5 ms·
Because its ultimately cheaper to suppress unions than it is to pay the workers the fair salary.
by superxpro12 5mo ago
Because its ultimately cheaper to suppress unions than it is to pay the workers the fair salary.
- indoordin0saur 5mo agoI'm generally pro-union and certainly fair wage, but it's important to keep in mind that unions will grow into their own power centers and have leadership with its own internal goals which are not aligned with either their working members nor the employers.
- halestock 5mo agoAlways?
- wccrawford 5mo agoAlways. Power begets power. Everything needs to be kept in check. The only question is where the line is.
- halestock 5mo agoWhy don't unions seem to have that problem in pretty much all of Europe then?
- Jensson 5mo agoBecause European unions doesn't have as much power over workers as American unions, since Europe as right to work. Right to work means you can just quit a bad union if you don't like it without having to change your job.
- halestock 5mo agoWhat does that have to do with "power begets power"
- sieabahlpark 5mo ago[dead]
- blitzar 5mo agobut it's important to keep in mind that without unions the corporation will grow into their own power centers and have leadership with its own internal goals which are not aligned with either their working members nor the employers
- wat10000 5mo agoThe discourse around unions is so weird. A bunch of people form an organization so that they can work together to sell stuff. When they're selling widgets, or other people's labor, we call those people "management" and we call their organization "business" and it's the standard way of doing things. When they're selling their own labor, we call it a "union" and suddenly people have Opinions about whether they're really a good thing or not. If Bob's Heavy Manufacturing Concern can collectively bargain with its customers when selling its Retro Encabulators, then Bob's employees should be able to collectively bargain with its customer i.e. Bob when selling their product i.e. their labor.
- mothballed 5mo agoI think where it breaks down though is if a company manages to monopolize the market we all recognize this is bad. If a union tries to monopolize the labor supply to a company, most pro-union opinions celebrate this and argue the company should have to negotiate with the union to find a rate rather than being able to just shit-can everyone in the union and move on to the next guy. Union itself I'd agree could function as basically a corporation of workers. That's not on face a bad thing, but the devil is in the details of what kind of violence (via law or otherwise) is used to try and use that to form a monopoly. Of course the companies are no better in this regard, they use the violence of the state to monopolize markets as well.
- wat10000 5mo agoAren't exclusive contracts pretty common in business? There's a big difference between monopolizing the supply to a single customer, which happens all the time, and monopolizing an entire market.
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoWhat's the alternative (no unions) like?
- nisegami 5mo agoProbably a UBI-like approach? At least insofar as it changes the power dynamic in the employer/employee relationship.
- hgs3 5mo agoHow about forcing businesses to be owned by their employees [1]? Instead of taxing the owning class and being paid UBI peanuts, you become the owning class and reap the rewards directly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
- indoordin0saur 5mo agoCertain markets are highly competitive for labor. A good example is software engineering. In those cases, because neither the corporation has a monopoly on their tech products nor does a union have a monopoly on labor the sector can be highly productive and everyone can get rich. In such a situation it seems pointless to have a union. Why would an employee want to be beholden to both his employer and his union? Unions, as well as giving their members some negotiating power, can also limit and burden their members in many ways.
- miltonlost 5mo agoYou're not pro-union if you still spout anti-union propaganda. You spent more words arguing against unions than you did for them. I'd say your first part of the sentence is probably more of a rhetorical trick than anything close to true
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- skeeter2020 5mo ago[dead]
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- well_ackshually 5mo agoInstead of repeating vapid arguments from the past 30 years designed to disincline people from joining unions, maybe you could look outside of your own borders and realize that it's not an inherent property of unions. Inherent to the US and your extremely unhealthy relationship with work, maybe.
- mothballed 5mo agoIt's not 30 years old though, the longshore union leader a few years ago literally went on live national TV with a fucking rolex and gold chain screaming how broke he was and that (in his own words) his message to America is "I will cripple you" if people trying to import things like medicines, foodstuffs, and everything else into American ports don't pay more union money to their monopolized union instead of investing in automation and modernizing our ports. ---- re: due to throttling ------ >"I will cripple you" must have referred to the bosses, not the entire country including his people. No he literally threatened normal people like construction workers and car salesman that he would ensure they were laid off, he was using "cripple" to refer to normal Americans and everyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DZQ-80PRbA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DZQ-80PRbA >Idk why it matters that he had a gold chain. Are people without tech jobs not allowed to have money? If you're begging for charity in the form of trying to block automation and upgrading of ports, while arguing you need your union monopoly because you are broke, then yes it's relevant that the way you choose to present yourself on live TV is all blinged out. If you can get a gold chain without threatening others in one hand and begging with your hand out in the other then go for it. Don't cry though if people notice your bling bling and cry fowl that people actually noticed the way you went out of your way to present yourself to the world.
- faidit 5mo ago"I will cripple you" must have referred to the bosses, not the entire country including his people. Idk why it matters that he had a gold chain. Are people without tech jobs not allowed to have money? Yeah this brief out of context video is obvious proof that unions are the #1 problem in society. A prole with a Rolex?!? If we allow dockworkers to wear Rolexes then the entire social order will break down! What happened to the America I grew up with when only a vampire CEO could afford a Rolex? Oh the humanity..
- mothballed 5mo agoIt's cheaper to try and block other workers from getting a union card in your union to limit supply than trying to up your skills, as well.
- infecto 5mo ago1.5bn is a drop in the bucket.
- izacus 5mo agoI wonder if that's actually true - unionbusting is mostly an emotional issue for leaders and owners so I wonder if there's any calculation involved. I've seen corporate HR got to insane (illegal) lengths to "stick it" to people trying to unionize - to the point of being severely fined. So I wonder if anyone actually calculated financials here.
- nielsbot 5mo agothere’s also a dam breaking effect. if unionization starts kicking off again, that can be contagious. so companies are incentivized to “nip it in the bud”
- DoneWithAllThat 5mo agoIf you think unions fight exclusively for “a fair salary” you are not engaging with reality.
- thrance 5mo agoBetter a corrupt union than no union at all. The Gilded Age was not a pleasant time for workers.