16 ms·

The decline in unionization has fed the rise in incomes at the top

• Frondo 12y ago
  Before anyone brings up the "I want to be paid for my skill, not my seniority," I'd just like to point out: If you formed a union at your workplace, you and your colleagues would get to decide the rules like that. And a few other things I think are worth saying... A union is a legal framework for the employees (who have no ownership stake in the business, despite putting their time and energy into the business day after day) to recast some of the power imbalance in their favor; since many of us here are employees, and not owners, we should be looking out for our interests. Aaand...a union isn't a "let's all be lazy and wreck businesses" framework; that's a bit of nonsensical propaganda that we've all swum in for the last few decades.
  • forrestthewoods 12y ago
    "you and your colleagues would get to decide the rules like that" False. People who worked there before you decided the rules. Once you have an entrenched senior workforce the probability that they will vote themselves less power or money is remarkably low. It's basically the same problem as NIMBYism.
    • heydenberk 12y ago
      I'm very strongly pro-union, but this is an indisputable fact. If labor is to make a comeback in the 21st century, this is an important lesson that needs to be learned.
      • bduerst 12y ago
        Interesting. How would you set up a union system that is self improving? Normally organizations need to compete to survive, with the more ineffectual falling off. You can't necessarily have unions compete for members, because the power of the union is in how many members it has and fractioning them would diminish their authority.
        • heydenberk 12y ago
          In general, self-improving institutions operate by setting goals, evaluating those goals with metrics and iterating on the underlying model so as to improve those metrics. I know that's a simplistic answer, but I lack the specific understanding of how unions currently work to provide better insight.
        • minthd 12y ago
          There are unions in the nordic countries. They generally work quite well and don't hurt those countries competitiveness - those nations are quite competitive. I believe Germany is also highly unionized. So maybe we should learn from them ? And BTW in all those countries one thing about those unions is that they are highly responsible - they understand the market realities and understand that people need to justify salries or else there would be layoffs.
          • bnolsen 12y ago
            no. hard working europeans leave europe to escape the system where they have little hope of bettering themselves in the european system. lots of them showed up in china working as part of outsource or manufacturing firms. talked to several myself.
          • pgeorgi 12y ago
            http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/volkswagen-s-sort-of-union-in-tennessee http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/volkswagen... describes the tension of having a company with German-style union-values operate in the US.
        • deleted 12y ago
          [deleted]
      • ealexhudson 12y ago
        I don't think it's the case that people will stay in the same employ for many years like they used to; unionised or not. People expect to change jobs much more often.
    • cynicalkane 12y ago
      Right now the above post looks about -2 despite being absolutely correct. Downvoting informed people is the worst way to express disagreement. It contributes nothing, and makes your side look bad.
      • bsder 12y ago
        It deserves the downvotes because it ignores reality. Many of the steelworkers unions in the early 80's went out of their way to try to get people retired so that the younger people would still have jobs. They also worked very hard to get people transferred to other sites to reach the point where they could retire even if it meant sacrificing some salary. Or, for something more recent, many of the unions involved with Hostess took several rounds of cuts before finally standing up and taking a hard line that eventually led to the bankruptcy. And, it looks like Hostess is going to be better off because of it. The downvotes are well warranted because he spewed propaganda instead of citing real facts.
    • bandushrew 12y ago
      Unions that are well run frequently recognise the realities of business finances, and there are multiple examples of unions that have indeed voted to take a pay cut, if you care to go looking.
    • task_queue 12y ago
      It's the same problem businesses have everywhere, except the good ones know how to weed it out. Same rule applies to unions.
    • HaloZero 12y ago
      Doesn't voting for a board control in the Union allow for this? Like you have 4-5 people in charge but they have to be elected by the body of the Union.
    • SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
      In a blog entry by Micheal O. Church [1], he argues that in the companies that most need unionization, the downsides like wage normalization and seniority rules are already in place, and adding unionization to the mix almost can't make things worse. He also provides examples of unionized industries where "star performers" have no wage limits -- that the only limit is in the minimum pay for a position. And he points out the many ways a union could support programmer rights (for instance, the right to own personal projects), and kill damaging practices like stack ranking. We need something. That much is clear. Whether it's a professional guild or a union, I'm not sure. But the status quo is awful for most of us. [2] [1] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/it-might-be-time-for-software-engineers-especially-in-silicon-valley-to-unionize/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/it-might-be-... [2] I'm actually one of the "1%" who is quite well compensated, but I think more of us should be compensated based on our abilities. And I do want to get rid of the "we own your free time projects" rules everywhere; I consider those to be morally reprehensible. Edit: Added "unionized" to the second paragraph to make it clear what I meant.
      • refurb 12y ago
        But the status quo is awful for most of us. No offense, but I think that statement is ridiculous. You admit you're in the top 1% of income earners in the US and you choose to use the word "awful" for your predicament?
        • edwinnathaniel 12y ago
          He's the 1% and the "awful for most of us" is for the 99%.
        • Igglyboo 12y ago
          Just because he's rich doesn't mean he can't sympathise with or understand the plight of the middle class, just like most people understand and sympathize with the plight of the poor.
          • refurb 12y ago
    • mc32 12y ago
      This reminds me how senior pilots will vote against raises for junior pilots so the senior pilots can preserve or increase their pay[1] [1]http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines
  • task_queue 12y ago
    A union is a corporation for laborers. When you are a lone skilled worker negotiating with a company, the cards are in their hands every time. You are replaceable. Divide and conquer works great if you want to depress the earnings of entire industries. As professionals, we need to recognize that we are being given the shaft as a whole and unless we have some solidarity, negotiating truly fair market rate compensation is a pipe dream.
    • topkai22 12y ago
      "The cards are in their hands every single time"- that's not true for high skill workers. If you are the only guy who knows all the opaque rules of an important business system you can often negotiate from a position of strength. That's one of the reasons IT workers get paid so well. The people who lose out the most are those doing important but relatively well defined jobs- the factory laborer, highly scripted call center worker, the warehouse picker. They can capture a lot more through collective action because while they can easily be replaced individually losing them en masse is catastrophic.
