3 ms·

> I'm not sure how it can be "likely factually wrong" that you are better off without paying a third party who does very little for you as an individual who is

by dofm 4mo ago

> I'm not sure how it can be "likely factually wrong" that you are better off without paying a third party who does very little for you as an individual who is above average in your field than you would be if you didn't have that money. Do you not purchase insurance? Same principle. Collective bargaining and buying power unlocks things even you, a wealthy above average human, might wish to have affordable. > Why should I as a non-unionized worker today join one? So they continue to exist and rules don't slide back further. I mean if you are old and rich enough enough not to care about the next decade of working life then good for you, I guess. But society could very well be ripped apart by the very things that the tech industry is rolling out, and unions are one of the few things that stand in the way of absolutely massive regressions in the way humans who have the temerity to want to eat will have to tolerate being treated. Personally I want to see them survive, and non-union workers joining them when they can is one of those ways that can happen. (As an IT freelancer I cannot, meaningfully; I assure you that when my work pattern changes I will)

bpt3 4mo ago
So it's insurance against some nebulous, unspecified catastrophe that if it comes to fruition, unions will be effectively powerless to stop anyway. If that's the best case you can make, they're even more useless to skilled workers than I thought. Would you like to buy some insurance against aliens destroying the earth as well?
- dofm 4mo ago
  This comment is much more revealing about you than I think you realise, but it's good to know at least that there's no point in wasting time on arguing things on the merits.
  - bpt3 4mo ago
    I mean I think it's exactly as revealing as I realize, in that I have again explicitly stated that unions are not beneficial to above average workers because they don't need external protections against job loss or substandard working conditions in modern society. To use your terms, they are best off self-insuring against these issues, as is the case with insurance against most forms of loss. Fearmongering and/or hand wringing about what could get worse in the future doesn't change that reality today. The big risk to a worker is that they overestimate their skill level, which absolutely does happen, but those people are not in the above average pool I'm talking about in the first place and would in fact benefit from a union.

by dofm 4mo ago

bpt3 4mo ago

So it's insurance against some nebulous, unspecified catastrophe that if it comes to fruition, unions will be effectively powerless to stop anyway. If that's the best case you can make, they're even more useless to skilled workers than I thought. Would you like to buy some insurance against aliens destroying the earth as well?

dofm 4mo ago
This comment is much more revealing about you than I think you realise, but it's good to know at least that there's no point in wasting time on arguing things on the merits.
- bpt3 4mo ago
  I mean I think it's exactly as revealing as I realize, in that I have again explicitly stated that unions are not beneficial to above average workers because they don't need external protections against job loss or substandard working conditions in modern society. To use your terms, they are best off self-insuring against these issues, as is the case with insurance against most forms of loss. Fearmongering and/or hand wringing about what could get worse in the future doesn't change that reality today. The big risk to a worker is that they overestimate their skill level, which absolutely does happen, but those people are not in the above average pool I'm talking about in the first place and would in fact benefit from a union.