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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

I think you might misunderstand the goal of a union. It's inherently political, that's the whole point of it. And the values from the mission statement does sound like something every company should aim for, but sometimes they forget we're all humans here, so we need something to keep companies in check.

I'm not sure comparing unions to code of conducts are suitable. Unions are a historically old and proven way for workers to enact change in workplaces, industries and even entire countries. Code of conducts in open source is a fairly new invention (officially, written down ones at least) with no such track record.

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> I think you might misunderstand the goal of a union. It's inherently political, that's the whole point of it.

I think this is disingenuous. It's inherently political, yes, but historically it is the politics of the workplace that a union focuses on. Specifically workplace safety, compensation, and benefits. This mission statement is explicitly dragging larger social activism into the workplace.

> Unions are a historically old and proven way for workers to enact change in workplaces, industries and even entire countries. Code of conducts in open source is a fairly new invention (officially, written down ones at least) with no such track record.

It is the same pattern of dragging social activism into a domain where it is not inherently relevant, and using bureaucracy to force it onto members. One mechanism of doing so being old or new isn't the point.

> historically it is the politics of the workplace that a union focuses on

Might be so in the US, but certainly not everywhere. Nor just because it's been so in the US before, doesn't mean it has to be like that. In Spain for example, unions are one of the most active and most likely to actually achieve political change in the country, at least judging by how it's been so far.

Which ones of the announced values you feel is trying to be applied to society at large? The way I'm reading it, all the values are geared towards Google and it's workplace, not going further than that.

> And the values from the mission statement does sound like something every company should aim for

For the record here is the second listed value

> Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst off. Neutrality never helps the victim.

Let me speak plainly. This type of phrasing is extremely common for progressives. A Trump voter would read this as politically charged and outside the scope of most unions. If you cannot see why someone would oppose this you need to widen the scope of people you talk to.

It's also just like how unions work.

Unions are a progressive concept.

Not really. Unions often operate as guilds, restricting access to potential employees and restricting the trade of members.

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