Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

It's a testament to how effective propaganda can be when you see how easily you can get people to vote against their own interests.

It's crazy to me that anyone who works in these Amazon warehouses votes agains tunionization but they do [1]. Even in the successful vote, there were still a lot of "no" votes.

Unionization in the US is the lowest of all OECD nations (~10%) [2]. Is it any wonder US workers don't get paid maternity leave, often don't get health insurance and get 2 weeks vacation?

This is why wedge issues matter. They sow discord to prevent class solidarity. You know who actually does have class solidarity? Billionaires. And the politicans they own.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/02/amazon-...

[2]: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TUD

View on HN

>get 2 weeks vacation?

I had to laugh at this one. When I worked construction plumbing (non-union, "free-to-work" state), I received 0 days vacation and 2 days of sick pay per year.

You're saying this is a testament to the effectiveness of the propaganda and I'll back that up, anecdotally, having worked around those very people that vote against their own interests.

I was even rejected from taking two weeks off when my son was born. Needless to say I was there for his birth and his first few months, but some that I worked with were not there for their children's first days.

> When I worked construction plumbing (non-union, "free-to-work" state), I received 0 days vacation and 2 days of sick pay per year.

That's just crazy! Meanwhile here in Austria employees have a legal right to 5 weeks of paid vacation...

That really depends what the unions demands are and whether a worker thinks they are achievable or desirable. That's going to vary from location to location and from worker to worker. AFAIK, Amazon pays better than competitors assuming you can meet the work rates. If you can, you may well think that even higher pay is unlikely. And if the union is directly seeking things you are NOT willing to risk your job for (political campaigns for instance do nothing for me) then again, why vote yes?

> Even in the successful vote, there were still a lot of "no" votes.

I'm gonna steelman those no votes. BigCos don't like unions to the point they can and sometimes do close the place/warehouse alltogether. This is worse than working in non-union shop, especially in economically depressed area.

Every Amazon warehouse that unionizes make it less possible to close a given warehouse to snuff out a budding union.

Amazon is spending millions on union-busting lawyers. From the article, workers had to go to mandatory anti-union classes, which is pretty funny coming from a company where you could get written up for "time off task" by taking a bathroom break.

The propaganda the company is pushing is that the company and the workers are working together. They are not. Those workers are being exploited. Bezos considered turnover desirable.

To be fair, outside counsel spend adds up quick—a couple million isn’t really indicative of much, and is probably comparable to what unions are spending on these campaigns.

>>The propaganda the company is pushing is that the company and the workers are working together. They are not. Those workers are being exploited. Bezos considered turnover desirable.

While it is propaganda to claim the interests of the workers and company are aligned, it's also propaganda to claim that they're being exploited.

A voluntary market interaction, that 95% of the world population would jump at the opportunity to engage in, is by no reasonable definition, exploitive.

And society at large will not benefit from forcing Amazon to give Amazon warehouse workers above market wages.

Lower turnover will also turn Amazon warehouse work into another union cast, that benefits those who got in early, before union walls closed the door behind them, while making it more difficult for new workers to get a job with Amazon.

Amazon itself is also likely to slow its hiring if union action forces its labor costs up.

It's a fundamentally fallacious notion to say "Other people have it worse, why would you want better for yourself?". That's part of the problem with this satement: "A voluntary market interaction, that 95% of the world population would jump at the opportunity to engage in, is by no reasonable definition, exploitive." It applies equally to a statement like this: Other companies struggle with profits when they have union labor, why shouldn't amazon be forced to unionize their employees?

The other part of the the problem with that statement of course comes from the dictionary definition (one I think most people would consider a reasonable definition), it says:

making use of a situation or treating others unfairly in order to gain an advantage or benefit.

Punishing (the term they use is penalizing because it sounds nicer) people for being people and needing to use the restroom is unfair. So is punishing people for delivery delays caused by traffic. Both of those seem pretty unfair to me - maybe I'm unreasonable for thinking a person isn't at fault for traffic?

>>"Other people have it worse, why would you want better for yourself?"

"I want better for myself" != "if you don't offer me better, you're exploiting me". The implication of your assertion is fallacious.