      • chronid 12y ago
        If you are the only guy who knows all the opaque rules of an important business system you have incompetent management and they should be replaced. Single point of failure and all that. What happens when you are ill/away and a critical bug must be fixed, or a critical system goes down and must be restored? I predict a lot of pizza's boxes around the office. And you working remotely like mad while ill or from the beach/sky resort. A lot of screaming, too. :)
      • makeitsuckless 12y ago
        Except the reality is that we are not getting paid "so well". Given the scarcity and value of our skills, we're getting screwed. We're not very good at negotiating as individual professionals, and we're being taken advantage of on a massive scale.
        • MCRed 12y ago
  • ams6110 12y ago
    A union will remove any ability for you to stand out. You will be paid the same as the worst or best worker, on the basis of some kind of seniority/job description parameters worked out by the union leadership and the company management. It may get you a little more than you get now, but it also removes any reward for excellence. You will be unable to negotiate a raise or promotion directly with your managers. If you're unhappy with your compensation, move to someplace where you get a better deal. You are worth whatever you agree to work for. If you want a union, fine. I don't suggest that you shouldn't have one. But it will limit your upside, a lot. Even if it offers some minimal protection on the downside.
    • learnstats2 12y ago
      This matches my experience, unfortunately. I worked in an industry with notoriously low pay, and I felt that the union removed my ability to negotiate my pay. Meanwhile, my workplace was paying for (and I was stuck dealing with) union-protected incompetence.
      • chronid 12y ago
        To bring a counterpoint, it does not match mine (but I do not live in the USA). My salary is actually higher that the minimum (established by collective agreement) for my job. The union just negotiates the lower bound. If your company values you more than that, they can always pay you more. Or promote you. Nothing stops them to do so.
        • ptaipale 12y ago
          I guess this depends on local legislation. It is possible that in some places the law/collective agreement says that you cannot pay more.
        • maxharris 12y ago
          Nothing stops them to do so. Except the fact that at any given moment, the company only has $X to pay you from, and the union makes it so that they have some amount less: $X - n.
  • Shivetya 12y ago
    No you don't. Your union bargains away your value and your only option is to not vote yes to the contract only to have them tell you its the best you can get and the majority votes for it. Most of the time your representatives don't want to rock the vote and work to protect themselves more than you. Your just a worker to them, they see themselves on the same level with the people they negotiate with, not you. Your hyperbole doesn't provide any real reason to form a union other than you don't like where you work. Honestly go somewhere else. Really. You won't be happy after a union gets there and likely you will be paying dues equivalent to an hour or more a month to be a member. anecdotal part comesnext Having been a member of a union shop before and having quite a few family in the Midwest I would switch employers or careers before creating or joining one. I cannot for the life of me equate professional and union in the same sentence.
    • cdcarter 12y ago
      Still anecdata but I've worked in three locals and have NEVER felt like my job steward or the union leadership aren't working to protect me. If they were, they wouldn't get re-elected. Of course, I work in an industry where the unions are strong and members actually vote.
  • cperciva 12y ago
    If you formed a union at your workplace, you and your colleagues would get to decide the rules like that. Yes, but I am more skilled than my colleagues. Unions inherently negotiate on behalf of the median worker who was employed at the time that the contract negotiations took place. As other people have pointed out, the fact the unions negotiate for current employees rather than future employees contributes to the "screw the new guy" phenomenon; the fact that unions negotiate for the median worker can result in them undervaluing their high-productivity workers. This is why unions are effective primarily in low-standard-deviation-productivity fields: If the best secretary in the office is 10% more productive than the median, but the union manages to raise the median secretary's income by 20% compared to the market clearing rate, then every secretary benefits. However, if the top software developer is 10x as productive as the median...
    • fnordsensei 12y ago
      If they do their job, they negotiate the minimum wage and benefits. Nothing prevents you from getting more than that if you're skilled, but it does in fact prevent the new guy from being screwed over if done properly.
    • te_chris 12y ago
      You say that now, just you wait until supply of programmers catch up.
      • jjoonathan 12y ago
        Yep. It has always amazed me how my peers can assume that their pay should be proportionate to their value in one breath while ranting about unions in the next. I mean, it's one thing to realize that the supply/demand situation for programmers currently makes unions unnecessary, but it's quite another to slam people in other fields for doing what they have to in order to secure the same damn privilege (getting paid according to value). The opportunity to make this extremely modest dream a reality is not some kind of right inherent to the free market! It's something we're going to have to fight for once supply/demand equilibrium has been reached.
  • rayiner 12y ago
    But it's not propaganda. Look how teachers' and police unions across the country have pushed relentlessly to collect unsustainable benefits while completely ignoring the needs of the cities they serve. How police unions are key in protecting bad cops, like unions everywhere protect bad workers. They're functionally no different than the unions that destroyed GM, etc. I hear unions work okay in Europe. They haven't in the U.S.
    • goldbeck 12y ago
      I note that the two unions you bring up are public-sector unions. It's worth considering that public-sector and private-sector unions are different beasts. For one thing, private-sector unions are facing off against corporations - both trying to maximize their own value, and so one might hope a balance is achieved. In the public-sector, unions are trying to maximize their own value, but the government is (hypothetically) trying to maximize public good, so it's not really a fair balance. Private-sector unions have been hugely helpful in the US. This article touches on it in an interesting way: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-cost-of-a-decline-in-unions.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/nicholas-kristof-t...
      • pdonis 12y ago
        > the two unions you bring up are public-sector unions He also brought up the United Auto Workers, which is not.
        • jjoonathan 12y ago
          Yes, but only his complaints about the public sector unions were reasonable enough to address.
          • pdonis 12y ago
            > only his complaints about the public sector unions were reasonable enough to address. I don't understand. His complaint is basically that public sector unions and private sector unions have the same problems.
