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Comment by lbotos | Hacker News Reader

Here is a question:

Why don't we have more smaller unions in America, but instead these GIANT mega unions?

I get collective bargaining is better with more numbers, but it feels like there is no way to have a "new" union exist?

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned here is that bosses will often try to slow down, stymie, or break up organizing drives by dragging out legal arguments at the labor board. This means arguing that the bargaining unit should be broken up, that certain employees are actually supervisors and shouldn't be included, that certain supervisors actually aren't and therefore _should_ be included in the vote, that the proposed bargaining unit is too small and should include more employees, etc. Typically you'll need a lawyer to navigate this process, lawyers are very expensive, and national/international unions have money.

Organizing a union is also fairly hard, and staff of established unions are more likely to have the skill set to teach you how to have convincing conversations with your co-workers, make sure they stick together, keep everybody from freaking out when the boss starts threatening to fire people, etc. It's also good to have them around to provide financial/legal support if the boss follows through on those threats.

I think part of the problem is that unemployment is so low, that corporations aren't mistreating employees - so the demand for unions is relatively low, compared to historical trends.

Bigger union == bigger bargaining power

Other countries have much less liquid labour markets, or have bargaining powers of unions backed by governments, so they don't have to grow so much to make a difference.

Bigger Union == More Corruption

How does this bigger union give them any more bargaining power against glitch?

While this is true in principle, in practice that is often not the case:

* The more removed bargainers are from the rank-and-file, the less understanding and emotional motivation they have about many of the issues the workers face.

* Larger unions are easier to corrupt and influence - at least if they have a centralized, hierarchical structure (which US unions mostly do). And that is true even if this structure is democratic (i.e. central governing bodies are elected).

* Larger unions are more difficult to reform and recuperate from past organizational failings than small ones.

* The capitalists and the state absolutely _detest_ more radical / tougher unions. So do the more collaborationist unions. While they might tolerate smaller ones - larger ones threaten the stability of the entire system, and will thus be met with harsh, violent suppression, and "member-stealing" / "workplace-stealing" campaigns much sooner.

Case in point: Industrial Workers of the World in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl...

There's an enormous amount of infrastructure behind the big ones. They save up enough money to pay wages during strikes, they lobby heavily on the state and federal level, etc.

Sounds like a non-profit startup problem to build out tooling to rapidly form, run, and govern unions.

I don't know how you'd replace decades worth of strike warchest funding and long-term relationships with legislators.

You'd presumably be making a trade off for a more efficient/responsive/differently-cultured union. This may be worth it if there is otherwise a large mismatch between who the union currently serves and you. (Or a conflict of interest; are you putting out of business one of the union's large employers?)

I wonder if the unions would be friendly to a kind of affiliate relationship, and/or paying dues into a kind of program like the deposit insurance that banks pay to FDIC, but for strike insurance or something?

The affiliate thing might be interesting. Insurance is a no-go though. There would be incentive to strike to get more payout on the policy. Or worse, an insurance company would take it and would audit every strike for "legitimacy."

That's effectively what the unions are providing. Strikes are not random events, so there's no way to use actuaries to establish minimum costs for the policies though.

How all progress occurs: with effort.

> Here is a question: Why don't we have more smaller unions in America, but instead these GIANT mega unions?

US labor law differs from European labor law, and it essentially encourages/requires a small number of conglomerate unions, each of which have exclusive representation within a company, rather than a larger number of independent unions which can coexist within a single company.

Sounds like as with our healthcare system and many other major problems in America, the problem isn't purely government vs. industry or liberal vs. conservative, but rather a mess of both.

Government Vs. Industry and Liberal vs. Conservative are distinctions that serve to obfuscate the true divide in our system: Capitalists vs. everyone else. Capital doesn't care about these distinctions. The difference between the Cabinet and the Boardroom is akin to a room with a curtain in the middle.

It is all the same with the large corporate unions. They are designed to be run by those cozy with the ruling class and stifle actual workplace democracy.

Some of the endorsement antics during the Democratic primaries exposes that, but I'm making a less partisan point: our healthcare system simultaneously includes incomplete or bad private insurance plans, yet U.S. spends a larger amount per citizen for health care than most other developed nations. It's an unholy mess of inefficient bureaucracy and failed private-public relations, rent-seeking, crony capitalism, unhelpful regulations, outdated systems, and scaling issues leading to bloated organizations that pleases nobody.

> that pleases nobody

Somebody is making a lot of money this way. They donate to both parties.

That's not how corruption works in general - a lot of people make a little more, but are deprived in other ways.

The system is fundamentally flawed - the problem is that these interventions were never thought through or even authorized. In the past, amendments had to be passed for the government to do new things; now it can do anything since everything is related to interstate commerce.

It is a government problem, the government gave unions special rights that other organizations don't have. It's easy to fix, treat them like any other organization.

Not trying to be snarky, but what rights do unions have that others don't?

Forcing all employees to pay dues?

They have a lot of exclusivity and pseudo-exclusivity rights. For example, nobody's typically allowed to cut side deal better than the union contract, and the union can require even employees who don't like the union to fund their collective bargaining.

As workers tend to have one goal, to have less of their labor time expropriated, there really isn't a reason to have more than one global union. Walmart has over half a trillion in revenue and over two million workers, and it makes sense a union containing those workers be of that size.

Also, if carpenters work for UPS, should they be in the carpenters union or the Teamsters? Large industrial unions do away with such jurisdictional problems.

Because the union’s best interest is the union itself. The bigger they are, the more profit they make.

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