>>making use of a situation or treating others unfairly in order to gain an advantage or benefit.

Nothing unfair about offering a wage for a job, and someone accepting it.

>>Punishing (the term they use is penalizing because it sounds nicer) people for being people and needing to use the restroom is unfair.

It's not a punishment. It's the terms of the deal, to ensure the employer is getting a certain unit of work for a given amount of pay.

In a free society, companies are allowed to offer such terms. What's fair/unfair is determined by the conduct of the parties to a deal, and the terms of that deal. If the conduct conforms with the terms agreed, then we in a free society should tolerate it, rather than punishing the company for it.

I guess that might be true if you define "free society" as "a society which maximizes the allowed types of financial transaction". In that case, I'm sure you'd agree that a truly free society is one in which people are born as slaves because their ancestors sold the labor of their descendants in perpetuity.

An agreement has to be genuinely and fully consensual for it to be consistent with the principles of a free society.

So selling your children into slavery, or even a distant future self, would obviously not be allowed.

No, it's not. You simply use a contrived definition of exploitation that begs the question. Anyone would agree that a set lord monopolizing all the land and asking serfs to enter serfdom contracts for the right to till it is exploitative, and a similar mechanism is at work. It's all a question of degree.

My definition is the conventional one. Exploitation when used in the social context generally refers to some kind of non consensual interaction where somebody who is not capable of giving consent like a child is manipulated into accepting something that is not in their interest.

It does not refer to a job offer that is the best one on the market that is available to a person.

Your definition implies that a job offer that 95% of the world population would rush to accept, that is above market rates for that job and which is voluntary according to any court of law, is exploitation. By what standard can you describe it as such? It is a completely arbitrary definition, unless you are citing marxist theory which says that all investor profit is exploitation, in which case you should disclose your ideological suppositions from the outset so that people understand you are not referring to exploitation in the way it's conventionally understood.

As for land, that is completely incomparable to a company. Land is a public resource in a sense so if a Lord monopolizes it they're depriving others of something that they have an equal share in. And no single company or cartel of companies, has anything approaching a monopoly on the job market. So your comparison is wrong on two levels. It's telling that arguments trying to justify the socialist claims of exploitation have to make inappropriate analogies. The substance of the claim cannot be justified on its own grounds.

Or, you know, you could have sane laws that make that kind of behaviour illegal.

Germany in theory has laws against that. But this still happens - the problem is that you can’t just make “close warehouse” illegal and then things come down to what you can and cannot prove about the motivations of the company. And that’s often hard.

Sure, nothing is perfect. But it is about raising the cost and uncertainty of the bad action.

Definitely, I agree with you. Some protection is better than none, but this is a very hard goal to achieve. Fundamentally, I believe that the goal can only be achieved by normalizing unions - if you know that there‘s a high chance the next warehouse you open will unionize as well, the gamble becomes unattractive fast.

[citation needed] The warehouse where the union was established is still there. I can't even find information about any of not-unionised ones closing. Can you link information about any profitable Amazon warehouse which was actually closed as a result of union organising?

Also with the current Amazon's turnover rate you can't count on working for more than a year. Their annual turnover is over 100% for warehouses so it may be a loss for the area, but on a case-by-case basis those people would be looking for another job soon anyway.

Reminder that this article is about Canada, where these workers already have maternity leave and health insurance paid for by the public.

What’s they do, strike oil?

Some vote no because they fear retaliation if the vote fails.

Or they fear Amazon leaving

Which isn't unprecidented (albeit, different context): https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/amazon-reveals-the-truth-on-...

>get people to vote against their own interests.

This is one of the most obnoxious terms I see in contemporary political dialogue.

It's presumptuous, it's elitist, it's a thinly veiled way to say 'these people are too stupid to know what's good for them'.

I think that's an unfair characterisation, I doubt most people making the statement are arguing that people are stupid, but more often that they have been lied to/duped by people seeking to use their support for policies they might otherwise disagree with or vice versa. E.g. people who rail against Obamacare in one sentence and praise the affordable care act in the next are not inherently stupid, they have more likely just been repeatedly lied to/misled

I would never join a union.

What's your job if you don't mind me asking?