  • Symmetry 12y ago
    If you formed a union at your workplace, you and your colleagues would get to decide the rules like that. This is theoretically true for a lot of things such as pay by seniority but it isn't true for everything. In the bad old days some people used union requirements as a way of keeping minorities out of certain industries. Laws were passed to fix this, but those same laws sometimes mean that if your coworker is incompetent then even if management and most union members want them gone then the union is still obligated to fight to let your coworker keep their job. It can be hard to talk about unions in general when unions in the US and Sweden and Japan end up working so differently.
  • paulhauggis 12y ago
    "Aaand...a union isn't a "let's all be lazy and wreck businesses" framework; that's a bit of nonsensical propaganda that we've all swum in for the last few decades.." This sounds great in theory, but here is what I've seen in practice: 1) Very difficult to fire someone which almost always leads to a court case. Poor employees should be able to be terminated, for the benefit of everyone, not shuffled around the company wasting money and resources. 2) Unions becoming as powerful or more powerful than many large companies which leads to the same type of corruption. Most Union leaders get millions in bonuses every year, yet we don't see anyone protesting on Wallstreet. 3) Guaranteed raises for unionized employees, even if it means the company will go out of business or can't compete any longer in the market place. 4) Inflated wages. A worker doing a job that requires little education or skill can do should not be paid > $100,000/year. In the 90s, I knew mechanics making $150,000/year working 3 day work-weeks. The unions forced the companies to have 2 people working the job of 1 person. 5) You can't get raises based only on merit. If you want a raise, many other people need to get raises in your department or it just won't happen. My previous company went to a trade show in Vegas and we rented a booth. We were required to pay $500 for a union guy to unfold a table and another couple thousand to essentially plug in a computer. Why would I want more of this inefficiency? More examples: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/vegas-union-blocks-ufc-ny-ve-found-point-154302763.html http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/vegas-union-bloc... Ever wonder why the UFC isn't in New York? The Culinary union. When people choose not to be in a union, many unions decide to use under-handed tactics to force a company to support them. It's just one group looking to have power over another. They generally aren't looking out for your best interest, only to use your status as an employee to have leverage and power over a company. This is a forum for startups. Do you actually think it would be easy to start a company if you had to go through miles of red tape and essentially a court case to let a poor employee go? It would change the entire startup scene for the worst. The glut, waste, and inefficiency is why I despise unions. You can tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about, but I've seen it too many times in the last 20 years to believe you.
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  • SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
    I'm really believing we need a professional association or guild. With merit-based professional rankings. I think a big contributor to the problem of programmers being underpaid is that there's no distinction between the clinic assistant and the brain surgeon. We're all just "programmers" or at best "software engineers". If there were an official distinction, then it might be easier to demand higher salaries for the higher skilled positions.
    • rwallace 12y ago
      I am not entirely without sympathy for the idea of a union modeled after those in e.g. Hollywood; I can see reasonable arguments on both sides. But the guild that controls the medical profession has turned out to be a disaster of such epic proportions that I am stunned any sane person would consider it anything other than a grim cautionary tale. Any other setup would be better than that. (Beware of the temptation to let the high status of medicine influence one's opinion of the institutions by which it is run.)
  • benihana 12y ago
    >If you formed a union at your workplace, you and your colleagues would get to decide the rules like that. Only if someone before me hadn't decided them first. And even if I decide them, what about the people who come after me? They're forever beholden to the context that I created the rules under.
    • mch82 12y ago
      Rules and leadership get renegotiated periodically, just like a company's board of directors and shareholder ballot initiatives are voted on periodically. A rule set is not a permanent structure.
      • peteypao 12y ago
        Except that it is. How likely are the current rules going to be completely revised? It would probably takes countless years for anything to change.
  • netcan 12y ago
    I agree that many of the slogan laced perspectives are shallow. Unionisation and the whole complex that comes with it is not narrow. A lot of effort and thought has gone into it. A lot of smart people. But it's also true that unions themselves have causes problems, often at a very macro level. Unions can have their own interests, independent of the interests of their members. I don't know where I stand. I think there is a real problem in negotiation position of employees and employers. An employer negotiates often, their stakes are lower and they can optimize. I think we would be seeing improved "labour conditions" like working hours, holidays and other points if the negotiation process was efficient, but we are not. Generally, the less restricted the market, the longer the conventional hours, the fewer the number of days off and the lower the job security. I think it's probably inefficient. I don't think unions have offered a perfect solution. Often it's not even good enough or better than nothing. I think we need to keep looking. The left needs new ideas.
  • asuffield 12y ago
    I'd like to make a subtle but critical adjustment to your statement: "A union is a legal framework for the employees which has the ability to recast the power balance and can do it in their favour, if it so chooses." Unions are definitely capable of doing this thing, and some do it. They do not necessarily do this thing, and some do not. The common failure mode is that an entrenched union is run by a group of people who act very much like company management, profit immensely from this arrangement, and remain in power by employing forms of the pirate ship loot splitting strategy. (The pirate ship captain must propose a split of the loot, which the crew votes on. If they vote in favour, the loot split goes ahead, and if not then the captain is thrown overboard. The correct solution is to divide the loot equally between 51% of the crew including the captain, and allocate none to the rest.) The worst unions are definitely not a framework for laziness, but they do tend to be bad for businesses as their primary function is to suck money out of the company and give it to union leaders. The best unions make everybody better off, including the employers. Some companies have internalised the functions of the best unions, because they realised that this makes everybody better off, so don't have any real need for unions. Some companies have internalised the functions of the worst unions and are engaged in an asset-stripping operation. There is a tendency for older unions to be worse than newer ones. Setting up a union will almost certainly be good for the people who set it up. Joining an established union may or may not be good for you; if you're thinking about joining a union then research this union carefully and figure out if they're going to be good for you. Keep in mind that bad unions tend to be extremely political and will be surrounded by propaganda - look for clear evidence of outcomes. If you're thinking about unionising in your workplace, please think carefully about this problem and how you're going to make sure that your union is one of the good ones. If you're thinking about running a company, please think carefully about how to be one of the companies that already does the work of the good unions.
