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Comment by bpodgursky | Hacker News Reader

It makes sense if you realize that the current US Labor Secretary is a product of union politics (he was as union leader, and most of the political goal of classifying gig workers as employees is to make it easier for the AFL/CIO and Teamsters to unionize them.

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The previous secretary of labor (the late Justice Scalia’s son) was an anti-worker ideologue who did everything possible to undermine/block the department’s mission, including helping firms to not provide health benefits, steal workers’ overtime pay, discriminate against women and minorities, avoid occupational safety rules, unlawfully block union organizing, etc.

It is a good thing for the leader of a government department to have ideological goals broadly aligned with the mission of the institution.

This is also true, it but does not change the original thesis.

> US Labor Secretary is a product of union politics

The man heading state labor policy is a "product" of the labor movement. Is that supposed to be a scandal?

> easier for the AFL/CIO and Teamsters to unionize them

Good.

It's not an unmitigated good - unions are just as capable of becoming "another boss" as any other human institution. Simply supporting "unions" without asking "what kinds of unions" is opting people into being harmed coming and going.

Unions are good inasmuch they allow labor to bargain with capital by underwriting demands for better pay and conditions with the threat of work stoppage.

If unions aren't doing that because they are compromised or sclerotic or whatever, then they aren't much use. Who would argue.

Sure that may be true, but to what end? To allow workers to ask for better rights rather than being at the whim of a microeconomy created by a company like Uber or others with their own control over "surges" and "down times"?

(new account, long time reader, victim of poorly self-managed passwords)

Good.

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