6 ms·

It tends to be anathema to most "white collar" workers which is a shame, the concept of organized labor is beneficial to all workers.

fennecfoxen 12y ago
Organized labor is great when you've got a local labor monopsony (one-buyer) which is exploiting your work. This was clearly the case in many company towns back in the organized-labor movement's heyday, and still has relevance to groups like public school teachers, but the last figures I've seen say that economists estimate that the average rate of exploitation in the US at large is somewhere roughly between 1%-3% (because switching firms is an expensive proposition). There's a reason that labor union membership is at an all-time low, and yet here we are with the labor movement trying to double down on a 19th-century solution to our 21st-century problems. The concept of organized labor is more beneficial today to robots than it is to Americans -- robots, and imports from developing nations. We won't even get into all of favors the labor movement hasn't done itself on various topics, either, like union leaders paid executive-like compensation or the Teamsters' ties to organized crime.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > and still has relevance to groups like public school teachers I can't believe that we're on opposite sides of the teachers' union issue.
  - fennecfoxen 12y ago
    Well, I think it's important to start with an ounce of sympathy, as it builds understanding. Public schools are run by legislatures and school boards and the like, typically being reviewed by annual-at-best election (with crap turnout, for races that few will actually follow, and many of the advantages of incumbency available. The decision-makers are not incentivized to care very much about the quality of their decisions. Moreover, they're probably the only employers in the county (maybe the whole state) and the entire business has ultra-long highly-scheduled hiring cycles -- none of this "can you start tomorrow?" business like you get in tech. That is a recipe whereby good performance is not linked to good pay at all and has very high potential for abuse. Would you trust someone employed by that sort of a bureaucracy to evaluate your performance at your job? I'd prefer not to, myself. So there are a few ways to approach this. Teachers could just sit there and take it -- you can understand why they don't care to do so, surely. We could structure the system to have a lot of objective evaluations to curb abuses -- an approach still fraught with many issues (standardized tests and certificates which fail to capture many of the most important aspects of pedagogy). As a final set of options, we could either try to ameliorate some of the worst of all this by restructuring the system to have more options and employers for teachers (charter schools, private schools, etc), or we could double down on the status quo while avoiding any evaluations on teaching whatsoever, leaving failing schools in place to ruin the lives of entire generations of students (blaming either Funding or Parents). It is mostly in the choice of the last option over the penultimate option that there is a major problem -- teachers' unions paying dues to spend on the election cycle to elect union-friendly politicians. This means that the right sort of incumbent essentially gets to spend tax money on his own campaign, and it goes downhill from there into an orgy of corruption, power games, and detachment from responsibility -- aka "politics".
- harryh 12y ago
  Support a $15 minimum wage! Support the FUTURE! https://www.facebook.com/Robots4MinimumWage https://www.facebook.com/Robots4MinimumWage
  - eru 12y ago
    Why settle for less than a million dollars an hour minimum wage?
    - minikites 12y ago
      Picking an absurd number doesn't invalidate the original argument.
- fragmede 12y ago
  > economists estimate that the average rate of exploitation in the US at large is somewhere roughly between 1%-3% (because switching firms is an expensive proposition). Average, possibly, but that's definitely low for certain sectors, eg workers on an H1-B visa. It also doesn't help when firms collude to make switching firms even harder, eg: when Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay agreed not to recruit each other's employees.* To think organized labor is antiquated because the economy has moved on from single-company mining towns is naive. The simple fact is that corporations don't have your best interest in mind any more than you can claim you always have your employer's best interests at heart. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Li...
  - fennecfoxen 12y ago
    > The simple fact is that corporations don't have your best interest in mind any more than you can claim you always have your employer's best interests at heart. This is true. It also applies to the labor union, and to the government.
- s73v3r 12y ago
  "There's a reason that labor union membership is at an all-time low" That reason is solely because those with the money and power started a huge smear campaign against organized labor, and tried to get people to see them as "moochers".
  - eru 12y ago
    How does that compare to other countries and times?
wyager 12y ago
> the concept of organized labor is beneficial to all workers. Yeah, it sure is great when I'm not allowed to adjust my own monitor due to union rules. Only facilities is allowed to do that!
- minikites 12y ago
  Show me where that is a real rule.