  • frostmatthew 12y ago
    > nonsensical propaganda that we've all swum in for the last few decades It doesn't sound like you have any actual first-hand experience with unions. I'll admit unions played a significant role in improving the workplace for everyone, and we should all be thankful for their contributions 50+ years ago. But they are now primarily self-serving organizations that exist for the benefit of the union itself. Before becoming a developer I worked in hotels (as a banquet manager), let me give you some examples of the types of things unions now fight for: * a dishwasher cannot wash pots and a potwasher cannot wash dishes * only an electrician can change the batteries in a TV remote or change a lightbulb * when it's busy your manager(s) cannot help you * re-hiring of employees who were terminated because they were caught stealing or physically assaulting other employees The better an employee is the less they benefit from a union. It results in good employees not getting paid as well as they could be and bad employees sticking around because it's difficult (or impossible) to fire them. We could certainly benefit from the types of professional association lawyers[1] and doctors[2] have, but those are quite different than unions. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bar_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bar_Association [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    • phaemon 12y ago
      Unions do not fight for any of the things you listed. Frankly, you don't seem to know what a union actually does. Let's take your last example: * re-hiring of employees who were terminated because they were caught stealing or physically assaulting other employees If a person in the company physically assaulted another person then how could they be rehired? Were they working from prison after criminal charges were brought? Were they allowed back into the building, ignoring the restraining order that was obtained? Ohh...what you mean is that the business didn't bother with any of those legal niceties and thought they could accuse someone of assault and fire them, without involving the law. Yeah, you don't get to do that. And most people would be glad of that if some manager decided to fire them due to a personal grudge and gave the reason as assault, with no evidence at all.
• task_queue 12y ago
  Right to work and its ilk have a very expressed intention of neutering unionization efforts. Keep in mind, that with a proper front for labor to negotiate with firms, compensation is kept at a fair market level. We haven't seen compensation increases in most occupations in 30 years. You, as a worker, are owed a much larger compensation that should be what the market would bear if you were able to negotiate on a much fairer plane with your employer. As IT workers, we are a huge revenue drain compared to other workers on the books, despite any claims to how much 'worth' we might bring to a company. Ideally, for them, those wages will go down. The industry has shown time and again that it will defy the law to keep our pay low and below its true market value.
  • forrestthewoods 12y ago
    Why is collective negotiation fair but non-collective unfair? That feels like a faulty premise.
    • Retra 12y ago
      The business negotiates collectively whether you do or not.
    • task_queue 12y ago
      You're missing the point. When you are an individual negotiating with a well-lawyered, well-moneyed organization who holds power (your ability to make a living) over you, that is not a negotiation. It is reminiscent of Hobson's choice. A negotiation happens when both sides have a fairer footing in terms of what they have to offer and lose. When a union goes to negotiate with a corporation, their relationship is on an equal footing. This allows for better negotiations in terms of compensation, working conditions, benefits and what not. It is the check and balance that the inequal relationship between a sole worker and a corporation needs.
      • ams6110 12y ago
        You say this as if you get one shot to negotiate with one employer. There are hundreds of employers. Many are in competition with each other, directly if not indirectly. When the union negotiates, they are not representing YOUR interests. They are representing the collective interest of the union. The deal they get will be the minimally acceptible deal that a majority of the membership will accept. You are still not in control.
• CyberDildonics 12y ago
  I think an interesting Union would be one that lets employees decide who they want to be their direct supervisor along with some sort of incentive for output.
  • ptaipale 12y ago
    This idea resembles the election of brigadirs (work brigade leaders) in a kolkhoz. It requires that the production is collectivised/nationalised, or at least that the private ownership is nominal in nature, because owner cannot effectively direct work. It did work to some extent in agriculture prior to mechanisation, when much of the work was manual, but it is hard to see how this would be possible e.g. in high-tech industry, where even the fundamental nature of "capital" and "means of production" are different.
  • jbuzbee 12y ago
    Start your own company, and you're free to try that out. Trying to force your own will on someone else's company and business plan is an economic road-to-ruin for everybody. Just ask the US Auto-makers.
• harigov 12y ago
  It's so strange to notice that we live in a democratic society but work in authoritarian organizations (for employees at least). By getting rid of unions, we made it clear as to who owns the companies and who have rights within the company. Having some say in the direction that the company is moving towards seems like a reasonable thing to ask for.
  • colmvp 12y ago
    This is especially more funny when you consider corporate influence in politics, along with the influence of money. Corporations and the rich have a disproportionate influence yet it would be audacious to ever propose workers having a vote in these matters. Owners of corporations are of course delighted when employees are fractured, unable to coalesce to wage battles for greater equality and say in decision-making and sharing profits.
  • jbuzbee 12y ago
    "Having some say in the direction that the company is moving towards seems like a reasonable thing to ask for" Reading comments like this make me think of the old "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" saying. Where to even start? As an extreme, I hire a kid to mow my lawn. Then he comes up to me and says he wants to have a say in the direction that my household is going. That's reasonable, right? Of course, I'd tell him to save his money to get his own house. If you want input, become a stockholder, or start your own business.
• blackRust 12y ago
  I would be interested in learning about forms of unionisation via co-operative structures. The perception is that unions can "block" things, that is also their power. Co-operatives distribute ownership, and thus responsibility and profits.
• gavanwoolery 12y ago
  When a union is used to defend rights, it is good. When a union is used for exploitation, it is bad. The problem is when unions grow too large, and become politically lucrative feeding grounds. The government hands out certain contracts to certain unions to gain their votes (and in some cases, their returned financial support), while squashing "fair competition" (not everyone is, or cares to be, unionized, especially when the disagree with the principles and practices of some unions).
