4 ms·
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 abus
by 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 agoThere 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.
- eli_gottlieb 12y agoOk, but it's not like companies don't do the exact same thing. What do you call Microsoft's Windows and Office monopolies if not ways of holding society back so a firm can collect monopoly rents and avoid obsolescence?
- specialist 12y agoUnions crippled print manufacturing? Not amazing technological progress (from photographic plates thru composite color), long term decline of high margin markets (books, mags, news), and costs of production approaching zero? Where exactly do you think print manufacturing would be today, minus unions?