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Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

This is the detail that most people miss:

Unions don’t protect the general public against a company. They protect the ranking members of a company.

That means the union also protects members of the company from the general public who might be looking to take their job by offering to work harder or better or cheaper.

If you’re a young person getting started in this industry it might be fun to imagine working in a unionized environment, but remember that the union would be working to protect its members from you breaking into the company and entering the senior ranks.

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Um... in germany works councils don't get rid of young people because they want to protect their senior ranks.

First: it's really hard to get fired in germany, almost impossible.

Second: they help formulate who gets laid off when, when there are layoffs, and prioritise people who can and will find a job more easily. So young people and people without families. This is because older people are more vulnerable to discrimination.

This is what a society does to protect each other and to use power against a company because the employer-employee relationship is adversarial. Unions don't exist to protect the brass, i don't even know what you're on about

First: that's awful because it means business don't have any flexibility to change. you're forced to work with people who don't work, because they can't get fired. The lower productivity of those workers becomes a drag on everyone else.

Second: this is the worst. Instead of shedding the dead weight it insists on protecting the people who've been paying dues the longest, at the expense of young people.

No this is not what I call a just society.

A just society is one where people doing more work get more pay. This exists fine right now. Workers have tons of companies to choose from. Companies have lots of workers to choose from. There's a vibrant market and most people end up getting paid what they're worth.

> First: that's awful because it means business don't have any flexibility to change. you're forced to work with people who don't work, because they can't get fired. The lower productivity of those workers becomes a drag on everyone else.

There are reasons why an employer may fire a worker. "Refuses to work" is one.

> Second: this is the worst. Instead of shedding the dead weight it insists on protecting the people who've been paying dues the longest, at the expense of young people.

Maybe if people did not understand "dead weight" when they read "older people" employers could be trusted to decide who to keep and who to fire.

> A just society is one where people doing more work get more pay.

That cannot be the only or even the main criterion else people who can't work starve.

Don't you notice that you contradict yourself? You claim they don't decide who gets fired, and in the next paragraph you explain that they will get younger people fired, because they are presumed to have an easier time finding new jobs.

"They" help formulate - I don't think the young people who get fired belong to the "they" very much. Otherwise, again, there would be no need for unions. The young people would just volunteer to quit for the sake of the old people.

And yet you've just generalised without looking deeper. "They fire all the young people" is a hot take, until you realise that young people will far more easily find a new job.

You inserted the "all", I did not write "they fire all the young people". It's also just an example.

It is also not a given that young people will have it easier to find a new job. Youth unemployment is at staggering heights in many countries.

And by your logic, there still is no incentive for young people to support the unions. They could just give up their jobs voluntarily, if they are so convinced that it is the right thing to do.

Is that why in Ford's recent deal struck with UAW, one of the sticking points for UAW was that there be a "Guaranteed path to permanent full-time employment for temporary employees"?

That would seem to be entirely contrary to the idea that union's goal is to make it harder for people to join these companies.

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