impact on the customer. Either that, or the company just goes flat broke[1]. A company that doesn't have these additional costs and distractions is more able to focus on the customer, or at the very least can do just as good a job without going flat broke. The experience of US automakers vs foreign competitors, or Boeing vs Airbus, or unionized retail vs. Wal-Mart and Amazon, bears this out. [1] If the company just goes flat broke, then the union isn't a problem per se, just a con game on shareholders. Airlines are an example: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines
  - hackinthebochs 14y ago
    Unions are simply a balancing force to that of the management whose sole purpose is to extract as much profit from the enterprise. Yes, a lot of bad things can happen when unions gain too much power. But that doesn't mean unions are necessarily evil. On the contrary, they are a necessary evil, as a balancing force of the evil of the profit incentive. The free market generally does not have the power to correct for overreaching management. In many cases the signal necessary to make a judgement is not propagated to consumers, at least not in such a way that it will cause a change in consumers purchasing decisions. This is where unions are necessary to correct against overbearing and unrealistic management. Society is stronger, and the economy is stronger, when the "wealth" of a nation is well distributed among everyone. Wealth here being everything from health, leisure time, assurances against bodily injury, etc. Unions are but one tool to ensure this equitable distribution.

anamax 14y ago

> But a company that's flourishing customerwise can still have rapacious or simply bad management. If true, so what? You're assuming that this undefined "good management" has value that isn't reflected in the customer experience. That's simply not true. Even if the bad management only directly affects employees, they affect customers. (Good employees leave unless shackled by seniority rules, which is the only rational way to run a union.)