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Comment by mmcwilliams | Hacker News Reader

I’m not sure I’m convinced that going into any discussion that prefaces worker organization as “impossible” is entirely in good faith. All industries view worker-related expenses as costs (they are) so I don’t see the exception in this case.

What I do see is that a $350-400M settlement was seen by insiders as being short an order of magnitude, meaning that the 65,000 tech workers affected by this wage-fixing crime left a lot on the table. Class actions lawsuits, it seems, aren’t the correct tool for this kind of negotiation and unions are a viable alternative.

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I guess my comment can be read both ways, but for what it is worth I support unions. It is just that people tend to discuss it like it is a choice of equal difficulty. The tech companies now are so large, and have so much capital and influence that it might take 10 years in the best case scenario to even have a choice to sustain a union. Unions just like any other organization are effective because the things they have. You would have to build the capital, institutions and influence in face of the companies. And that only happens when they are afraid of conflict. But the only thing they are afraid of is losing is influence so the might for example have to tax their offshore earnings to contribute to infrastructure spending and social reforms. So they will fight unions at all cost, because that is one of the few ways that could happen.

That’s fair and I’ll admit that I read your comment as a slight-of-hand anti-union statement akin to the linked Amazon video. There’s a lot of FUD spread about organizing that masquerades as well meaning advice: the company will fight it, they’ll shut down your shop, it’s not worth doing it, etc.

I don’t disagree that companies will fight unionization in the industry but that describes the history of unions and ironically workers are better protected these days by the NLRA and the low likelihood that business will hire armed goons to attack striking workers violently than in the days where large strides were made by the labor movement in the US.

Well... better get started now, then!

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