Hacker News Reader

Comment by door100 | Hacker News Reader

The horrors of... a 35 hour workweek, 5 weeks paid vacation, 16 weeks paid maternity leave, universal healthcare, and no at-will employment?

View on HN

or the deadwood that gets protected because they belong to an union. Or unions being against remote work because that'd reduce employee control. Or union leadership just using their membership to laze around. Or union opposing projects they don't like. Or union harassing (including physically) managers. And to say nothing of railway union who apparently have a Mission to gridlock the country every few years (usually around the time someone in the government check the deficits of the railways)

Great way to talk about your fellow colleagues as dead wood. I would love working with you.

Working together isn’t fun when we’re all out of a job because the factory moved to another country

Don't blame your co-workers. Blame those that made the decision to move the factory (board of directors)

I assume they're not just talking about all of their colleagues, but specifically the ones that don't pull their own weight.

If you don't pull your own weight, then I would love working with you.

Even if all of these were true (I would describe most of them as a mischaracterization at best), do you honestly think that outweighs everything that I described? The worst thing that people can say about unions is they are bureaucratic and inconvenient. The worst things people can say about, say, working conditions in many non-unionized American workplaces are far, far worse. People dying, unfairly losing their job (and healthcare, and home), working incredibly long hours, unable to see their kid, unable to get adequate sleep, etc etc etc. I happen to think there are values other than "workers producing profit for their employers as efficiently as possible at the expense of anything else"

> The worst thing that people can say about unions is they are bureaucratic and inconvenient.

I disagree. Unions can lead to the death of entire industries - I have seen it with my own eyes. Inefficiencies created by unions lead to jobs going to places where such unions do not exist. Personally, I do believe the workers need to be protected, but if you protect workers then you also need to protect industries, and this opens a gigantic can of worms as it runs counter to globalization and free trade.

“death of entire industries”

What industry?

Maybe we need to open a gigantic can of worms that “runs counter to globalization” if we’re talking about sending those jobs to countries with unethical working conditions.

> What industry?

There are many examples in the manufacturing industry, though unions aren't the only factor.

> Maybe we need to open a gigantic can of worms that “runs counter to globalization” if we’re talking about sending those jobs to countries with unethical working conditions.

I couldn't agree more, the problem is there are powerful interests that will keep trying to sweep this issue under the rug.

> There are many examples in the manufacturing industry, though unions aren't the only factor.

Ok. So what industry / example specifically?

Taxis in a lot of places are akin to a union and are slowly dying with semi-legal alternatives like uber

Unions don't kill industries because in many cases union and non-union companies serve an industry at the same time.

Free trade moves industries elsewhere.

But actually killing an industry: technology, war, social changes, demand and laws that outlaw things.

Free trade is often used to move work to countries without unions.

Not advocating either position here, just pointing this out.

Yes, so unions tend to kill countries where they're too strong. They tend to promote short-sighted action that save/retain existing jobs. This makes it harder for the economy to change when it is needed which in the long run leads to failed businesses, an uncompetitive work force and unemployment. Maybe unions is like democracy in that they totally suck, but the alternatives are worse. However, unions should definitely have their power checked.

There's also 'bossnapping': https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-bossnapping-idUSBR...

I'm not sure I'd characterize this as anything reasonable. At what point does this warrant self defense by the people stuck?

I'd say that, yes, work laws are better in France than in the US, it's rather obvious, but I can't say that the unions in France are a net good.

Also something I forgot to yesterday: unions that prevents downsizing or restructuring efforts to tackle industry changes, ending by killing the companies in question. Or, when a falling factory is about to be bought, imposing such constraints that all deal fall trough.

You forget, with a union, the world's richest man might get richer every day at a slightly slower rate than he currently gets richer. That's the real horror!

What riches, exactly? Why the hate?

I'm not sure why people hate unions exactly. Seems weird to have "freedom of assembly" but then hate those that practice it for better negotiating leverage.

