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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

From my mothers similar experiences followed by her unions absolute refusal to help, in a word, no. They exist to parasitically take your money, forcibly take others who don't want to give and really offer very little in return other than more bureaucracy.

Your much better off paying a lawyer than a union.

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> They exist to parasitically take your money, forcibly take others who don't want to give and really offer very little in return other than more bureaucracy.

If we look at historical facts rather than your mothers anecdotes this is incredibly far from the truth.

I remember from a "Free To Choose" video that due to unions there was a huge amount of bureaucracy taking months to fire one worker in the government.

Anyways, that's just another anecdote, what are the historical facts?

Unions have fought for and won such a huge amount of the workers rights we enjoy today that it would be a disservice to try and cover all of them in a comment. Google is your friend if you'd like to learn about the history of unions and labour movements.

OK, I tried searching "worker rights due to union" and "union worker rights" and only found pages about unions protecting the right to associate. What should I input into Google?

Google searching like that is going to have trouble separating news from history.

Maybe just start with "history of worker rights." Or maybe just the wikipedia labor movement article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_movement It's not all strictly about changes forced through unions vs other types of activists, but once unions were made legal they were one of the strongest methods for demanding and enforcing these for large numbers of workers in the days before they were turned into laws.

> Throughout the world, action by labourists has resulted in reforms and workers' rights, such as the two-day weekend, minimum wage, paid holidays, and the achievement of the eight-hour day for many workers. There have been many important labour activists in modern history who have caused changes that were revolutionary at the time and are now regarded as basic. For example, Mary Harris Jones, better known as "Mother Jones", and the National Catholic Welfare Council were important in the campaign to end child labour in the United States during the early 20th century. .

a) two-day weekend

How is this a right? Some people want to work less; some want to work more. If it were forced by unions, forcing a two-day weekend stops people from working more.

b) paid holiday

Same; not everyone wants paid holidays as opposed to getting more money in their pockets.

c) minimum wage

The minimum wage stops less skilled people from working; this especially affects blacks and teenagers. I see the minimum wage as a negative effect of unions (nobody wants their job to be replaced by a cheaper worker).

d) Again, not everyone wants to work an 8-hour day. Poor people want to work more and other people want to work in different schedules (like a 3 day week).

It is not clear to me why a), b), and d) can't be achieved without unions if people wanted those 3.

I have no problem with people having a), b), and d) voluntarily and unions persuading people and employers for those causes; but I don't want workers to be forced to have those three (there's no free lunch--these worker "rights" come at the expense of the worker's salary).

Sorry but this comment is just incredibly stupid. You (probably) have the right to free speech but you aren't forced to spew bile constantly. You might have the right to bear arms but you wouldn't be forced to carry an AR-15 24/7. Having the right to something means it can't be taken from you, not that you can't give it up. I worked as a chef for many years and many workers rights (particularly the EU working directive) are simply incompatible with the industry. Does this mean I was unable to work? Did the industry collapse? No. I just signed a waiver each time I started a new job.

c) Is actually an interesting subject and personally I do not agree with having a minimum wage and I feel that the purpose of introducing it was to undermine unions. There is a lot more to say about min wage but this comment thread is probably not the place for it. The rest of your post is, objectively, nonsense.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/...

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...

Try "historical benefits of unions".

If we look at historical facts

Past Performance Is No Guarantee Of Future Results. These aren't the 1900's.

"forcibly take others who don't want to give"

To paraphrase most anti-union people's favorite refrain, "Nobody is making you work someplace that requires union dues."

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