New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

2) Good PR can easily be outweighed by negative PR. Coal companies have excellent PR departments, but their opposition has invested a lot in negative PR.

3) PR images always exist in your head, but regular encounters with union workers can cause that image, rightly or wrongly, to crash against reality. People think relatively highly of scientists, partially because they never encounter them in real life; compare their image with lawyers or corporate managers.

A similar argument is put forward by Kerryn Higgs' book "Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet", to explain why society takes direction from economists, in pursuit of economic growth, rather than taking direction from science. Higgs' book is focused on trying to explain why society is failing to tackle climate change, not an analysis of unions, but some of the history that is presented regarding pro-business propaganda is eye opening. Here is an excerpt of an interview with the author:

> How did scientists lose credibility? When I was young, science was almost a god. A few decades later, scientists were being flippantly brushed aside. How did economists displace scientists as the crucial policy advisors and the architects of public debate, setting the criteria for policy decisions? How did economic growth become accepted as the only solution to virtually all social problems—unemployment, debt and even the environmental damage growth was causing?

> The new corporations of the early 20th century banded together into industry associations and business councils like the immensely influential US Chamber of Commerce, which was formed out of local chambers from across the country in 1912. These organisations exploited the newly emerging Public Relations industry, launching a barrage of private enterprise propaganda, uninterrupted for more than a century, and still very healthy today. Peabody coal, for example, recently signed up one of the world’s PR giants, Burson-Marsteller, for a PR campaign to convince leaders that coal is the solution to poverty.

> Back in 1910 universal suffrage threatened the customary dominance of the business classes, and PR was an excellent solution. If workers were going to vote, they’d need the right advice. No-one expressed it better than Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, who is credited with founding the PR industry. Bernays was candid:

>> The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the... masses is an important element in democratic society (he wrote). Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism ... constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

> PR became an essential tool for business to consolidate its power right through the century, culminating in the 1970s project to “litter the world with free market think tanks”. By 2013, there were nearly 7,000 of these, all over the world; the vast majority were conservative, free market advocates, many on the libertarian fringe, and financed by big business. They cultivate a studied appearance of independence, though one think tank vice-president came clean. “There is no such thing as a disinterested think tanker,” he said. “Somebody always builds the tank, and it’s usually not Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.” Funding think tanks is always about “shaping and reshaping the climate of public opinion”.

-- https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/l...

Ah, bingo: here's a bit out of Higgs' book that discusses how the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) campaign for the “American way” managed to get pro-business propaganda into the school curriculum in the 1930s, and lo and behold one of the early aims of the organisation is to fight against unionism:

> In 1895 the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) was founded to lobby for business-friendly legislation and, under the leadership of David Perry, in 1903 it launched “a crusade against unionism.” [...]

> The NAM campaign for the “American way” was massive. It replicated Creel’s World War I model in establishing local cells, “Special Committees of Public Information,” which enlisted local Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, and churches, as well as lawyers, teachers, and local dealers of the appliances and cars made by the corporations. These committees of influential people were responsible for the regional face of NAM’s multifaceted “publicity program”; they funneled articles, features and films to newspapers, radio stations, and movie theatres; they sent speakers to the theatres as Creel had done, as well as to every local group of any sort (including women’s groups and what were then called “negro groups”); they distributed pamphlets and weekly bulletins to schools, clubs and libraries. Aware that the adult population was cynical about the corporate claim to “service,” they aimed specifically at schools where _Young America_, their weekly children’s magazine that portrayed capitalism as dedicated to looking after them and their communities, was sent to thousands of teachers, who used them in classroom assignments. _You and Industry_, a series of booklets written in simple language, linked individual prosperity to unregulated industry, and was distributed to public libraries everywhere. One million booklets were distributed every two weeks by the US Chamber of Commerce, which, along with the giant industrial corporations, was also involved in the campaign.

- Spend 1 million to accommodate a union's demands e.g. raise salaries and improve working conditions

- Spend 999999 on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting organizations that are specialized on disrupting unions, tarnishing their reputation, and manipulate/threaten/sue/bribe/smear their members

In some countries unions has become corrupted, bureaucratic, ineffective. Companies benefit from that.

They think a union would be a bit like a homeowners association - in principle owned and run by them and never acting against their interests, but in practice a threat as much as an opportunity.

I just assume that it's almost never going to be the case.

It might look like it's created by worker, but it's created by a sub group of workers which is unhappy with a status quo. This effort will be led by even smaller sub group of activists that have a drive and skillset to organise and weasel into a leadership positions.

Worker run union seems to be even more implausible. It's going to be run by a managerial body composed of said activists, which I absolutely expect to be self-serving, rent seeking and, well, parasitic. Occasionally their interests will coincide with interests of workers they represent, but that will be just some happy accidents.

how do you know you are earning as much as you should?