fennecfoxen 12y ago

Organized labor is great when you've got a local labor monopsony (one-buyer) which is exploiting your work. This was clearly the case in many company towns back in the organized-labor movement's heyday, and still has relevance to groups like public school teachers, but the last figures I've seen say that economists estimate that the average rate of exploitation in the US at large is somewhere roughly between 1%-3% (because switching firms is an expensive proposition). There's a reason that labor union membership is at an all-time low, and yet here we are with the labor movement trying to double down on a 19th-century solution to our 21st-century problems. The concept of organized labor is more beneficial today to robots than it is to Americans -- robots, and imports from developing nations. We won't even get into all of favors the labor movement hasn't done itself on various topics, either, like union leaders paid executive-like compensation or the Teamsters' ties to organized crime.

rayiner 12y ago
> and still has relevance to groups like public school teachers I can't believe that we're on opposite sides of the teachers' union issue.
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  Well, I think it's important to start with an ounce of sympathy, as it builds understanding. Public schools are run by legislatures and school boards and the like, typically being reviewed by annual-at-best election (with crap turnout, for races that few will actually follow, and many of the advantages of incumbency available. The decision-makers are not incentivized to care very much about the quality of their decisions. Moreover, they're probably the only employers in the county (maybe the whole state) and the entire business has ultra-long highly-scheduled hiring cycles -- none of this "can you start tomorrow?" business like you get in tech. That is a recipe whereby good performance is not linked to good pay at all and has very high potential for abuse. Would you trust someone employed by that sort of a bureaucracy to evaluate your performance at your job? I'd prefer not to, myself. So there are a few ways to approach this. Teachers could just sit there and take it -- you can understand why they don't care to do so, surely. We could structure the system to have a lot of objective evaluations to curb abuses -- an approach still fraught with many issues (standardized tests and certificates which fail to capture many of the most important aspects of pedagogy). As a final set of options, we could either try to ameliorate some of the worst of all this by restructuring the system to have more options and employers for teachers (charter schools, private schools, etc), or we could double down on the status quo while avoiding any evaluations on teaching whatsoever, leaving failing schools in place to ruin the lives of entire generations of students (blaming either Funding or Parents). It is mostly in the choice of the last option over the penultimate option that there is a major problem -- teachers' unions paying dues to spend on the election cycle to elect union-friendly politicians. This means that the right sort of incumbent essentially gets to spend tax money on his own campaign, and it goes downhill from there into an orgy of corruption, power games, and detachment from responsibility -- aka "politics".
harryh 12y ago
Support a $15 minimum wage! Support the FUTURE! https://www.facebook.com/Robots4MinimumWage https://www.facebook.com/Robots4MinimumWage
- eru 12y ago
  Why settle for less than a million dollars an hour minimum wage?
  - minikites 12y ago
    Picking an absurd number doesn't invalidate the original argument.
fragmede 12y ago
> economists estimate that the average rate of exploitation in the US at large is somewhere roughly between 1%-3% (because switching firms is an expensive proposition). Average, possibly, but that's definitely low for certain sectors, eg workers on an H1-B visa. It also doesn't help when firms collude to make switching firms even harder, eg: when Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay agreed not to recruit each other's employees.* To think organized labor is antiquated because the economy has moved on from single-company mining towns is naive. The simple fact is that corporations don't have your best interest in mind any more than you can claim you always have your employer's best interests at heart. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Li...
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  > The simple fact is that corporations don't have your best interest in mind any more than you can claim you always have your employer's best interests at heart. This is true. It also applies to the labor union, and to the government.
s73v3r 12y ago
"There's a reason that labor union membership is at an all-time low" That reason is solely because those with the money and power started a huge smear campaign against organized labor, and tried to get people to see them as "moochers".
- eru 12y ago
  How does that compare to other countries and times?

wyager 12y ago

> the concept of organized labor is beneficial to all workers. Yeah, it sure is great when I'm not allowed to adjust my own monitor due to union rules. Only facilities is allowed to do that!

minikites 12y ago
Show me where that is a real rule.