Nissan attacked for one of 'nastiest anti-union campaigns' in modern US history
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_vs._Nissan_Compu...
Nissan the car company name has nothing to do with a person named Nissan. It was landed upon by committee.
While I understand trademarks "must be defended" is part of the laws that govern them, the law is garbage. It's giving special privilege to already established human language when it's used like this.
If you take a known name and make a "trademark" around it, you should get no special protection.
Unionized autoworkers make the same wages as non-unionized autoworkers. It's a concession the UAW and other unions have made to keep plants from moving.
The real cost of unionization to a company isn't wages, it's a loss of flexibility in moving or closing plants. Unionization extracts better job security. Even the most rabid anti-union Americans want a system that makes it more difficult for companies to move or close factories. Job security brings _political_ and _economic_ stability. But ironically the popular narrative about unions has grown more negative even as conservatives have become increasingly vocal about providing job security to low-skilled workers.
Ask yourself this: would you rather government pass laws that restrict free trade and limit the movement of factories, or would you rely on unions to seek that stability within an otherwise free market system, where union contracts can be tailored to each factory and more easily amended in light of unexpected market conditions?
Realize that most programmers don't have to worry about job security in the same way that low-skilled workers do. Even if the current technology labor market didn't favor supply, the cost of on-boarding employees is huge. For even nominally skilled positions, most companies will overlook even the worst performing employee just because the cost of on-boarding a replacement can cost thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars; and you never know if the next employee will be any better. People think this reluctance to fire is because of the risk of discrimination lawsuits, but in industries reliant on low-skilled labor people will get fired at the drop of a hat, sometimes out of sheer retaliation, even though the same legal risks exist.
Unless you want this country to go the way of Venezuela, you want to to secure some significant degree of job security for low-skilled workers. Succumbing to market forces is inevitable, but there's nothing inevitable about a capitalist free market or a liberal political system. Those things can be extinguished in the blink of an eye.