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There is no reason for any employee to not search for unionization. It is your right and it is in your best interest. Good for them.
by Frieren 4mo ago
There is no reason for any employee to not search for unionization. It is your right and it is in your best interest. Good for them.
- sevenzero 4mo agoI work in a 2 man company, for sure a Union will have many advantages for me x)
- iso1631 4mo agoAside from legal support, advice, and contributing to industry influence?
- Telaneo 4mo agoWhat have the Romans ever done for us?
- iso1631 4mo agoMy union does very little for me directly. Neither does my house or car insurance. I've never needed either. Indirectly though my union does do stuff I'm sure Alec Baldwin was happy he was a member of a union to represent him.
- bpt3 4mo ago> I'm sure Alec Baldwin was happy he was a member of a union to represent him. Why is it that so many union supporters point to entities like SAG and professional athlete unions in the US when advocating for unions, when they are a massive exception to the norm? I would join a union like SAG. I have zero interest in being forced to make contributions to a political organization who has a passing interest in my well-being at best and is structured to benefit below-average workers.
- apelapan 4mo agoAre you just an employee or also an owner in that company? If you are an employee only, having a union to back you up could be extremely useful if things ever go bad.
- sevenzero 4mo agoOnly employee. Joining an union is too expensive for me though given the reward seems pretty small. My industry does not even have a proper union (in Germany) so I'd have to join a generic one (verdi) which doesn't offer enough perks for me personally.
- LtWorf 4mo agoAh yes we all know unions take at least 99% of your salary…
- sevenzero 4mo agoDid I ever claim that? Its 1% of my montly gross salary which is about 40€/month which is just too much given I have 2.500€/month to survive with.
- esperent 4mo agoHave you evaluated how much better bargaining power that €40 would get you? You might stand to make a lot more back.
- roenxi 4mo agoHe's the only employee in a 2 man company. How exactly do your think the relationship here is likely to be play out? IMO it is likely that he has a pretty good and probably rather personable relationship with the company owner. And quite likely has rather good bargaining power already given that he can double his employer's workload by walking out the door and it'd in all likelihood be a big headache to replace him. If he can't leverage his power when he already represents 100% of the company's employees a union is unlikely to help.
- Parae 4mo agoYes, a union is a way to gather forces, not only in your company, but also in broader spaces. It's easier for a union (even of two) to ask to meet your local elected officials, to seek legal support, advices from other union.
- hirako2000 4mo agoIt also has a tendency to yield corruption. Some would call it lobbying but in the end it's a counter political force because forces on the other sides exist already. Not sure fighting fire with fire is the solution, a last resort.
- gbanfalvi 4mo agoIt’s true. The best approach is to stand alone against the fire and try to put it out yourself. Maybe the fire will be nice to you if you beg.
- hirako2000 4mo agoA union isn't the only structure to stand organized. The reasons fire is there? A system designed to allow it.
- irl_ 4mo agoI'm a director of my small company, and a member of UTAW. The union doesn't just help with employment disputes but also campaigns generally on improving working conditions for all, through things like health and safety and setting reasonable expectations for how work will be done.
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- 6510 4mo agoIf this was my blog I would have written something like the below which is entirely out of character not aimed at you and quite silly: Republican jesus said: It would have been easier if the good Samaritan would have just taken the guys money without helping him. I have this wild theory that civilization isn't actually about me. It means one can join a union without any direct personal benefits of any kind. When for example my health insurance helps pay someone for their care I point first at them then at my chest and announce smugly, see? I paid for that! No one thinks it's funny but that is not important, as long as I think it's funny it's a good joke. The trial is over, it is now abundantly obvious that if everyone acts in their own self interest everything gets increasingly fucked up for everyone. If you are hungry the free market gives you an advert for a sandwich you cant afford but would probably kill you slowly if you could. Imagine retired people still being union members. Crazy right? They could have better spend their time looking at pictures of their children who never visit. Ill let myself out
- throe9338e8 4mo agoDo you think trolls should have a right to unionize? We are working really hard, but conditions are not best. For start we demand salary from local goverment (I am in EU)! Nobody should be forced to work for free!
- IncreasePosts 4mo agoIt may or may not be in any individual's best interest. For example, look at "bumping rights". If a company needs to eliminate a union position, and this is occupied by someone with say 20 years seniority, that person can "bump" some other union member out of their position who has a lower seniority. So, that person whose role was eliminated can push a person with only 5 years seniority out of their position. And then that person with 5 years seniority can bump a person with only one year seniority out of their position. And the person with 1 year seniority has no one newer than them so they get laid off. Was it in the best interest of that newish employee to be part of a union? So they can act as a meat shield for someone much further in their career who would theoretically be much more employable in the general market?
- krior 4mo agoThe wikipedia atricle only cites american sources so that may be something unique to how US unions operate.
- IncreasePosts 4mo agoCousins of American style bumping is definitely in employment law in the UK(where it is done by the employer instead of the employees and union). It also exists at least in Germany(sozialauswahl) where employees theoretically who could get chopped are given points to determine who to chop, where seniority is one of the ways to gain points, as well as age, as well as having children.
