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Comment by jasonshaev | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, there were only TEN unionized employees at Instacart who were let go (out of 1900 jobs cut). With such a small percentage of the workforce unionized, it's highly unlikely those employees enjoyed any additional bargaining power or job security that could result from having a significant fraction of the workforce unionized.

With such a small fraction I don't think you can draw conclusions in either direction.

[edit] In other words: these employees would have lost their job regardless of their union status [/edit]

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"In other words: these employees would have lost their job regardless of their union status"

10 unionized employees out of thousands isn't enough critical mass to count as a union for the things that matter. The power is in numbers.

> 10 unionized employees out of thousands isn't enough critical mass to count as a union for the things that matter. The power is in numbers.

That may be so, but laying off those 10 could be a strategy to kill the union in the crib by keeping the number from ever getting to the thousands. Employees faced with future unionization votes may vote against the union because they're afraid management will find a way to lay them all off if they vote for it, before they're strong enough to resist.

I agree (hence my original statement: "With such a small percentage of the workforce unionized, it's highly unlikely those employees enjoyed any additional bargaining power or job security that could result from having a significant fraction of the workforce unionized. With such a small fraction I don't think you can draw conclusions in either direction.")

However I then, uh, went on to draw a conclusion anyway in contradiction of my own statement saying we shouldn't draw conclusions because of the sample size. Methinks it's time for more coffee :).

>>In other words: these employees would have lost their job regardless of their union status

IDK that we can make that assumption. Instacart management has made themselves out to be anti-unionization (a common view by management in the US). If you're an anti-union manager, and you're about to make a massive, 2,000 person layoff declaration, you're going to make sure the unionized group of 10 people is on that list. Can't let that sort of thought spread to other locations, and this serves as a good example to those trying to organize in the future. It's easy to avoid a NLRB loss if you bust the union as part of a larger layoff.

The only thing that would have been telling is if they had announced a huge layoff and NOT taken out the union shop.

You're right -- my last statement was a bit too much of a leap. In this case I wonder if it would have even mattered if a significant percentage of the workforce was unionized.

It might have. Unions are political forces. You get a few thousand people calling and screaming at politicians and news outlets to create a negative stink about it, maybe the company looks at other ways to make themselves more financially healthy. I'm not saying it would, just that it could. That's a big part of the appeal of a union, having a group of people with diverse backgrounds and experiences able to bring those backgrounds to the table to help in fights against management.

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