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Comment by kethinov | Hacker News Reader

I prefer indoctrination that improves people's wages and working conditions as opposed to the present anti-union indoctrination that only serves to empower bosses at workers' expense.

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Is it beyond your imagination that perhaps those workers have a better idea of their own self-interest than you do? I understand that you're well intentioned but you need to consider that someone can be an informed, intelligent person of goodwill and come to a conclusion that is different than yours.

And while I don't know you, I'm gonna assume that you don't work for Amazon in Bessemer. Neither do I. So our responses to the situation might just be more about us and our baggage, than the actual facts on the ground in Alabama.

Anyone who doesn't want higher wages or better working conditions isn't defining their self-interest very rationally. And anyone who doesn't believe the union is the best way to get there is probably being persuaded by anti-union propaganda rather than sound arguments.

> Anyone who doesn't want higher wages or better working conditions isn't defining their self-interest very rationally.

higher wages or better working conditions don't happen in a vacuum. Thinking it's a godsend or something is the definition of not thinking rationally.

> And anyone who doesn't believe...

Right, because no one has any relevant experiences which might influence their thoughts. You said anyone. You come across as incredibly condescending

Condescending is opposing giving low income people more money and better working conditions because of some abstract philosophical argument used to justify redefining self-interest in a totally bizarre way.

People in this thread are all like, "Don't tell me giving someone food is in their self-interest! What if they want to starve?"

You are framing the argument disingenuously. This isn't a simple formula where union = better. There are reasons why people don't think a union is in their self interest. Contrary to whatever you're parroting, there are actually people who have good reasons why they don't want a union--including things they have actually experienced. The fact that you can't possibly see the other side of it and can't even fathom an argument against it just shows how biased you are. The fact that you don't even think other people can make their own rational choice shows how condescending you are.

Perhaps if higher wages and better working conditions are the only items that define your self-interest. I suspect while those two items may be important or helpful, they are by far not the only factors that define my self interest. I have given up both willingly and much happier for it. Perhaps my happiness is not rational but it’s damn sure more important than money and whether or not I have a 1” or 2” standing mat under my feet.

I’m pretty sure that if labor costs in Bessemer AL == Labor costs in another location, say.... Seattle? Bessemer, AL wouldn’t have the worry about the anti union indoctrination and would have to worry about starving again.

For these communities, these are well paid jobs with great benefits compared to what they would otherwise have.

Saying you don't need a union because your wages are good is like saying you don't need democracy because the king is nice to you. All that can change very quickly, and when it does, you're going to want the power that collective bargaining gives you in those negotiations.

Not disagreeing with you - if you have a mortgage and kids keeping you somewhere and a king that will abandon you and leave you to starve if you vote for Democracy - you can die on that hill if you want to, and the King probably won’t care. He’ll move next Area over, have the same or better deal, and you and your kids will starve.

At that point the question is - why should you starve so someone else can be happy about Unions?

These issues only get solved with society wide action. The poor sap casting their single vote here can’t afford to make this call on their own, and they’re just happy their particular king is generous enough to grace them and not more abusive. Because there are a LOT of more abusive ones , and they’ve probably seen that first hand unlike most of the posters here.

Unions outside the US are "society-wide". We have per-company union organizing because of quick hacks applied to the legal system, the same way our healthcare system was created. Sectoral bargaining systems like Europe are less antagonistic and the employer has less motivation to fight against them. It can make the company more efficient since the execs don't only hear what middle management tells them.

There are a whole ton of asterisks on that kind of statement. Most European unions are at most national (which geographically is more equivalent to a specific US State than pan-EU). Many of them are regional, which is even scoped more like a city.

Conditions for a laborer in Bulgaria, Romania, and the UK are on a completely different level. This is not that dissimilar.

Things can also change when rising costs of manufacturing due to a unionized, aging, and over-paid workforce cause the company to decide to shut the factory down. It works both ways.

> I prefer indoctrination

Interesting, so you prefer people who don't use their own brains.

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