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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

This is approximately as rigorous an analysis as suggesting that if you hire an Italian, his mob buddies might come by later on to shake you down for protection money. How many AMA members have slashed the tires of a noncompliant doctor?

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> How many AMA members have slashed the tires of a noncompliant doctor?

Why slash their tires when you can have the police arrest them, the local prosecutor press charges, etc.?

Similarly, lots of professions use police power to prevent outsiders from competing with them. Even hairstylists!

Sadly, the AMA is not a union. At best, it's an underpowered AARP analogue.

I think the point is that the word union has a particular stigma not shared by associations not called unions.

You hear a lot of things about city bus drivers burning down houses, or telecom engineers slashing tires?

There are a lot more unions in the US than people realize. For some reason (I can think of many), high-status workers in the US are captivated by the drama of a few particular unions, and have extrapolated wildly from it.

Coal unions have executed non-union shippers and started shootouts during union strikes where I'm from, back in the 30's - 70's when the town was a coal town. It's anecdotal I know, but it always colors the discussion of unions in places like Appalachia. Also the violence has gone both ways, the government at one time wasn't above plying the strong arm of the national guard against unions.

Well, the local bus drivers union isn't held in such high regard either, so maybe not the best example. And I seem to recall Verizon experiencing a sudden spike in equipment failure right around the time their telecom union went on strike.

(Happy to concede there are unions people like, but if that's your best effort at naming two good ones, I think the problem is worse than you're acknowledging.)

You're the one who said unions lead to tire slashings and house burnings. Obviously, no they don't, but when that's pointed out, you retreat to "unions sometimes cause strikes" as if that was your position all along.

If your argument is that people have negative opinions about unions, well, respectfully, no shit. My point is that those opinions are not well-founded.

Minor point: the engineers at big telecoms aren't union members. They're "management."

How would you rank sabotage of Verizon equipment by their employees against, say, a coal company transferring all their pension and health liabilities into new company and then letting it go bust, while they retain all the profit making parts?

"Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen." -- Woody Guthrie "Pretty Boy Floyd"

Did the coal union know the pension was underfunded?

Was it underfunded before the split?

Unless they somehow withdrew money from it, it can only be underfunded because it was always underfunded.

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