  • bduerst 12y ago
    Sounds like a problem with contract selection, honestly. Maybe use an independent [agnostic] party to select vendors for major government contracts?
• topkai22 12y ago
  I'd love to see better information on alternative collective bargaining to unions, which is a loaded word in the U.S. I've never worked as a union member, but my impression from working with them is that they undermine their own success long term by over protecting incumbent members and reducing organizational agility, but do a good job of improving the live of their averages member in the short to midterm. I've often mused on how to make collective bargaining work better without much success. I wonder if employee owned corporations that function like contractors would be better (the employees start working for the union once the collective bargaining goes into effect.)
• rdlecler1 12y ago
  The top 10% are also putting in a lot more hours. Moreover, a good education, which now costs about $150k, is no longer a guarantee of a good job. I have many friends who won't pay off their student loans until they are 40. I have other friends with union jobs but little additional education that have houses and boat. Why should someone be compensated more than those who took the risk to pursue a higher education?
  • pistle 12y ago
    It sounds like the more compensated made better choices. Why does risk-taking engender high pay than working for good money? If the facts in the books aren't worth a damn to the employers, maybe the higher education has no market value? Just because someone says it's a 'good education' doesn't mean it breeds worthwhile labor in a market.
    • rdlecler1 12y ago
      A society where people are not compensated for taking risks is called communism. How did that work out?
• spiritplumber 12y ago
  I wonder if unions can benefit from the "instant direct democracy" that technology allows but isn't currently used in most governments.
• akulbe 12y ago
  I'm guessing my opinion won't be popular here, but I don't see anyone saying anything similar, so I'm going to speak up. There was once a time where unions were necessary. Personally, I think that time is long past. Now, I think unions breed mediocrity, and set up situations where you have folks with an attitude of entitlement striking when they don't get every last bit of their way. Walking around with picket signs like as if they are owed everything. Time to join the real world, with the rest of us. You don't always get what you want. We had gas prices go way down in the last couple months, then they went all the way back up. I had heard it attributed to refinery workers striking, because some had been laid off. I don't know if that is true, or not, but if it is... it only proves my point.
  • nyolfen 12y ago
    you're right, those rich folks really do deserve to extract their employees' value in ever-increasing amounts, because poor people are spoiled or something
  • Devthrowaway80 12y ago
    > Time to join the real world, with the rest of us. You don't always get what you want. "You're right sir, I don't deserve paid vacation or maternity leave. Yes sir, I don't deserve to work the 40 hours a week you pay for me. I'll get right to it, sir. How high do you want me to jump, sir?" Rugged individualist Americans standing up for their right to not have any leverage in negotiation with their betters, always a sight to see. > There was once a time where unions were necessary. Personally, I think that time is long past. Because real incomes for the majority have been flat in the US for the decades despite GDP increasing, income inequality increasing, and hours worked increasing?
  • wfo 12y ago
    I think it's time for you to join the real world. Union workers are not entitled. You are coming from a place of entitlement if you think that life is that good for most workers. Union workers are trying to regain some semblance of power in an exploitative relationship. Many employers (all of the most efficient and therefore successful ones) are abusive. Even the hyper-entitled, and therefore hyper-libertarian software engineers are abused by their employers - employers break the law and collude to depress wages, if you want a real example from the news. Employees as a whole in this country are currently getting screwed -- because of a very well funded and long-running campaign by business interests to destroy unions through criminal action, regulatory capture, propaganda, etc. Incidentally it's much easier to convince software engineers to turn on each other and work against their best interests, all it takes is a quick ego stroke -- claim 'no, we're only going to screw over the \bad\ engineers, and you're not one of them... are you?' Fortunately some of them trying to stop it. Complaining about gas prices changing because of those pesky entitled blue collar upstarts acting above their class and demanding to be treated like human beings doesn't particularly endear people to your cause either. There are arguments to be made against unions; none of these are them.
• addicted44 12y ago
  I think the problem is that the word unionization encapsulates many different things which should not necessarily be tied together. Collective bargaining, employees having a voice on the running of the business, legal and advisory services provided by someone on your side as opposed to someone with interests diametrically opposed to yours (the CEOs, not the companies), elections of representatives, etc. As a whole these (as the data conclusively proves) were better for workers and probably the companies as well at the expense of the C-level suits. But it is probably true that some of ideas implemented by unions did work against workers. The solution is not to throw the baby out with the bath water but to analyze and experiment with different union structures which reduce the negative effects and enhance the positive ones. Unfortunately, Americans have decide to wholesale reject and vilify the only structure that empowers non-owners even slightly which despite all its faults was still better for most Americans, instead of trying to separate the effective ones from the ineffective ones, and are reaping the unequal society they have sowed. Gotta give credit to our wealthy overlords who have done an impressive job of getting people to vote against their own interests by splitting people along various social dividing lines as well as magnifying limited failures of systems as endemic to them.
  • MCRed 12y ago
    Consider for a second that maybe they aren't voting against their own interests. My interest is not in having some jackhole thug whose primary skill is breaking kneecaps going around and negotiating my salary, thank you very much. With unions you always have the principle-agent problem. The union is going to negotiate for its best interest, not necessarily the employees and certainly not a specific employees. There's a long history of these kinds of union abuses. This is why the unions in america are closely associated iwht the mob (that and the fact that the mob is what started the unions in america.)
• MCRed 12y ago
  Unions do not negotiate the best deal for the employees, they negotiate the best deal for the union. One of the terms unions love to have is a requirement that all employees be members of the union. When you have to pay the union in order to keep your job, the union becomes a tax on your income... and the union has no incentive to treate you right-- as what are you going to do? Quit and go work for another company? That's your only option. That modern unions attempt to force employees to be members when the employees don't want to-- shows that the unions themselves know they aren't offering an advantage to the employees that the employees would voluntarily choose. Walmart doesn't force me to buy its hot dogs. Walmart competes with other hot dog providers for my business. (And loses because there is a very good german deli in this town.)
