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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

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To better understand antipathy towards unions in the US, do a google search for "new york rubber room". Tens of millions of dollars a year spent on salaries for teachers who had to be pulled from classrooms but couldn't be fired. Due to the backlog of arbiters, they sit around doing nothing at all. It's bad for them, bad for the schools, and bad for the public.

It's an extreme example, to be sure, but it is also one that had gotten a fair amount of media attention. No-one wants to work hard when they see someone else taking it easy, knowing that their next pay raise is more closely tied to seniority than it is to on the job performance.

Another example is the number of states where unions arranged "votes" to force "home health care workers" to unionize. That is, if you are taking care of a family member who recieves certain kinds of disability welfare, you are automatically deemed a union member, and the dues are taken from the welfare payments.

It was nothing more than a blatant money grab when it happened where I lived, and I can assure you that these peope got far less from their "representation" than they got in dues, since they were never technically employees in the first place and no bargaining or contact to begin with.

Yes, there are better ways that unions can operate. There are some good unions out there. There is also plenty to criticise too, and pretending that they are a universal good isn't helping anyone.

Edit: perhaps the biggest complaint is that the unions are too powerful. Even leaving is hard; the New Haven firefighters had to file a lawsuit to stop the former parent union fron sending their members to collections agencies for their dues after they left. https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/New-Haven-firefighte...

You've highlighted a common union-busting tactic with the New York teachers example. The employer won't fund sufficient resources for arbitration, and so innocent and guilty alike languish for ages, and somehow this is the union's fault, as if denying the accused a fair hearing was a reasonable option.

Between you, me, and the internet, I agree the seniority system is horrible, but if you don't like it, you are free to elect representatives that will abolish it. Unless of course you're in a non-union workplace, in which case you can either put up with it or quit.

I don't know of anyone who thinks that teachers unions- esp. in NY of all places- are going to be "busted", at least not by this. I also don't see how the administration benefits at all from paying 10-20 million a year in salaries to teachers who arent teaching; it'd surely be cheaper to speed up arbitration and get on with it.

As for the seniority system, unfortunately, the tyranny of the marjority is how it stays in place. First in, last out, best perks. The nature and structure of unions enables this far more readily than any merit based system. Vote all you want, but it won't change that both the company and the union are trying to screw you over. At least, that's the mentality among anti-union types in the US.

Sure, unions can be corrupt and work against the interests of their members, but businesses and lawmakers can also be corrupt and collude to exploit their workers and constituents. Collective action is a necessary counterbalance to the bias in capitalist societies towards the ownership class at the expense of the labor class.

I don't think unions are universally good or bad, but they are the reason employees get paid in legal tender rather than company scrip, get weekends off rather than working seven day shifts, and why labor laws even exist. An attitude of antipathy towards unions doesn't offer a better alternative to them, as much as wish businesses and governments could just be left alone to treat labor as they please.

Unions are a universal good, because all they are in essence is collective bargaining.

Just because bad things happen within and around all human organizations has no bearing on the concept of collective bargaining or working class unity, which itself is sorely lacking in the US specifically. Which means your examples amount to propaganda in favor of the investment class in the end.

The northeast and upper midwest are pro-union and people aren't raised to think that way in those places. It's a big country.

Fair enough. There are parts of the country for which it is definitely true, though. I'm part of a number of Amazon employee groups on Facebook and the recent news of strikes by Amazon employees over Prime day was met with almost universal derision there - by FC employees, not even managers or tech workers.

If a businessperson uses all available means to profit, it is smart.

If a worker does the same, it is lazy.

That is a good point but wages from labor are not a profit. It’s a trade. Your time and effort for the money.

So it’s even worse than you portray. Companies maximizing profits is not a trade that they suffer for. It could simply be theft out of the employee’s pocket, or in the form of harm done to the environment.

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