I mean if we take facebook as an example, you can't negotiate pay. You're slapped on a scale and thats it. You might be able to up your share offer, but actual pay is fixed on a scale.

Which is the same as what it would be if it was unionised.

Also, you have chosen two professions that are run by public organisations, so pay is always going to be low[1] However in other countries, teachers unions are very effective at settling compensation. (The UK for example has reasonably well paid teachers)

I think the problem is that you seem to be labouring under the pretence that you are special, and earn a specially high wage. Statistics say that in practice your probably earning close to median for tech. Make of that what you will...

[1] well yes and no, depending on country, but lets assume the USA

The two retorts to this are: 1) it's selfish arguing. "Fuck you got mine" style, dismisses what happens to everyone else as long as you're OK. Which may be fine for you, but why should the rest of us agree that you being wealthier is the thing we all want?

2) You negotiating against the resources of a multi-million dollar company who can hire any legal or negotiating team of experts against you? Can you, really?

> "Additionally unions protect incompetent employees, which I don't want."

Unions don't have to protect incompetent employees, but they can demand that the employee be proved incompetent and not falsely accused of incompetence and sacked without "trial" - which could happen to you. Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day.

> "I want to negotiate my own pay and benefits, and it's worked out excellent for me. A union only serves to harm my interests."

Voting sure is worse than having me as dictator, isn't it? Democracy only serves to harm my interests. Surely you will agree that's a good reason for FaceBook to suppress talk of Democracy and voting in nation-wide FaceBook chat?

As for the tech industry, remember, your already getting paid less because of companies like Apple and Adobe who had the non-poaching agreement. This stifled salaries for everyone involved.

Unions are so bad, but companies will collectively bargain if they can.

Contrast that with my experience with Unions in Sweden; and that is that they basically don't exist except to ensure that workers rights are not infringed.

So they'll be involved in a termination, or help negotiate overtime pay.

There is no such thing as a "union job", it's just having what's referred to as a "collective agreement".

At my company, the majority (all?) employees in my local office are un-unionised. We have the same system (it's just departmental). This is a system that emerges in large old bureaucracies regardless.

Which is why it's present in many unions tracing their formation back to the early 20th century. They're big and they're old.

That's not a union, that's a guild. A medieval-style guild has a monopoly on a certain type of work. A union merely represents its members in workplace negotiations.

Does it really, though? Because literally every one of your complaints above would be solved, if your companies employees stopped actively fighting the union, and just simply joined it instead.

For seemingly silly rules like the ones you're describing, the union is attempting to protect jobs and hours.

I wish my union was more like some European unions I've read about, where they're involved in the decision-making process. Mine fights for wages, positions, and conditions, but management decides how things work - so long as they're not violating the agreed-upon conditions. I expect your workplace is similar. Instead of mapping out a path with management, my union reacts to the path set out by management, and I think a lot of the weird rules come as a result of reacting, rather than helping to create.

I also think this sort of collaboration would be better for companies, particularly larger companies, where there is a disconnect from how things actually work and how corporate thinks they work. We have this particularly terrible piece of machinery that corporate is obsessed with justifying. We have other machines that do its jobs better, but it does the jobs of many machines - just much worse. It just wastes a lot of time, but corporate incentiveses management to use it, and when discussing the POS machine, management cites those incentives as reasons for why the machine is actually good. When you say, "Yes, but how does wasting all this time using this particular machine help the company?" management highlights the incentives.

They can be, undoubtedly.

But don't forget the times when they go into bat to defend the rights of workers who have been treated badly by their employers - whether during employment or when they have been made redundant and procedures have not been followed correctly. When you're a part-time worker who is in a union who has very little input in your day-to-day work, but they come to your rescue with a considerable amount of legal muscle behind you in such a situation, the £10 a month you've paid them looks like very good value indeed.

I totally get that unions can be the embodiment of self-protection and bureaucracy, and can lead to expensive and crazy situations (indeed when I see some union leaders here in the UK it appears that is their desire). But that isn't all they are there for - they can also help the little guy out when their back is against the wall.

A UBI can possibly help prevent this type of silliness.

I also would like more realistic examples of bureaucracy, because yours are frankly bullshit. Yeah yeah the MTA is bad sure, and I've interacted with unions before that exemplified their stereotypes. But if you really think employees would suddenly not be able to plug in a monitor or move it across the room because there's a union, I think you're completely incorrect.

That being said, there are some obvious counter-arguments to your experiences, however they tend towards "guilds" as mentioned in another comment more than unions as I understand them.

> Oh, you want to move that folding table and a few chairs to the conference room so you can have a design meeting with the whole team? Sorry furniture movement is union-only work.

Bob grabs the table and lifts with his back, in a twisting, jerking movement. Bob is then unable to come in to work due to back pain for the next two weeks. The union keeps Bob from hurting himself unintentionally.