"I would never join a union" is a pretty easy thing to say if you are in a job with decent pay, a labour market that wants your skills, and have reasonably good working conditions.

>What's your job if you don't mind me asking?

Amazon warehouse manager.

Maybe he's "Burt at OK4" ;) (for context https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266 Amazon was/is? hiring people to pretend they're happy employees on social media)

You'll be happy in one of the "right-to-work" states then. Wonder why they're hit the hardest by the "labor shortage?"

Because those states have the lowest unemployment?

Which is good right?! Nope! Labor markets can reach a point where each job added does not create enough productivity to cover its cost, every next job after that is inefficient ("slack").

With an unemployment rate as drastically low as many right to work states, wage inflation becomes a big issue, so companies hire less efficient employees.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/could-rising-wages-scuttle...

You got me interested, but no. 5/10 states with lowest unemployment are RTW.

Isn't that irrational? If the union provides you with benefits, why would you not join?

I've worked for Teamsters Local 284 as a loader and unloader for UPS. Everybody talking about Amazon propaganda, you haven't seen anything until you've seen Teamsters propaganda. You feel like you've joined a church, it's ridiculous. And I've never in my life worked at a place where there was an outwardly combative relationship between management and staff. No cooperation whatsoever. I wouldn't go back to the teamsters because it's gross and creates dysfunction.

My wife worked for the National Education Association for 15 years. I can't recall a single positive comment that she made about the union. The way the contracts are structured, educators get locked in to their home district after 5-10 years. They are useless for mediating anything but issues that are already written up in the contract and the ability for loafers to coast for the entirety of their career is commonly discussed and real. She would avoid the union because it coddles losers and doesn't lift a finger for staff dealing with real issues.

The only partial success story with unions that I'm aware of is with my brother, a lineman for AT&T. He's had that job for almost 30 years (through a variety of telcos ultimately renamed AT&T) and has been a member of the Communication Workers of America. He talks about endless frustration with the union, that the reps are useless and that the contracts they negotiate are terrible. But he does have the ability to tell his management to fuck off if they ask him to do something dangerous (which happens rarely but enough to matter) and he takes advantage of that from time to time. He might re-up for a union, i don't know.

“Freedom.” is usually the stated reason.

Some people feel that they’ll do better negotiating with a multi billion dollar company. Others are unable to think ahead/strategically and focus on the 3% fee or whatever.

When you’re working for a company that manages you as tightly as Amazon does, it ridiculous to not have a union, if only for having some recourse with respect to work rules. My wife works for a local government where a bunch of the guys made a big show out of opting out of the union, they regretted that when a new administration came in and started targeting them for petty rule violations - eventually they were all forced out and replaced by cheaper people.

Union dues are not insignificant, I would never join a union for that reason unless I had to.

Same reason I will never buy a home with a HOA.

Because there are plenty of times they make things worse?

Let's assume the absolute best of intent, no corruption, etc. There is some good, of course. I won't deny this. I'm not going to talk about the upside, but please don't whataboutism me simply because i'm going to talk about the downsides - you asked whether it is irrational. It is no more irrational than any other moral/ethical/etc viewpoint that someone chooses over a financial one. I am plenty aware of the history and good they have done, and the horrible labor practices they helped put an end to. I just do not happen to be an ends justify means kind of person.

their are a few countries where union equivalents have an explicit goal/requirements/etc around societal good - i have no issues there, the rest of this is about the ones that don't.

For unions, overall, their goal is not to help society, it is to protect and help their members. They have no duty to society whatsoever. In the extreme, that ends up bad for anyone not their members.

That is, they do everything they can only to get their members more money, more benefits, protect their jobs, etc. This sort of thing comes at a cost too.

So they make it harder to fire bad cops, bad teachers, etc.

When a municipality or state would be bankrupted by paying pensions, the unions will force them into bankruptcy at a cost to everyone else. The unions will first force them to raise pensions, too, to unpayable levels. The state/municipality has essentially no practical power against its workforce in that situation, so it agrees, again, at a cost to everyone else. The unions of course, do not care about the consequences for anyone else. They want it paid anyway.

I have no issue with pushing for a living wage, etc. But again, it's for their members, not for everyone, except where they believe it will generate more union membership.