Eh? I hate lots of people who I nonetheless want to have freedom of assembly. Like anti-vaxxers. I want them to be able to say antivax shit but I hate them. What exactly is weird about this?

Wanting to take away another groups freedom is not unheard of but it is anti-social.

Actually hating them probably means you have a lot of misplaced anger.

This isn't about "freedom of assembly". I'm extremely pro freedom of assembly. "Unions = always good" is just as harmful as "Unions = always bad" as "Rich man evil" or "Rich man good".

Why does it have to be zero sum?

Your power in society is zero sum. Giving it all away to an oligarch in exchange for promises of cheap consumer goods is not an credible bargain.

At what level does wealth go from "normal wealth" to "oligarch wealth"? Like, where is that line?

Also, on what planet could Bezos be described as an oligarch? Not this one. Everyone on the left and the right hates him for various reasons. The previous president hated him. This president just told his workers to unionize. Senators are constantly portraying him as Satan incarnate.

He has no political power in Washington. They hate him.

There is reason US is very competitive globally vs France just the shell of its former glory

Yes. Geography

Really ? Working more has nothing to do with it ? Or brilliant universities ? Or immigration ?

None of that happens without the geography of the United States.

The US is the classic born on 3rd Base.

The former glory was holding colonies by considerable violence. If unions are the ones who stopped it, good. Through I strongly doubt unions had anything to do with that.

Ah, classic selection bias blinders on. Sure, great benefits for those who have jobs. What about for the people who can't get employed due to the conditions on labor? The young, poor, already jobless? Not so much concern for them, you got yours.

I am not sure the American underclass (a large part of Trump’s support base) is faring much better. Even with larger unemployment, inequalities are still not as bad as in the US. Several countries have similar problems, whether it takes the form of 10% unemployment or working-class poor.

I'm not sure how COVID has effected it, but for the past years France has had a higher prime age labor force participation rate then the US, so it doesn't seem to be causing that issue.

This part. People point to things like wealth inequality but not point to median incomes or employment rates, or marriage rates or birth rates. its extreme selection bias. If france was a country its median income with be comparable with alabama.

This is not a particularly useful statistic unless you include the varying levels of public services.

I just did a similar analysis for a job in the US vs one in Canada. The actual salary in the US was much higher, but including healthcare expenses closed a lot of the gap. In some cases (e.g., chronic illness or young kids), the lower Canadian salary was a better "deal" overall.

Friend of mine moved to France from California. He said raising a kid in is way cheaper and less stressful in France.

Me I'm fully aware that I'm paying whats amounts to $900/month protection money in the form of health insurance. Protection money because really the co-payes I have to pay are close cost of actually providing medical goods and services.

This could be describing any country on the planet.

Shantytowns have been growing across the US for almost 30 years.

Unions are just formalized reality, like fiscal economics, politics, etc

IMO, while we may not live to see it, I’m pretty sure out last 100-150 years of economic thought is, big picture style, on its way out.

It may take decades but once everyone is a gig worker, the political argument for universal healthcare will be undeniable.

IMO that’s more in-line with someone like Adam Smith, whose only condition for a market was free movement of workers between a market of opportunity.

This has somehow been mutated into a market of goods and services, probably out of laziness.

unlike the US, where working conditions for the poor are fantastic?

Don't get me wrong, France (and the EU) has its share of problems. But "better protections for their workers" is not one of them. EU countries decided to use a small portion of their enormous wealth building a safety net and decent worker protections. The US does this to a much lesser degree, preferring instead to center corporate profits and the wealthy.

The horrors of unions to me are represented perfectly in teachers unions, which repeatedly protect sexual predators and incompetent teachers [1] [2]. They serve their members to the detriment of everyone else, including the children they claim to care about (while enabling predators).

In fact, teachers are significantly more likely to be predators than even priests. [3] Thanks to unions who go to bat for them.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547...

[2] https://www.nj.com/education/2017/12/teachers_accused_of_sex...

[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com