> Need that extra monitor moved between two adjacent cubes? Sorry, equipment relocation is union work.

Someone notices that a bunch of monitors have gone missing. Have you been burgled?! Noone has any record of where these monitors have gone, however you eventually track then down to Alice's cube where she has finally completed her dream 9-monitor nest. Phew, false alarm!

> Need to plug that new PC into the socket? Sorry, equipment installation is a union job

It gets cold in the winter, so Dan brings their own heater to put under their desk[1]. One day they forget to turn it off when going home and burns down the department; On the other side new employees don't just materialise out of the ether. The organisation should have plenty of time to set up their working environment

[1] Funnily enough, if Dan was part of a union they would have enough bargaining power to make sure their employers provide adequate working conditions, however their manager simply filed away their request away under 'C', for "Complainers - Fire these people first"

I'm totally on your side about these examples being ridiculous, but I do like to steelman the other-sides arguments

What about the Writers Guild and the NBA players union? Would the people in those unions say that?

Semi-genuinely asking? ;)

I could have gone to Best Buy, bought what I needed, installed it, and been back at work in an hour. Sigh. So I limped along.

A month later, along comes the new RAM and gets installed. But I was long done with the project that needed it.

Anyway, no fan of unions that get their feelers into every crack, in an attempt to pad union jobs. I am definitely in favor of some feedback that helps them be useful and productive - time-to-response on tickets for instance, that affected their pay maybe. Then we might all be happier.

Case in point: my girlfriend's workplace has been recently purchased by a multinational. Everything fine and well, until they had to pay her. Her monthly salary was cut by about €400 because they refuse to pay past overtime work (which is perfectly legal here, was required by the old employer and was 100% documented). She then gathered with her colleagues and they decided to sign up with an union to put some pressure to the new employer. It happened last week so I have no more news. Anyway, that's what unions are for, at least over here; they shouldn't be used to move furniture or things like that.

Companies that operate this way must be in slow paced industries. To innovate you must be able to just do stuff. As soon as you add a bunch of hoops and sign-offs you lose momentum.

My own hypothesis on this is that it's not just a matter of high overhead but of slowing things down to the point that it breaks the dopamine reinforcement loop for the human beings involved. Humans need to be able to see results or at least movement toward them in a reasonable amount of time or it becomes really difficult to stay focused and engaged.

The work rules and bureaucracy element is like 100% of my skepticism about unions. Get rid of that stuff and I'd be all for them.

That being said, unions aren't the only source of inane bureaucracy of course. Many organizations without unions manage to invent worthless tar pits of their own.

This is known as a 'closed shop' in the UK. Closed shops are not synonymous or required for unions to function.

when i was in my early 20's and unaware of how the world worked i had a job as a contract IT guy at a very well known Power company. People would call me up with their problems and i would fix them. After a few months, somone took me aside and explained to me that they are really bad, as they are "using" me to avoid having to deal with other unions to do this work. I was simply unaware that "plugging in a network cable" was a union job and i just did it as it was easy enought.

The sad thing is it was union employees attempting to avoid other union employees...

1. Vow never to work in the software industry.

2. Allow that perhaps mine is a bad example, that there might be good software shops to work in, and wait for more data.

Though I would not fault anyone for choosing #1.

I worked at a unionised company in the UK and the CWU would have got short shrift if they Tried that with my members (I was Branch's secretary For the M&P union)

For anyone who thinks that this is just hyperbole, it's exactly the sort of thing that happens.

When I worked at a unionized television station, I was watching an aircheck of a recent broadcast. When I was done, I ejected the tape and put it back into the archive.

The union filed a grievance against me for pressing the eject button. As a manager, I could use Play, Stop, and the shuttle controls, but not Eject. Only a union member could eject a tape.

At another television station where I worked, there was an employee retiring after 30 years with the station, and we thought it would be cute to show a ten-second clip of him working while the anchors said goodbye and thanks. It never happened. He worked upstairs, in the tech center, and the members of the photographers union weren't allowed to operate any electronic equipment up there because that was the province of a different union. This included working their own cameras. At the same time, the people who worked in the tech center weren't allowed to operate any of the station's cameras, because that was the domain of the photographer's union. As I said, we were never able to air a clip of this good employee doing his job.

At another television station, I worked weekends. Naturally, I was expected to work five days a week like every other employee. So I was assigned to help write during three weekdays. A union grievance was filed against me for taking a theoretical writer's job. The result was that for the next FIVE YEARS, I did nothing three days a week but look at lolcats, and the station had to keep paying me my full salary.

I'm not anti-union. I think unions are essential for coal miners, maids, janitors, and other people. But I'm not convinced that white collar people need unions. Or at least there should be a method of calling out and publicizing union abuses to let their members know what's going on.