So sum total, they do not care about anyone else. Literally. It's not their job.

This is awesome for their members. Horrible for everyone else.

So no, it's not irrational. Not everyone wants to group themselves with organizations designed to literally not care about anyone else.

Follow the US-style unions to their logical extreme - everyone in society in is a union, divided by job. Yay!?

I think that ends very badly for society - you really think the unions won't paint other jobs/unions/etc as the enemy? They do in plenty of cases already! So - i think it will end up the same sort of strong polarization/hate that exists across political affiliation, but across jobs instead. Great.

Because that would be communism or something.

Good one.

Now explain why unionized European programmers don't get paid nearly the same as un-unionized American ones. Is it because of fascism or something?

I don't think European programmers are unionized? I'm in the Netherlands, and while there are some small upstart unions for software engineers, there has been no collective bargaining action (certainly not at any significant scale).

I'd be happy to be disproven (go unions!), but I haven't heard of other countries that have unionized programmers.

Here's Finland's union for programmers (and other STEM jobs)

https://www.tek.fi/en/about-tek

1. There aren't many countries with unions for programmers. 2. Programmers earn less in general in Europe, so that proves nothing. 3. Companies pay differently in different european countries and we pay more taxes and less in healthcare costs, etc.

Base salary or total compensation?

Do you have any data or reason to believe "unionized European programmers don't get paid nearly the same as un-unionized American ones?"

https://qubit-labs.com/average-software-developer-salaries-s...

That's just a list of average salary by country.

Does it show which of these are "UNIONIZED European programmers" and how many are "NON-UNION Americans?" If not, we can dismiss the claim outright.

>If not, we can dismiss the claim outright

All you can say at that point is "I'm too lazy to confirm or disprove it". If you want to disprove his statement for real, you're going to have to put in some effort looking things up.

Nothing has been proved, it would be impossible to disprove. Stated without evidence, dismissed without it.

Because cost of living is different?

Or because large companies routinely shut union factories because it's unprofitable?

Union are not born out of nowhere. Those exists to balance relationships. Most of the work a union does not get publicity but can is really important by ensuring of the well being of employees. Union do not create problems, they just give visibility to problems which are already there. Of course, like everything, some unions takes bad decisions, but that's just a small part of it.

Why the hell is this flagged?

Yes, but you could buy an Xbox for the same cost as your union fees :)

https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/2019/05/11/join-a-union-or-bu...

Why do leftists believe they have the right to tell others what their interests are?

As the other other poster says: whatever those interests are, you cannot fight for them alone vs a trillion dollar corp like Amazon, so that point is moot. Collective action is the only way you stand a chance.

You can work someplace else if you hate the company. Imagine that.

Okay. So your company treats you like shit and you quit. Where do you go now? You need to sell your labour to survive, so you lost all your income. Your employer has other sources of income, has reserve capital, so that even if your job was critical and production is now shut while they look for a replacement (unlikely), they're gonna be fine. But you need to eat tonight. Not next quarter or next month or even next week, tonight. You need to pay the bank/landlord a steady sum or you'll become homeless. And god forbid you get less than perfectly healthy.

So you don't quit actually, because it is not possible for you to quit. Capital has far more power than a (so-called) "unskilled worker", especially if there's no collective action. They have all the leverage, the worker has none, so they can dictate the conditions, i.e. the bare minimum for the worker to survive and continue working, and the worker has only to accept.

I feel like I'm saying really basic stuff.

The employer owes you nothing. You're citing your difficult circimstances to justify getting the government to seize control of an employer from its shareholders, in dictating its hiring decisions.

But as a practical matter, opportunities expand faster when labor markets are free, and capital owners are secure in their rights.

Employment growth has been widely observed to be stronger where labor laws are less restrictive.

Detroit was the richest city in America in 1950. Within 40 years of the UAW Union taking over the Big Three automakers (membership rose through the 50s and 60s, peaking in 1979), the big automakers have lost their market dominance, and Detroit is a shell of its former self.

>The employer owes you nothing. You're citing your difficult circimstances to justify getting the government to seize control of an employer from its shareholders, in dictating its hiring decisions.

