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Comment by tolkienfanatic | Hacker News Reader

Imagine my surprise when the answer is "unions"

sadly, those same unions, due to their ongoing conflict and work slowdowns, has caused the Port of Portland to lose almost all container business.

the bigger downside to this is that farmed goods aren't able to make it to the international market: http://www.opb.org/news/article/port-portland-farmers-agricu...

while i applaud them for helping retain a living wage, some of their actions have had severe negative consequences where you would least expect it, our farmers.

It also has the downside of clogging up I-5(which is two-lane for the majority of the N-Or/S-Wa section) with a ton of semi traffic.

Damn those workers for wanting a living. How dare they. Scum, all of them.

"Today, the average member of the union in Oakland makes $147,000 per year in wages, with benefits equal to another $82,000 per year."

That is a huge amount of money, especially considering that includes entry level positions. While I understand these machines are complicated, and don't blame them for wanting to keep their jobs, I didn't expect over 200k a year total to be the average.

This is especially true considering that the average individual income in Oakland is around 32k a year. (http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/california/oakland)

It's only huge because everyone else has had their wages frozen since 2008.

I find it interesting (if a bit sad) that your reaction to that earnings disparity is, essentially, "Union workers make too much money" rather than "Everyone else makes too little." In the free market, it seems everyone is allowed to negotiate the price of their goods except the wage-workers.

Why does HN rally against the big companies that use regulatory capture to squeeze out more profits, but then gives unions a pass. They are doing the same thing: supporting legislation that allows them to squeeze out more profits (as wages).

Unions are corrupt. Corporations are corrupt. In the absence of a magic wand to fix both, I side with the group whose interests are broader and more like mine.

I am not sure which side has interests 'more like yours' in cases like this one. On the one side, the union is trying to squeeze their employers for as much money as possible, which is a benefit for the members but raises the cost of consumer goods, and reduces the earning potential of everyone working at a (goods) exporter. On the other hand, each port is trying to gain an upper hand in capacity and cost against its competitors, by reducing salary (and other) costs, which will allow it to retain a greater portion of the earnings (if they succeed), but will benefit consumers of foreign made goods, and exporters (regardless of whether the port succeeds in capturing more profits).

The average citizen's interests seem to be much better aligned with those of the port, as the benefits of competition will serve to distribute cost reductions to all users of product which pass through the ports.

A single employee doesn't have much leverage compared to a company. The only leverage a worker has is the "freedom" to quit. For most companies this is a minor annoyance, but nothing they really worry about.

Compare this to the leverage a company has. It controls wages, work hours, work conditions and can fire a worker. This can have devastating impacts on the life of a worker. Unions are the only realistic option for the average workers to have an impact. It levels the playing field.

Unions can certainly have too much power and make self destructive decisions, but you can say the same about many corporations. This is not a problem with unions or corporations, but with a power balance that is out of control.

The only option to a union is strict regulations from the goverment, but that has problems of its own. At least the union has a more direct interest and domain knowledge about their work place

Until recently I would have agreed with many of your points, but I recently read a post to the contrary.[1] Here is a short excerpt:

>Everyone talks as if bosses have the better end. But talk is very different from action. If everyone were trying to start their own businesses and hire workers, that would count as "acting as if bosses have the better end of the deal." Most workers, however, make no effort to become entrepreneurs. You could object that most workers don't have the money to open their own businesses, but most rich workers make no effort to become entrepreneurs either.

[1] http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/09/scott_alexander_...

The problem is that in this case the union is the one standing in the way of other people making more money. Longshoremen's unions are notoriously corrupt and exclusive. I have no idea what the situation is today but traditionally it was nearly impossible to gain entry into a longshoremen's union unless your father was in one, or you had some similar connection.

1. Unions are not free market. They goal is to create a monopoly (hence have greater bargaining power).

I don't really understand. How is it that they make so much money?

Seemingly a lot of evening, nighttime and overtime work.

http://pma.uberflip.com/i/547677-pma-annual-report-2014/55

This is only taking "registered union members" into consideration, and many of those working lots of overtime. A good portion of longshore work is done by "casuals" who are paid less and work less hours as they gain the work experience to get into the union. There are no "entry level" positions for union members, almost everyone starts out as a non-union casual making ~25/hour for unpredictable work.

I think when all is said and done, the average longshore worker's salary is actually around 70-80k, with the average age being 45-50, but it depends on the year, agreements, etc.

As for the extra "benefits", that's just health insurance + pension, which nobody else ever calculates into your salary for any other job.

The Oakland numbers you're giving are per capita, not per household. If you cut out households making nothing, 80k isn't particularly remarkable for an Oakland income.

Remember any time a group of people cooperates to maximize profit for it's members, it is....

Oh right - bad if the group of people isn't already wealthy. This is because unions are defined as bad.

Good when it's a group of already (relatively) wealthy people. This is because corporations are defined as good.

I know I know... it's because of the fact that unions involve the government in their actions. No - that's not it... The corporations do that too.

Maybe it's that the corporations don't engage in corrupt behavior like the unions do, and hire people only using free market principles - like that time google and apple (etc) decided to price fix engineering hires. (oh no... that's not right either).

Honestly I don't see a lot of difference between unions and corporations, other than the starting conditions of the people who form them. Well, once you replace the loaded terms with descriptions of the behaviors both engage in.

In a healthy, well-regulated market, corporations compete to provide products and services. This provides everyone with incentives to improve quality and lower costs, and prevents a single corporation from charging monopoly rents, which is good for society.

Unions do not compete with each other. In fact, the entire point of unions is to eliminate competition in the labor market. Unions have a government-sanctioned monopoly on certain types of labor, and the existence of a monopoly drives up prices and reduces the incentives to perform quality work. All else equal, this is bad for society.

Of course all else is not equal, there are lots of positive aspects to collective bargaining - it does help rectify the otherwise-significant power differential between individual employees and large corporations - and there are reasonable arguments that the labor movement and unionization in general have been massive drivers of improved human well-being over the last century. But that doesn't mean that unions and corporations are two sides of the same coin -- they play very different roles in the market and have very different regulatory considerations.

Making a living through contract-enforced inefficiency might be considered a type of parasitism.

It is the definition of a monopoly rent.[1]

[1] http://www.palgraveconnect.com/esm/doifinder/10.1057/9781137...

Freedom of association should be an enshrined right that is not open to negotiation or compromise, and a counterbalance to capitalists overarching influence in their lobbies and trade associations, and also a neutralizing force for the excess in labor supply as a consequence of population growth. However, unions desperately need some serious and urgent reforms to join the 21st century and leave behind these old habits and antics for it to succeed in securing workers rights.

User feedback, and policy transparency?

Tools like LiquidFeedback: http://www.liquidfeedback.org/

Well, that's what the hand weavers wanted when the automated loom came out, and I don't think anyone thinks it would have been a good idea to destroy the automated loom to help them keep having jobs

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