  • NegativeK 12y ago
    > That modern unions attempt to force employees to be members when the employees don't want to-- shows that the unions themselves know they aren't offering an advantage to the employees that the employees would voluntarily choose. As an analogy: "The modern government attempt to force citizens to pay taxes when the citizens don't want to-- shows that the governments themselves know that they aren't offering an advantage to the citizens that the citizens would voluntarily choose." It shows some someone is a screw up. It could be the union, demanding benefits when they don't deserve them; it could be the employees who don't want to pay and would still benefit from the unions negotiating for them.
  • gerbal 12y ago
    1. Closed shops are pretty much necessary for Unions to form or persist. It give Unions bargaining power. 2. Unions are democracies, in a functioning democracy what's good for the power structure should be good for the electorate.
    • pdonis 12y ago
      > in a functioning democracy what's good for the power structure should be good for the electorate So basically, you're saying that there is no such thing as a "functioning" democracy.
• steveplace 12y ago
  People who think the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers have a problem to explain: why are unions shrinking now? The best they can do is fall back on the default explanation of people living in fallen civilizations. Our ancestors were giants. The workers of the early twentieth century must have had a moral courage that's lacking today. In fact there's a simpler explanation. The early twentieth century was just a fast-growing startup overpaying for infrastructure. And we in the present are not a fallen people, who have abandoned whatever mysterious high-minded principles produced the high-paying union job. We simply live in a time when the fast-growing companies overspend on different things.
  • task_queue 12y ago
    Or you can look at the legislature enacted to curb unionism instead of comparing the twentieth century to a start up.
• sago 12y ago
  Unions suffer from the same problem as communist states: they are theoretically superb, but practically cumbersome and prone to abuse. A successful union should be able to - Guarantee minimum wages and conditions for all employees. - Hold management to account on malpractice towards employees. - Not limit individual employees ability to command higher wages or conditions than the minimum. - Not limit the ability of companies to make decisions that improve the health of the company. - Allow employees to be agile in what they need from the company, without calcifying previous agreements. - Not privilege the employment of union representatives. In practice good unions hit some of these, but not all. And anti-union folks tend to carp on the ones that they're poor at. I'd love to see a model for how to unionise that provided all these qualities. They aren't called 'unions', but there are professional organizations that act as unions and are generally respected: doctors, accountants, etc. They don't hit all my points, but I think, on balance, programmers would benefit from something similar.
  • pessimizer 12y ago
    >Not limit the ability of companies to make decisions that improve the health of the company. The only purpose of unions is to limit the ability of companies to make decisions that improve the health of the company (at the expense of the people who work for it.)
    • sago 12y ago
      Why put the last phrase in parentheses when removing it would totally alter the meaning? The only purpose of surgeons is to hack into peoples bodies and mess about with their internal organs (when the person's health would be worse if they did not). See? It's easy to play those games. Employment isn't a zero sum game. Employees can benefit from a healthy company. Unions should facilitate the growth of a company in ways that do not exploit the workforce.
  • Frondo 12y ago
    Private enterprise suffers from the same problem as capitalist states: they are theoretically efficient, but in practice, a handful of people at the top become richer and richer, while everyone else is squeezed into de-facto indenture. As they say, capitalism works in theory. Once you get out into the real world, though, you need some kind of check on that imbalance of power.
• jfe 12y ago
  the primary function of unions is to improve working conditions and increase wages for its members. the improved working conditions are welcome in developing nations, but the increased wages come at a cost, for unions can only ensure higher wages by limiting the number of jobs available. furthermore, unions must define a set of criteria for the acceptance of new union members that discriminates for reasons wholly irrelevant to employers.
• jkot 12y ago
  My friend worked at place with unions in Ireland: * Safety was 'important', every year they checked that chairs and screens are ergonomically positioned. However lab vent contamination with poison was swept under rag. * Monthly union membership fee 50 euro. This was 'optional', but most people paid to avoid problems. * union had huge income surplus. It was used to send union leaders to 'seminars' on exotic locations. * in case of strike, union would not compensate first three days (except officials who were organizing the strike). All strikes very under 3 days. Basically extra holiday. * that place had 10 HR persons on 120 personnel. My company had 1 HR for 110 people. * People with permanent contracts were untouchable. * 70% people worked on 6 month contracts extended for YEARS. * This company spend fifty year budget on huge unnecessary building. There were no money left to hire people
  • pjscott 12y ago
    Maybe the workers should form some sort of group to collectively bargain with the union.
    • Apocryphon 12y ago
      Ideally, shouldn't there be multiple unions within a workforce, to compete with each other, just as there are multiple corporations?
      • pjscott 12y ago
        Ah, but then one of the unions could free-ride on the sacrifices of the others, and the whole system would collapse bit by bit! No, if you have multiple unions, then obviously they need to form a union-of-unions to allow the unions to collectively bargain.
• andrewfong 12y ago
  Although the study (or summary) heavily implies that the decline in unionizing causes greater income inequality, the standard correlation-is-not-causation caveat still applies. In particular, there's a plausible argument that greater automation is a confounding variable, insofar that (a) easy-to-automate jobs tend to be more unionized than hard-to-automate jobs and (b) automation leads to outsized rewards for relatively small groups of people (investors, owners, inventors, etc.) That's not to say unions don't matter, but I'm curious if there's any research that attempts to distinguish between unionization and new technological developments.
• Apocryphon 12y ago
  In this commentary thread, I see a lot of opinions about unions, as well as anecdata, but little in the way of actual discussion of the findings that the article is talking about. I myself lack the economic and statistical knowledge to offer such discussion, but would very much like to read discussion from those who are knowledgeable.