- pasc1878 4mo agoI don't think so in UK. In UK to make someone redundant (ie fired not for cause) then the job has to be removed and only the holder of that job can be fired and not any other person. Of course HR departments and consultants are paid to work around this
- IncreasePosts 4mo agoThe rule is called transferred redundancy and it goes like this in the UK: the company can't eliminate a high level position if some argument can be made that they only needed to eliminate a lower level position. So if a company feels it doesn't need a certain VP position, it can't actually get rid of that VP position if there is some argument that the company would only need to get rid of a lower director position. And the director position can't be eliminated if there's some argument that only a lower senior position could be eliminated. And the senior position cannot be eliminated if there's some argument that only a junior position would need to be eliminated.
- pydry 4mo ago[flagged]
- meta_gunslinger 4mo agoWorker here, with no aspiration of being a millionaire, a manager or an owner: I hate unions. They always end up being led by parasites that have no idea how to do the actual job, looking to rent-seek on the backs of people who do.
- pydry 4mo agoHow much do you hate for time off at weekends, paid vacations and medical leave?
- eru 4mo agoWe have these in Singapore as well, and our unions are toothless.
- pydry 4mo agoSingapore is actually a great example of somewhere where communists and trade unionists fought and won a lot of concessions (especially in the 1950s) and where that contribution was airbrushed out of history. The HDB building program was a reaction to the popularity of 1950s communists, for instance. Lee Kuan Yew yielded to a lot of good ideas like that (and CPF) under intense domestic pressure which he later pretended were just artefacts of his prescient genius. Singapore has also had its share of wildcat strikes which the government reacted to by cracking down violently on the strikers but also reacted to them by trying to placate the others. They would then the rewrite history to pretend that they weren't pushed into that so you wouldn't accidentally credit "the wrong group". So yeah, you're both the beneficiary of a rich history of trade unionism in Singapore and the follower of a personality cult that airbrushed that contribution out of history. Labor rights are also steadily getting worse there because there IS little organized pushback these days and because NTUC has been turned into the government department that provides supermarket discounts, thus nullifying it as a force for advocating for labor rights. If you've ever wondered why your government is so ridiculously abusive towards bloggers and has one of the worst press freedoms in the entire world: this is why. They need a tight control of that narrative to maintain their grip on power and to get labour to knuckle under and do as it is told.
- simianwords 4mo ago[flagged]
- irl_ 4mo agoI think this may be a US thing, in the UK at least unions work to promote solidarity.
- arrrg 4mo agoIt‘s the exact opposite of selfish. It’s solidarity and efforts to denigrate solidarity and lift up stories about selfishness as the only important thing are the thing that keeps unions down. Workers working together in solidarity is the right approach to get more power in the lopsided power dynamic between owners and workers. Owners have too much power, workers too little. Solidarity is a path towards fixing that.
- simianwords 4mo agoYou think it’s solidarity with the workers because you see it is a fight between two classes. I reject that framework itself. Unions are about solidarity (if any) for the incumbents and in this case it is solidarity for the existing workers in Wikimedia. I don’t see anything virtuous about self preservation. It doesn’t take much for a person to save their own job. What’s virtuous is the ability to do understand the free market and uphold meritocracy ESPECIALLY when you aren’t the top dog in the hierarchy. Unions may protect jobs but does it at the expense of other people who want your jobs who can do it better at a lower wage. Do people have the virtue to voluntarily give up their job for that person who is better than them? I don’t think so. So please spare me the bit about solidarity!
- arrrg 4mo agoThis is such a sad perspective. The only path for workers to have leverage against capital is if they work together in solidarity. There is no other path. Unions are a path towards achieving that. Doing a job at a lower wage is giving up leverage and nonsensical on its face. But makes sense that this capital perspective is taken here …
- bArray 4mo agoThe only real reason for me in the UK to join a union would be for legal representation, otherwise I can represent my own interests. At least here in the UK our unions are heavily involved in politics - which is a massive issue. Currently, the leadership of the unions and the people in them are literally opposite sides of the political spectrum.
- irl_ 4mo agoAt any moment some change outside my control could occur and my place in society would change. Right now I'm pretty self sufficient and don't really need the support of others in day to day life, but that can change, and there's nothing I can do about it. Seems like a good idea to use this opportunity to try and improve things for everyone, even if you don't care about others, just in case your place in society changes. (I actually think it's neat if we try to improve things for everyone for everyone's sake tbh but I get there are people that do not have such empathy)
- mytailorisrich 4mo agoIt depends on the job and country. In Western Europe workers are very protected so unless you are in a low end job or specific public sector job and might gain from collective wage bargaining there is often little actual benefits in being in a union, taking into account that membership isn't free.
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4mo agoI wonder why workers in Western Europe are so protected.
- mytailorisrich 4mo agoThe fact that unions played a big role in the past does not imply that they are as important now because of the changes in legal protection, types of jobs, and society.
