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Comment by jorvi | Hacker News Reader

Unions aren't bad in itself. They largely solve the power asymmetry that exists between larger companies and their employees. Its only that at a certain point unions get so big there's actually a power asymmetry the other way: unions can strongarm the companies. How to restore the balance? I have no idea.

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The way that you restore balance is that you make it illegal to force people to join them, as it is in many right to work states.

If unions are so great, then they can stand on their own.

If they end up sucking, then people will leave them.

Except right-to-work laws allow non-union members to freeride. If we truly wanted to restore balance then people opting out of the union wouldn't be able to benefit from any of the union's negotiations. Of course then everyone would join the union so...

And it's quite hard to do that. Companies tend not to want to negotiate with a union and have a separate compensation structure for non-union employees in the same job families. It's hard to have or benefit from one set of working conditions for union members and one for non-members.

IMO, both employees and employers should be free to form what groups they please and negotiate what contracts they will. This includes contracts that forbid an employer from hiring non-union workers. But there should also be no law mandating such a provision. Of course subject to government regulation that supersedes contracts (health and safety, human rights provisions, others).

I don't want your union negotiation benefits, though. I don't want to be covered by the union contract.

You should be able to negotiate with your own group of people to get certain benefits, and I should be able to negotiate on my own. And then we could see who really gets the better deal.

Personally I am confident that my own deal would be better, but I have no problem with other people deciding for themselves that they would prefer whatever deal that a union was able to negotiate.

I see the exception that proves the rule has showed up. You know it's obvious to me that you're in a privileged position and can leverage this to do quite well in the job market with or without worker collective action. One thing I would say is that even someone like you benefits from unions. Unions have negotiated many benefits we take for granted today and can even benefit workers not in the union. For example, my mother did not go to college and started working straight out of high-school. She was able to get a job that paid her really well considering the time and her inexperience. And she didn't even have to join a union to get it. Instead her employer always kept wages a little above the other unionized shops in town, in order to keep the union at bay. Which is all to say that if common workers in your industry unionize you will probably be able to negotiate an even higher premium in exchange for not joining the union.

Also keep in mind unionization is a freedom which is currently being infringed! I firmly believe that organizations should be able to draw up agreements with another! If a union and a company mutually agree that all the company's workers must join the union, I don't see a problem with that. The fact that our lawmakers are going in and writing backdoors so that this is serious government overreach.

"Also keep in mind unionization is a freedom which is currently being infringed! I firmly believe that organizations should be able to draw up agreements with another!"

Here is why this is incorrect.

It is illegal to fire someone for joining a union. This is a right that all workers have.

For the same reason that it is illegal to fire someone for joining a union, it should be illegal to fire someone for NOT joining a union.

So take you pick. If you want full freedom of association, sure, lets do that. You can make whatever contracts you want, but you can also be fired for it, (ie legalize firing people for joining a union). I think I would be happy with this outcome, to be honest.

But as long as union people are receiving this protection, NON-union people should receive the SAME protection.

If I own a plastic company I can easily write an agreement where, for example, Widget Co. agrees to buy only my plastic for some price. Now imagine a state legislature came in and said that Widget Co. can't write that, that Widget Co. always has to be open to buying plastic from other companies and that when we spend a bunch of time negotiating price and writing a contract, Widget Co. can just run that to a competitor and write a new for one cent less. That's obviously infringing on my ability to write contracts.

But then we do that exact thing when the product is labor and not plastic. Your freedom of association is on the macro level, as in you can go from firm to firm to firm and if that firm requires you to join the union you just keep moving, same as if that firm pays a low wage or has no health insurance or anything else.

> Which is all to say that if common workers in your industry unionize you will probably be able to negotiate an even higher premium in exchange for not joining the union.

Or the union can force you out of your job by forcing the employer to hire unionized employees only.

That sentence was about joining a firm which doesn't use a unionized workforce (like my mom). That should have been more clear, my bad.

This is like making taxes optional.

I am not suggesting that I should be covered under the union contract, without paying union due. Far from it!

I do not want the union contract, because I believe that I can get a better deal for myself. The unioners can have their contract, and I can have mine. In the same way that I negotiate for myself right now, in a fully union free industry.

Right-to-work hobbles unions, not exactly "restoring the balance", if there ever was one.

Living in Washington State, I've watched the Machinist Union almost cause Boeing to completely leave the state of Washington, and even though Boeing stayed, they moved a lot of their work to other plants. So yes it is a very dangerous game.

Can you provide a little more detail on how the union caused them to leave and not tax incentives from other states?

Pretty sure this didn't help: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-unions-move-to-end-strike...

> Boeing's value has reportedly fallen by about $5.3 billion since the walkout began and that strikers have lost more than $125 million in wages

Followed by this 8 years later... http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/06/news/companies/boeing_strike...

And then this 5 years later... http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/20/news/companies/boeing-strike...

At some point, it's getting ridiculous.

Unions exercising the one power they have 3x in 15 years (by your timeline; the url dates suggest otherwise) is ridiculous? What should they have done instead?

This was a rejected offer from that 2008 article. The url without a date on it was March 17, 2000.

> The company had offered union members raises over the next three years totaling 11% of current pay. Boeing also offered bonuses and pension improvements it said would give the typical worker about $34,000 in additional pay and benefits during that time.

When you're given offers like that and rejecting them and it becomes a pattern that the company can expect to cost them billions of dollars every few years...what exactly do you expect company execs to do? Not have backup plans?

This is a company that's literally handing out jobs throughout a lot of the worst periods of the US economy...and it warrants constant strikes?

Look up some Airbus strikes for comparison. The articles I've seen are strikes over job cuts. There was a German strike at 4 plants that lasted...90 minutes.

At some point...yes...it is ridiculous and there are a lot of other people who would be more than happy to have the jobs you're striking over.

WA already provides massive tax incentives, and further increased them to get them to stay. To say the massive strike going on at the time had nothing to do with it would be disingenuous.

Solve a problem and create two?

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