• Devthrowaway80 12y ago
  The wealthy in the US have successfully lobbied for "Right to Work" legislation and have managed to pump out anti-union propaganda that is being parroted in this thread for decades. This costs money and effort. Why do you suppose they have done this? Out of the goodness of their hearts? Because it benefits the individual worker? Or because it allows them to keep a larger share of the output of the economy? Income inequality is the highest it has been since the beginning of the depression. Real wages have been flat for decades despite large gains in GDP. Is that a sign that workers have excellent leverage in negotiations? Programmers are in a privileged position right now because there aren't enough of us to fill demand. That will not be the case forever. Look at what has happened with law - people saw the money to be made, flooded the market, and now a law degree doesn't really mean shit unless you're from a Big N school. The majority of programming work is not innovative or challenging - look at how many "I taught myself Javascript Framework 38! Look what I built" posts that flood this site. What do you think the long-term outlook for programming work is going to be like? Are you going to be the special snowflake ninja 10X rockstar in 10 years? Are you going to be happy to have no collective bargaining then?
  • Dewie 12y ago
    It's fascinating. Corporations and rich owners of industry already have bargaining power by... being big and having money. There's a lot of wiggle room for abuse of power and influence while staying within the confines of the law. And if they don't want to stay within the confines of the law, they have more resources and means to evade it. But suggest that common workers should have some collective bargaining power and people are all afraid of them going too far and abusing their power. I guess they're afraid that they will have to pay 10 cents more for their coffee at Starbucks because of some greedy barrista union. The common worker banding together like that, that's too dangerous! Better have everyman and woman to themselves, and trust corporations, rich people and politicians to do the right thing.
    • Potando 12y ago
      There have been some fairly monstrous cases of unions crippling their industries (printers, watersiders). I think that might have put some people off the idea. Not to say all unions are that broken but it seems that sometimes they grow too big. It's one thing to negotiate for more pay, but when you actively seek to prevent technological improvements which might make your job redundant, that makes you a burden on the rest of society.
• mullingitover 12y ago
  It's pretty ironic that the party of small government favors a policy of huge government overreach into the ability of various to enter into contracts with each other. That's all Unions really boil down to: contracts. It's supposed to be what makes this country a superior place to do business, the fact that you can enter into binding contracts which will be enforced. But hey, if you know how to operate the institutionalized bribery system known as campaign finance, you can get the government to rewrite the contract to your advantage, or even deny your counterparty the ability to enter into a binding contract at all.
• vasilipupkin 12y ago
  this article takes a correlation and proceeds to imply causation from it. There is a correlation between recent rise of inequality in advanced economies and decline in unionization. But, global inequality has decreased over the same period. It's quite probable that the same forces are driving all 3 of these
• brc 12y ago
  Correlation does not equal causation. Technology multipliers are the cause of income disparity.
• rsuelzer 12y ago
  I work for a large private sector union. Unions are not perfect, nothing is, but they are also completely democratic institutions. But, the decline in union membership does not tell the whole story about the decline of wages in America. I believe the decline in wages and union membership reflects a shift in how people value themselves as human beings, and their relationship to their fellow man. The biggest obstacle to increasing wages to more equitable levels comes from the mentality: "At least I have a job", "I will be rich someday", "I can make it on my own", "I'm only going to work here for a year". These thoughts are what has allowed wages to be pushed to their lowest levels in recent history without any push-back from the work force. Unions at their core are nothing more than a group of workers who get together to negotiate a contract and are willing to take action to force the employer to sit down and negotiate. This used to be understood, but at some point unions became viewed as some sort of "servicing" entity that drew its powers from a mysterious legal paper. Members forgot that the union was THEM. Thankfully, the labor movement is starting reverse course from decades of this mentality. The truth is that, the only power which workers (unionized or not) have is to withhold labor in a coordinated manner. Contracts are meaningless without the power of a strike. Without workers being willing to all withhold labor together, union or not, wages will continue to decline until a moral crisis is reached. Sorry, that was a bit of a ramble, but "unions" are just groups of workers who have a 501(c)(5) paper with IRS that allows them pool money together to organize.
  • frostmatthew 12y ago
    > they are also completely democratic institutions I've seen this democracy in practice first-hand in my previous career where shop stewards diligently ensured that come time for a union vote those that will vote the "right way" are provided time-off and/or transportation while the others are "stuck working" or "there's no more room in the van."
  • randomdata 12y ago
    I believe the decline in wages and union membership reflects a shift in how people value themselves as human beings, and their relationship to their fellow man. From the data I am looking at, wages started to stagnate (I see no clear decline trend) around the year 1965, which roughly coincides with when women started to enter the workforce in a meaningful way. Could it be simply that the near-doubling of the labour pool pushed the supply beyond the demand, thus depressing prices and forcing people to take what they can get? More recently, we might say robots have helped increase the supply even further. Like you recognized later on in your post, the power of the union comes from artificially restricting the supply of workers to make supply and demand work in their favour, so does it not stand to reason that attitude shift you have observed is a result of the same market economics, not the other way around?
• pdkl95 12y ago
  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-cap... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk The above two links go to the same essay by author of "The Wire" David Simon in written and video forms. He discusses specifically the problem of unions... and the problem of capital. If you have the time, please watch and/or read this essay. A very, very brief summary: Unions are absolutely necessary, but not because of some specific feature they might achieve. Instead, they are a check on capital. (and vice versa). Similar to our "adversarial" judicial system - where each side is expected to fight hard for their own interests - it is the struggle between labor and capital that produces a working economy. If either side actually gets what they want, the system becomes pathological. So yes, unions are an inefficiency. That was the intended effect. There is a lot of hostility in this very thread to the idea that "those people" - in this case, "people I see as 'lower-quality engineers'" - might be getting something they "don't deserve". Or the fear might be that helping the bottom end would require taking from someone else, as if the economy was some zero-sum game. Yes, some amount of those effect was the goal. The alternative that says some variation of "fsck you, I've got mine" may betray a lack of empathy in the speaker, but in most cases I suspect it betrays a belief in one of our most damaging cultural myths: the "just world" fallacy we call the "free market". The question isn't really about unions. Instead, the question to ask yourself is "are we in this together?" Do you want a society with a functioning economy or not? Or do you want to let us continue our slide back into feudalism... and probably some sort of violent rebellion in the long run. To make society work, it might require occasionally helping those that are less fortunate. Just like we do with "taxes" and "health insurance". Forming a union and participating in it might be one of the ways you can provide input on how these issues should be managed.