- siqncidif 4mo agoYou didn't provide any argument, so you could have said the exact opposite and it would have been the same comment. Here, I'll do it for you: No, you are wrong it's the other way around
- bko 4mo agoI don't believe a union would be to my best interest. Unions generally operate by encoding rules that purport to be fair and transparent. This includes things like determining how much someone gets paid based on things like tenure and education. That sounds good in theory but as soon as you enter the workforce you'll realize that there is a huge range of capabilities thats difficult to capture but obvious to people in the weeds. You'll also realize that strong workers want to work with other strong workers. Unions don't care where their unions fees come from so they protect all equally. This means they make it difficult to fire. Just look at police unions where they went to great lengths to "protect their own" There are some benefits but I believe that accrue to the most mediocre or incompetent. Sure it sounds great that it's difficult to fire me and I know my salary for the next twenty years. But this is not what I'm trying to optimize for
- lucumo 4mo ago> There is no reason for any employee to not search for unionization. That's a very theoretical view. (As most absolutes are.) Unions and rules around unions can be very different depending on locality, industry and other specifics. The power and benefits a union gives a specific employee may not outweigh the cost they impose on that specific employee. Furthermore, unions are organizations. They have their own internal power structures that can be corrupted by self-serving individuals or special interests. A blanket "union = good" view can make that invisible to you.
- aaa_aaa 4mo agoIn one of my previous work, I was "forced" to enter a public union. They were simply leeches sucking government money (surprise, government was paying union premiums) through workers with almost no actual benefits. Whenever somebody glorifies Unions I just chukle.
- tovej 4mo agoWas this in the US? In the US, anti-union action by the government and employers has been extra egregious historically. This has obviously impacted unions in the US. There's also LOTS of anti-union misinformation spreading in the US.
- one33seven 4mo ago
- changoplatanero 4mo agoWhat’s in the collective best interest may not match with what’s in the individual best interest. Perhaps unions are more likely to be in the self interest of the below average employees, the ones with no negotiating power. The best school teachers are almost certainly being held back by their unions and the worst ones are getting a free pass. When I worked at a unionized place I was blocked from an opportunity my employer offered me because it was better than what the standard negotiated terms were.
- shit_game 4mo agoThe rising tide lifts all boats. Denying people agency and power in their negotiation by claiming they are "not as good as someone else" is antithetical to the struggle of labor - work deserves to be compensated fairly. >When I worked at a unionized place I was blocked from an opportunity my employer offered me because it was better than what the standard negotiated terms were Your union blocked this because your employer was trying to break your unions negotiating power by separating your interests from the collective workforce. If people who are sympathetic to management and accept that they will be compensated greater by acting against the interests of the labor union, the union should block these promotions. If you don't want to protect your coworkers by negotiating with them, then you must be interested in exploiting them by negotiating against them. Labor is a zero sum game.
- logicchains 4mo ago>Denying people agency and power in their negotiation by claiming they are "not as good as someone else" is antithetical to the struggle of labor - work deserves to be compensated fairly. Labor is not a homogenous block. A huge chunk of workers are lazy as fuck and only do the bare minimum; it's unfair for people who work hard that their compensation should be lowered just so the lazy ones can be paid more. And lowered it must be, because a company only can only afford a certain total amount of spending on wages, so if the shirkers must be paid more than the hard workers must be paid less. It's not exploitation to pay the bare minimum possible to someone who puts in the bare minimum of effort.
- kaonwarb 4mo agoStrong disagree that there is no other side of the question from the employee's perspective. Personally, I don't want to be collectively represented in my work by any group other than myself.
- criddell 4mo agoWhat do you mean by that? A union represents you as a worker and not your work. Baseball players, for example, are represented by the MLBPA. Collectively they get a say in things like setting the rules of the game and negotiating healthcare, but the union isn't taking credit when a player hits a home run.
- DrBazza 4mo agoIn a jobs market place of wide choice, unionization is unnecessary. The tech job pool spans multiple industries, so if your employer is treating you poorly, leave. In a jobs market where there are few employers, maybe unionize, because those employers are essentially a monopsony. Hence, in the UK, the NHS, teaching, and public transport, where the employer is the Government, they're heavily unionized.
- eru 4mo agoUntil fairly recently, the general public used to be very suspicious of government employees unionising. Because it was unionising against them, the general public.
- cellu 4mo agoBritish have no concept of unionisation and avoid conflict at all cost. Their employer tells them they must go back to five days to the office? They all obediently do it
- dofm 4mo agoSecond part — avoiding conflict at all cost — mostly true. First part - the British invented the modern labour union and there are still many, many examples of labour union negotiation every year that are highly visible to us.
- nephihaha 4mo agoNo idea where you get that from. Most of my childhood was dominated by strikes. We still have them.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- WarmWash 4mo agoEhhh, the darkside is that unions often levelize workers into bins to negotiate fair wages for that bin. This is good if you are a weak player and bad if you are a strong player, because it removes the incentive to work any harder than the weakest link - there is no reward for that. So if you know how the job works and are good at it, unions kinda kill the whole thing. Pro unionists will tell you that you are a sucker for being a good worker anyway, there is no reward, but what else would they say? Look at all the people who have independently moved up in a company or hopped jobs for better pay? Probably not.