It's not about "difficult circumstances" at all. It's about the fundamental divide between those who need to sell their labour to survive, and those who can extract rent without working due only to having a monopoly on capital. It's a qualitative distinction, of class, not a quantitative matter of being more or less poor.

Also I did not even say anything about "government seizing control". But I will say this: the current economic system based on joint-stock ownership of firms by capital monopolists is an entirely fabricated system, and not a rule of Nature. So don't argue "but you would seize property from their rightful owners" as if the very particular system of property rights currently in force wasn't a social invention enforced with violence by the state.

>Employment growth has been widely observed to be stronger where labor laws are less restrictive.

This is simply not true. Notice how the best countries to live in the world are invariably those with more labour protections and a mixed economy with heavy public participation. Limiting ourselves to the US, compare the standard of living in the gilded age vs the golden age of American labour organisation.

>Detroit

Also, it's very rich trying to link the downfall of American industry to unionisation... I could go on for an hour about this topic.

>>and those who can extract rent without working due only to having a monopoly on capital.

No capital owner has a monopoly on capital, and capital owners do not collude to act as one with respect to recruiting workers, making your claim totally specious. Also, typically businesses don't extract economic rent. Investment is a difficult and risk-filled enterprise, that adds value to the economy, making it by definition, not a form of rent extraction.

I suggest putting aside Marxist narratives and studying mainstream Economics, which would dispel you of these fallacies on which your claims of class victimhood rest.

>>This is simply not true. Notice how the best countries to live in the world are invariably those with more labour protections and a mixed economy with heavy public participation. Limiting ourselves to the US, compare the standard of living in the gilded age vs the golden age of American labour organisation.

You just criticized me for making the correlation equals causation argument with respect to Detroit and then you go on to make a far more egregious use of this argument in claiming that conditions being worse in an era 80 years prior tell us the policies in place 80 years prior were worse.

A rational analysis compares the trajectory of an economy relative to its contemporaries when trying to use comparisons between different eras to decipher what works. The fact is wages and productivity grow faster on average in countries where labor markets are more free. The Nordic countries saw far faster economic growth relative to the rest of the world when they were more free market economies and have been leapfrogged by Singapore and Hong-Kong in life expectancy since abandoning those free market policies and embracing socialism-lite.

>>Also I did not even say anything about "government seizing control"

The government mandating companies to enter into collective bargaining to the exclusion of negotiating with any other worker is the government taking control of the shareholder's negotiating agency with respect to their property. Without this compulsion, the ability of unions to extract economic rent would be non-existent.

>Detroit was the richest city in America in 1950. Within 40 years of the UAW Union taking over the Big Three automakers (membership rose through the 50s and 60s, peaking in 1979), the big automakers have lost their market dominance, and Detroit is a shell of its former self.

Oh yeah blame the unions for the downfall of the american auto industry. It had nothing to do with the biggest recession in the last 40 years and the fact that no one wanted new cars when they were losing their house to the banks.

> 1950

That prosperity almost certainly more to do with the post-WW2 economic boom than anything else. There are arguments to be made against unions but citing what happened in the golden era of the '50s-'60s isn't one of them.

Detroit being the richest city in America in 1950 was a culmination of many decades of economic development stretching back to the late 19th century.

Because workers' rights are a zero-sum game. There is a total amount of power that can be had in the workplace, and it is either held by the owners or the workers.

Do you really believe the owners will simply accept lower profits and not just pass on the cost to the consumer? This is how you get increasing costs but no actual improvement. Wage-price spiral.

This sounds like you think it's ok for companies to exploit workers if it keeps costs low - is that really your intent?

We all have the right to discuss our opinion of what is best for each other. The OP there isn't arguing for taking away the right of someone to decide.

A much better question would be – why does the American ruling class deny basic human rights – decent wage, affordable health care, good education, safety?

Amazon starts at $18/hr.

You want $100/hour to pack and move boxes? Start a moving company.

Healthcare isn't a right. It is a luxury. Self defense, free speech, freedom of movement and association; those are human rights. Healthcare is only expensive because of the multiple layers of government and private corruption, litigation, and pie-halving. At the same time, Healthcare can save your life; what is your life truly worth? A $10 co-pay?