  • jqm 12y ago
    Helping the less fortunate is a good idea. The less able (or less willing) being forcibly inserted into a workplace is not a good idea and doesn't help anyone.
  • steveax 12y ago
    Thanks for the link. Terrific essay. I often look at the industry I'm in and the dominant political & economic perceptions the participants adhere to and wonder if there is an ignorance of history, or just a misguided belief that "it's different this time".
• ef4 12y ago
  I think unionizing is actually aiming way too low for many workers. Even lower-skill ones. As an example, people have bandied about ideas about whether Uber drivers should unionize. But Uber drivers already own the means of production. So if you could effectively organize them, don't bother with a union, just create a worker-owned cooperate that competes directly with Uber. Get 100,000 drivers to chip in $10 a month and you can fund a really nice app plus the necessary lawyers. The same pattern reoccurs in many parts of the modern economy. Many businesses are so capital-efficient that they only exist because they're good at coordinating workers -- not because they monopolize the working capital. So if you can organize workers, skip the union and go directly to worker ownership.
  • Apocryphon 12y ago
    This is a really great idea, and brings something that's ironically been absent in this entire conversation: innovation. Why not "disrupt" the state of labor? So many startups are already involved in the art of social engineering and tweaking, why not create a modern equivalent to unions that could empower workers in a different way?
• ChuckMcM 12y ago
  Interesting idea, its possible though that rather than unionization the issue is a lack of dividends. The efficiency of enterprises to generate value has gone up quite a bit, without significant competition, that leads to excess profits. How that extra capital is allocated can be to pay employees more, accumulate cash, or pay it out to the share holders. In the 30's the "profit" for the non-institutional investor from owning stock was receiving dividends on a pro-rata basis, not trading the stock. In the run up of the market from the 80's trading was more valuable than holding, and technology companies, companies that increasingly made up the composition of stocks were more likely to not pay any dividends at all. You might ask yourself why you hold stock in any company that doesn't pay you a dividend. What are they doing with the capital they generate? Your only recourse is to sell the stock when the value goes up. The status quo is good for the company, they can put money in (value goes up) and take money out (value goes down) of your pocket all day and you can't do a thing about it (except to stop playing by selling the stock) whereas with a dividend once you've received the check the worst that can happen is the next year you don't get one. So really the companies are giving your dividend money to their top executives rather than you. As a shareholder you should work on changing that :-)
• bnolsen 12y ago
  cause and effect have been misidentified. the craptastic business environment in the US has led to fall of the system. unions can't survive because they've helped price american labor out of the market. union money has gone unilaterally to democrats who raise more taxes and levy more and more rules and regulations and entitlements driving up taxes and corruption. the union centers, like detroit and many other traditional union strongholds collapsed, businesses went to friendlier environments. i personally despise unions. they force people into collectivism and destroy any individuality. my dad was a long time of this. he used to get letters from the union telling him he was working too hard and making other people look bad. he should have been given pay raises, not punished for working hard for his company.
• AhrowTway 12y ago
  I've been noticing a trend of pro-union propaganda flooding HackerNews for months now. (starting with the outrage machine pumping Uber as the newest evil) I come from a heavily unionized state. Globalization decimated them and the only thing they could do was stage impotent displays of grandiosity. If you think corporate greed alone killed unions, then you are nothing more than a grass-is-greener useful idiot. Union incompetance killed unions. Union ignorance killed unions. Union faith in its golden era mythology killed unions. Corporations just made it profitable. If you think the solution to a glut of knowledge workers is to collude to create artifical drops in supply, you are just giving your "corporate enemy" the easiest fight of its life. The reality is that knowledge labor IS globally liquid, and short of a deeply embedded fascist/mercantilist nationalism that violently curbs immigration, outsourcing, and the Internet, you will not and cannot stop capital from hiring pixel pushers overseas. Detriot. Patterson. Newark. Camden. These are the glorious ruins of unions. Perhaps in between gentrification waves and Tumblr crusades, you should go raise a family in one of these shining beacons of equality and let us all know how it turns out.
• petegrif 12y ago
  There seem to be a lot of posts that state, in one form or another, that unions are imperfect. Unions, it seems, are flawed and can indeed at times, or indeed regularly, act in the interests of senior officials rather than those of their members. Hello! They are organizations. They are staffed by human beings. They are not going to be perfect. They will do dumb things. Some may be outright corrupt. This however is not the point. The issue is not whether they live up to their ideals any more than whether any other organization does so. The point is whether their basic mission is such that they add value to the life of the average working stiff. On this last point the evidence is fairly clear. For all their hideous imperfections, most people are better off with some kind of umbrella organization acting more or less in their interests. Do you really imagine that the 'fat cats' think that their managers optimize their earnings as they would like? Do you think that they imagine that the members of congress they pay off do as good a job as they would like tweaking the laws to their liking? Of course not. They are pissed. They don't think they get value for money. They dis this lobbyist and scream at that editor and hold back funding from that congressman. Life isn't perfect. Why should unions be any different?
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  • MarkMc 12y ago
    Given the flaws you describe, perhaps a better way to 'add value to the life of the average working stiff' would be to reduce the income tax rates on low incomes?
• randomsearch 12y ago
  I feel ambivalent about unions, but here's what I see. Lots of people are criticising unions, because sometimes they are inefficient or corrupt. Equally, I could write a rant about how employers are inefficient and corrupt. So, my question is, what's the alternative to unionisation? Because currently, these arguments seem to say "let's get rid of the unions, and just let people be powerless and exploited." Criticism is easy. Constructive criticism is something different. [edit: typo]
• deleted 12y ago
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