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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

"Are there any unions that advocate for good working conditions, without also opposing efficiency gains in the name of jobs?"

It's the job of the union to advocate for workers, not for management. Workers want more pay, job security, benefits, safety, and so on. What employers want is entirely different and often directly opposed to what the workers want. And there is already a strong advocate for the employers interests - the employer. In most employment situation there is no advocate for the workers to begin with.

What you are suggesting is that in the rare cases that workers do have an advocate, that advocate should also be acting for the benefit of the employer. I don't think that adds up.

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I guess the issue is that if a union solely acts for the benefit of the workers, then it sets itself not only against the interests of the employer, but also against the interests of the whole of the rest of society, who would benefit from the service being more efficient.

Hence the current situation where unions have an image problem.

Nobody likes seeing an abuse of power, whether the abuse is coming from the direction of the employer, or from the employee‘s union.

Game-theoretically, a smart union should refrain from unreasonable demands, because their long-term survival (and that of its members) is imperilled by public opinion turning against them.

Unless of course more workers belonged to unions, in which case more people would be sympathetic to the plight of the worker. These people are facing devastating job losses that will upend their families’ lives. Can you really blame them for putting up a fight? I’m ok with it, even if it means I need to wait a few weeks to import my forced-labor cotton shirts from Xinjiang.

You don’t need to be a union member to be sympathetic to workers’ issues - after all, nearly everyone is a worker. But nearly everyone is a stakeholder in the economy too, and solidarity has a limit, which can be breached when an action is widely perceived as unreasonable.

I guess I shouldn't negotiate raises anymore at my job, wouldn't want to hurt the rest of society.

Demanding higher pay in exchange for increased efficiency is a negotiation.

Demanding higher pay in exchange for nothing is rent-seeking.

I will remember that the next time I'm at the grocery store and prices go up without negotiation. Afterall I could just not buy food.

I don't think this is useful analogy. If Kroger raises prices for milk, you can cross the street and buy your milk from Walmart or Aldi or Costco or any of the other hundreds of places that sell groceries.

If the ILWU goes on a slowdown strike, the port authority cannot simply fire them all and hire replacements. Firstly, that is outright illegal in America and secondly, there is no competition anyway. The ILWU has a monopoly on the supply of longshoremen. If all the grocers were entered into a cartel agreement to not sell milk below a certain price, then you'd have a point. There's no evidence that this is the case.

But all longshoremen are entered into an agreement not to sell labor below a given price. This agreement is their union membership with the ILWU.

Setting aside the fact that stores only sell milk and all get it from the same set of farms which usually have their own trade group, monopoly if you will, why should regulatory capture favor your preference over theirs?

There's no milk monopoly. That's ridiculous. Farmer Joe is free to sell his milk at whatever price he wants.

Not exactly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_Price_Support_Program

Worked on a project a while back for pricing different qualities of milk and the amount of federal programs, guidelines, and laws regulating dairy markets is extremely substantial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_Farmers_of_America

~22% of the market if I understand correctly. Hardly a monopsony.

There's nothing wrong with wishing for a cozy dream rentier position, the problem is that ports are not really a healthy market. It's hard to open a new port, there are only a few ones that dominate the market, and they are all operated by the local government. There's no real incentive to do better, no profit motive to enter this market, to be more efficient, etc.

So naturally this should be regulated like a public service.

That said, just as regular public service jobs pay shit it's not surprising that there are regular conflicts due to disagreements about compensation.

> In most employment situation there is no advocate for the workers to begin with.

This is only true in employment situations with little to no scarcity in labor supply. That is not actually the case in most skilled jobs, certainly not at present. In skilled work, the employer has a clear need to keep their employees satisfied otherwise they cannot sustain their labor needs. Labor scarcity by definition creates substantial alignment between the desires of workers and the needs of the business.

I don't think this dichotomy is necessary. Management are workers - they have the same goal as everyone else, making money. The distinction you intend to make is people who have a stake in the company vs. people who do not. If all employees held equity/stocks or had substantial participation in company decisions (be it through a vote, or through an elected representative), then collective bargaining would organically arise as part of the organizational structure.

In Germany you have a very different relationship between unions and management, with unions sitting on corporate boards and management being in the union as well.

But American unions are legendary in the Western world for corruption and pugnaciousness which continues up to the present[1,2], which is unfortunate, and long term hurts workers.

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/10/15/head-of-californias-l...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/11-union-officials-char...

Managers are better thought of as "agents of capital or ownership" under this distinction. Manager compensation would typically be at least partially tied to overall company performance, even without equity (e.g. cash bonuses for a strong P+L). Employees, as a group distinct from the Managers, earn a flat wage regardless of performance.

Of course, this is industry/location/company dependent, but I believe that is the reasoning for the distinction.

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