If we had a good education, then people wouldn't be whining about $18/hour.

Safety? Such as being insulated from ideas & opinions you don't like, or having zero risk for electrocution in electrical contracting?

    Healthcare isn't a right

From UN Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 25:

    1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
       well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing
       and medical care and necessary social servicess, and the right to security
       in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or
       other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

>> Amazon starts at $18/hr

I think it's a lie. AFAIK they pay warehouse workers $15/hour. As you start your message with lying, the rest of is BS.

Safety, by the way, means not being afraid of being shut by a right-wing delusional maniac.

"The average starting wage of $18 an hour will be effective in regions where labor markets are tight, while the company will continue to pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour, said Dave Bozeman, vice president of delivery services at Amazon."

So "lie" is a bit strong here.

>> while the company will continue to pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour

Like I said, it's $15/h

But anyway, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and there is zero chance that it will be increased.

The have an interest in not being given demerits for using the bathroom (aka: "time off task")

That still doesn't answer the question. Nor does it address the issue of people who abuse policies, such as those who hide in the bathroom for 1/8th of the shift.

This isn't the 19th century anymore. Unions had served a good purpose, but in no way do they serve the interests of everybody, especially in modern society given labor laws. My experience in several unions only demonstrated how corrupt, inept, and self-serving they are.

Yes it does. They have specific material concerns and concerns about their working conditions that aren't being addressed.

We're returning to the 19th century it seems with worker protections being eroded. It makes sense that Unionization would make a comeback.

How is it in their interest when Amazon shuts that factory?

Or maybe it's you who has fallen for propaganda. I think it's most likely that they know their own interests better than you do.

Whatever their interests are, they will be easier to achieve by unionizing. Not organizing only makes your interests irrelevant. That can hardly be in anyones own interests.

That is clearly too broad a brush. Collective bargaining is useful if your needs are aligned with the collective, if not they may be at best unhelpful and at worst actively counter productive (for instance if you have some personal circumstance you wanted to negotiate beyond the terms of the agreement, rather than negotiating with a boss or two you now have to negotiate with your representative organization). Not to mention various forms of corruption that can take hold in such arrangements.

I wonder if the rather abhorrent means of union busting has led to an extreme reaction of causing passer bys to take a cartoonish slant, as though unions can only do good in the world and only if they can overcome evil corporate interest. Unions have some clear advantages, but are far from a panacea of aligning interests for all parties.

This seems to me to be yet another fault line on which propagandists at the dials have managed to convince people to coalesce into tribes strong enough to use absolutist language where nuance is required.

> for instance if you have some personal circumstance you wanted to negotiate beyond the terms of the agreement, rather than negotiating with a boss or two you now have to negotiate with your representative organization

Why ? I don't think unions forbid any direct negotiation. Or this is a US-thing ?

I would imagine it's dependent on the specifics of the agreement, but as I understand it yes it would not be at all uncommon for the union to have incentive to stipulate members cannot negotiate outside of the union terms.

Thank you for some subtlety. I have friends that want Bezos beheaded and want the NYPD union defunded. Put most broadly: you are advocating for the creation of one union advocating for the reduction of another at the same time. And that's ok! Unions are humans and big groups of them need to be kept in check.

Sure, I agree with you, there are nuances. But it's also quite clear individual workers benefit from unionizing almost always. Corporations are large and have an enormous advantage in negotiation with a single, replaceable worker.

Well "almost always" is a step in the right direction, though I'd say is still a tad too strong. Probably favorable working conditions are reliably improved by unions, but there are also probably reliably less jobs to go around in union situations. And of course the specifics of the job also probably matter quite a good deal. I would be content with something like "Amazon warehouse workers would likely have reduced hours and improved medical benefits with a union."

I realize mine is not necessarily a majority experience, but as a young single no-debt high-performing worker, I can negotiate a lot more effectively by myself than I could in a union because I can argue purely on my own merits and if the employer is unreasonable (and not all are) it's fairly easy for me to switch employers. I even moved to a different country early in my career for a better career opportunity.

So no, unions are not in my personal interest. Though as I said, I can appreciate there are others who are less mobile or less inclined to negotiate as aggressively for whatever reason for whom they are useful. As long as unions don't get in my way (e.g. by mafia-style locking down an industry I want to work in) then I have no problem with them.