Many people assume unions are simply squeezing their employers, but unions also put the squeeze on customers. We had union members protesting in front of our office building and harassing our visitors for an entire month because our building owner refused to pay 3X the cost to use union labor for the drywall work.

The whole point of unions is to affect change, so what does that sentence even mean?

All else being equal means the union did nothing to change anything, and therefore is 100% overhead.

From the perspective of an economist, all cartels are bad, whether they deal in oil or labour or anything else.

And this case why on earth where professional roles being represented by an Auto workers union.

EDIT: There's a bit of an exception. For example, in universities, sometimes graduate students have a union and faculty have a union. It doesn't make sense to place them both in the same union because the faculty boss graduate students around. However, it would make sense for the two unions to cooperate against the administration.

EDIT2: Another reason unions should be as concentrated as possible is so they form a united front against the bosses. If every employee is in a different union, how can they achieve anything without great difficulty?

Unions are formed in environments where people feel it’d bad enough to pay the price.

The same way if we looked at jobs hiring bodyguards, most would look pretty dangerous, but we wouldn’t blame the bodyguards.

The "boxing match" analogy is reflective of the "us against them" power struggle between those trying to leverage their own hand at the expense of someone else in the U.S. corporate-union world.

This is contrasting to the concepts in Europe of labor stakeholders having a roundtable and coming to compromise as a group effort... not that it's perfect, just a different system.

Their leaders earn a lot, so they have an interest in maintaining the status quo. As one parent mentioned, you can't do much without their approval. Take for example the underground. The commercial property from the subway stations was under the control of the union, all the kiosks and small shops paid rent to the union.

Also some of their former leaders went into politics and got involved in corruption scandals.

In other words, in my office an employee is not allowed to hang a whiteboard on to a wall. Because building mandates only union employees can make such hardware modifications.

Fine you are protecting the job of the union but what you are really doing is prevent job creep or scope creep.

Another hypothetical example: no employee is allowed to work past 5 pm. Sure hardworking employees want to. But when they do, the put the pressure on other employees to do the same. This kind of culture is net negative.

Until this bigger problem is fixed unions will remain one of the very few things workers can do to improve their odds in life. So you can't be for or against them - it is the only logical outcome of the current social order.

Imagine a consulting firm that had a monopoly on all the architects in California. The only architects in CA are ones that you might bring in from this firm, and to prevent change, it's in the contract that you can't hire outside architects. It's a straight up anticompetitive monopoly. But that doesn't mean consulting firms are bad, it's just that monopolies are bad.

The biggest difference between this kind of consulting firm and a union is the accounting and the taxes, so I think the same logic applies. Unions can be good, but monopolistic unions are bad. When there's only one police union for your city, they have extreme bargaining power because it's a monopoly.

There needs to be a middle ground between completely independent bargaining and monopolistic collective bargaining. If we figured out a reasonable way to have multiple coexisting unions for a given profession and location, I'd bet unions would be much much more widely accepted as good.

I've actually experienced it twice, but neither case had anything to do with unions.

One was officially a Health and safety matter (if you'd not been on the manually handling course you should not be moving heave expensive bits of equipment around) though I suspect it was really more of an insurance matter (only the relevant people should be moving the expensive equipment, or accidental damages won't be covered). Commercial arse-shielding, no unions involved.

The other was again commercial: in an outsourced IT arrangement where all equipment moves had to be done by someone on the outsourced team. This of course carried a charge for time, but if it wasn't done that way the contract said the charge could still be made with additional charges for the extra paperwork. Again, a purely commercial matter, no unions present affecting the matter in either company.

The whole point is that the fight for protection of workers' rights needs some sort of organization. Traditionally, that has been called a "union", but if the problem you're pointing out is that the name has too many bad connotations, feel free to propose another one.

FWIW, it looks like most of the "good unions" are careful to call themselves "guilds".

Dystopian world ahead of us

http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t...

But the cost to process every single message with a powerful AI just to censor bad words would be way too much.

> And it doesn't need to be perfect. If you're an employee who may face severe repercussions if you mention unions, are you going to risk your job based on whether the filter catches your post?

You are conflating censoring and detecting. This is en different matter entirely which would necessitate a whole new debate.

https://github.com/minimaxir/big-list-of-naughty-strings/blo...

An employer cannot inhibit the formation or function of a union but are under no obligation to provide the facilities or platform to form one. What FB have done is akin to not allowing an organizer to use the company photocopier to print union leaflets

I am pretty certain this particular feature went the other way around: Facebook has to work very hard to retain customers on Workplace, because they're competing against Microsoft (who have extremely deep pockets, and arguably a better product in many regards).

I'm willing to bet Walmart went to Facebook and told them to implement this feature, or they'd jump ship. Certainly that's what's happened with other Workplace features in the past, such as the ability to control access for hourly employees.

Over the last few decades, there has been rapid _decrease_ in racism throughout the West.