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Comment by manfredo | Hacker News Reader

Sued for what? If I form a union with my co-workers and demand $1,000,000 salaries it's illegal for the company to say "nope" and hire someone else?

Management is under no obligation to accept union terms, and is free to hire non-union work if the union terms are not competitive.

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Right, that's illegal. Management is under no obligation to accept any particular set of terms, but they're also not allowed to just say "nope"; they're required to continue negotiating with the union until an agreement is reached.

So if me and my 2 other buddies are the only two employees at an early startup we can unionize and demand immense equity packages, and the company is prohibited from hiring additional employees if they don't like our demands?

This does not sound right - this effectively gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity. I'll believe this claim that companies are prohibited by law from hiring a non-union workforce if you back it up with a source.

Again, they don't have to accept your demands, but they do have to negotiate rather than just telling you to buzz off. It's illegal for a business to "refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of its employees". Many people do argue that this gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity - it's one of the main reasons companies often fight so hard against having a union form.

(If you literally only have 2 employees, the employer might not meet the threshold to be covered under the NLRB.)

cite: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employers/b...

> It's illegal for a business to "refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of its employees".

Right, it's illegal for a company to say "we're not going to bargain with you collectively, at all" but it's not illegal to decline the bargain that employees offer. The company at least has to sit at the table and consider their option - it does not prohibit companies from listening to the collective bargain and declining to accept it.

We may be saying the same thing from different angles. You have the right to decline the employees' proposal, but you have to try to negotiate something better, not just boot them out immediately.

IANAL (not for US law anyway), but firing someone because of their trying to unionize and hiring someone else is illegal in many world states.

In the US, it looks like you can "permanently replace" union workers who are on strike.

Correct, firing someone for trying to unionize is illegal. It is illegal to retaliate against workers for trying to unionize. It's not prohibited, to the best of my knowledge, to receive a contract from a union and say, "these term's aren't competitive, we'll find other workers". Otherwise that would effectively give unions unlimited power over companies.

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