Comment by NoGravitas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NoGravitas | Hacker News Reader

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That is absolutely a false equivalency, and it's one that is generally used by anti-union politicians/management to support curbs on union activity.

So - a union (as plenty of people in this thread have pointed out) is a worker organization, intended to support and protect the (collective) interests of the workers in a particular trade or a particular industry. They may fail to represent any particular worker whose interests don't align well with their fellow workers as a whole because of unusual circumstances. And it's possible for a union to fail to represent its members as a whole -- this normally happens with big trade unions where the leadership and payed administrators get too cozy with management and too far removed from the shop floor, a structure encouraged by US labor law. However, unions are, at least in principle, On Your Side and representing Your Interests -- when they fail to do so, it is for the same reasons that representative democracy tends to fail.

On the other hand, you have management, who are out to maximize profits, especially short-term profits, and see labor as a cost-center to be minimized as much as possible. Management are inherently in opposition to Your Interests as a worker. And their opposition to unions is mainly due to the fact that the union gives you the power to fight for Your Interests in opposition to Their Interests.

So you see why the two are not at all equivalent? Pro-union propaganda may be to some extent false -- to the extent that it presents to you an overly rosy picture or a best-case-scenario that you are unlikely to realize. But anti-union propaganda is guaranteed to be an absolute fabric of lies trying to convince you to act against what are almost certainly your best interests.

You're absolutely right! The two are not the same. Unions are intended to support, protect, and advance the interests of workers.

That said, there is one possible catch. Each union advances the interest of the workers they currently represent as they see them. It is possible that this may not always be the same as the interests of the workers they are advertising to.

There are other failure modes, too. A minority union working with one company many sacrifice the interests of their members there in order to gain an advantage with negotiations with a different company. This most famously happened with Hostess, wherein one of the unions that represented a small number of Hostess workers was incredibly hostile in negotiations in order to improve their hand with a different company.

You're absolutely right that anti-union propaganda should be distrusted and disregarded out-of-hand. Yet, it's perhaps possible that pro-union interests shouldn't be treated as automatically aligned with those of a given worker or set of workers. As you say, in-principle alignment isn't always the same as in-practice alignment.

you're painting a picture from the union side that simply isn't always the reality. both unions and companies, not all though, can be totally blind to the concerns of the people on the other side. obviously uber is doing something very shady here, but let me give an example of the other side.

i know of a scenario in which multiple employees were making $100,000 as unioned employees. they were on a full-time schedule, aggressively arranged by the union, that allowed a certain percentage of work time to be from home. the result of these employees? they lied about their work, "worked" almost exclusively from home, and had less than 5% of the work output of the non-unioned employees who had the exact same titles and job duties who also happened to make less.

it took many years (years!) to get rid of these employees (basically through forced retirement) and any attempt to have the employees to have even a minimally acceptable work output resulted in angry visits and process blockages from the union. the managers reporting the fraudulent behavior and giving the poor ratings were harassed, and the union straight up lied to the point where the managers started recording all conversations and actions with the unioned employees and union representatives to even protect themselves and their jobs (as non-unioned employees and managers!). the employer was basically powerless in getting literally ANY work from these employees, who acted as a tumor in the organization. because of the aggressive and firmly established union, these employees essentially committed theft and fraud as their full-time jobs while making six figures.

so no. unions are not always these powerless little entities getting stomped on by corporations. as the person you replied to stated, BOTH sides can often be viciously ruthless and blind in their quest for money and power over the other.

The difference in this situation is that the union was not claiming to be acting in the best interest of management.

ok, while both are possible, that says nothing about the extremely significant fact that one scenario happens vastly more often than the other. let me relate my own example, from the other other side of the coin, and then tell me which side lands face up more frequently.

i know of a scenario in which multiple employees were making $10,000,000 as management. they were on a full-time schedule, aggressively arranged by management, that allowed a certain percentage of work time to be from home. the result of these employees? they lied about their work, "worked" almost exclusively from home, and had less than 5% of the work output of the non-management employees who had the exact same job duties, but different job titles and also happened to make less.

it took many years (years!) to get rid of these 'employees' (basically by seizing the means of production) and any collective attempt to get management to have even a minimally acceptable work output resulted in angry visits and strike breaking by management. the employees reporting the fraudulent behavior to techcrunch and giving poor ratings on glassdoor were harassed, and management straight up lied to the point where the employees started recording all conversations and actions with management and company executives to even protect themselves and their jobs (as non-management employees!). the employees were basically powerless in getting literally ANY work from those in management, who acted as a tumor in the organization. because of the aggressive and firmly established capitalist culture, these management employees essentially committed theft and fraud as their full-time jobs while making eight figures.

so, which of these two sides of the coin sounds more familiar to you?

I understand your points, but I think the major flaw in them is that you're talking like the genuine, underlying principle of unions is without question, at the end of the day, to help me as a worker. Everything you've said relies on that. You've dismissed the known problems with them because in principle they're there to help.

I'm just not sure that's true. I think it's probable the unions do it because they like to build an empire and see their power and clout grow - that's human nature. I think they want me as a member because it grows their power for whatever pet peeves and politics they have, not because they want to help me.

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