You can still negotiate and be in a union. Nobody takes that away from you. The union negotiates minimal conditions for all like minimal wage. You are a top performer - go the exact route you've described - nobody will stop you. It can work or not as you've said and the solution would be to find a new job.

This is 100%, extremely, dangerously, completely, utterly not the case in any North American union I've witnessed in North America.

(it probably explains why it is difficult to have meaningful conversations and everybody attacks each other, if we have such radically different experiences and knowledge of union laws and procedures)

FWIW, from my experience, In North America, it is the whole point of a union that "everybody gets the same" --> pay scale in particular. To make it explicit - if I'm in a union, I know EXACTLY how much anybody in any particular position makes. I can look it up in the pay scale table. I know how much my teacher cousin makes, I know how much my government friend makes, I know how much anybody at my brother-in-law's factory makes, by looking at the pay scale table.

I would be eager to hear about other countries. Maybe unions are different in Europe or Asia or Africa etc. As I indicated above in a more detailed post, I am 100% supportive of unions in general, and have had 100% negative experience in North American unions in particular.

(Preface: This is simplifying and likely wrong to some extend, but my mother held a somewhat high post in a german union for a while, so I have some exposure)

In germany, the union does not directly determine the pay rate. Membership in a union at a very fundamental level allows you to participate in the union activities, access to their resources (+) and the right to strike for work-related reasons (++). Unions can participate in the organization of the work place when there are sufficient union members in a company by forming a workers council (Betriebsrat), which must be involved in certain kinds of decisions, for example firing people. Forming a workers council is a deliberate act - union membership is required, but there’s not automatism. None of this limits the ability of each union members or employee to negotiate pay rates.

On the employers side, you optionally (+++) can negotiate (or join a pre-negotiated) Tarifvertrag which covers topics such as pay grades, work time etc. There’s for example the TvÖD (Tarifvetrag öffentlicher Dienst) which covers all employees of the state/local governments, teachers etc. There‘s the option to join a Arbeitgeberverband (employers union), which then can negotiate that contract with the unions, so that the employers side gets a better negotiating position. A Tarifvertrag can be declared as „allgemeingültig“ which means that it covers all employees in a certain sector and the employer must conform to it, whether they like it or not.

But even the Tarifvertrag only sets a minimum bar - every employee can negotiate better rates. Whether that succeeds is a question of its own - for example teachers usually can‘t negotiate a higher salary since their individual negotiating power against the state is veeeery limited. But that’s not a legal requirement or limit - übertariflich (above Tarif) is a common word found in job descriptions where the employees have more leverage.

That said, there’s still problem you can have in unions - nepotism, people using a union job to slack off, protecting employees that should be fired are things that happen. But those happen in every power structure - I’ve seen the same thing happen where „favorite“ employees have been shielded by their boss from negative consequences. So that’s a fairly unspecific point to hold against unions - at least the representatives are elected by the workers and egregious examples are usually purged sooner or later.

(+) for example legal advice and also legal services - my mother fought their employer over employment-related matters and the union sent their lawyer.

(++) only unions are allowed to organize a strike https://www.personalwissen.de/arbeitsrecht/mitbestimmung/gew...

(+++) optionally can include „my workers forced me by striking“

Thanks very much; though I'm from Europe, I left too young to experience unions there, so it's always enlightening to learn more. I have also understood from other folks that in much of Europe, unions have more of a seat at the business table as well, planning jointly for company's future and mutual success. Sadly, the unions I've experienced in North America have been much more "us vs them" in attitude and contract. :(

> You can still negotiate and be in a union. Nobody takes that away from you.

Not correct for any union job I've held, or even heard of.

> You are a top performer - go the exact route you've described - nobody will stop you.

I mean, I guess you could try this - or just go to a non-union shop and make real money if you are a top performer. Unions in the US are not made for top performers capable of advancing their careers rapidly. I think you will find plenty of people stopping you in this scenario.

If the subject in question somehow did manage to follow your advice and somehow get paid above their peers - from my direct personal experience I'd expect a very toxic workplace up to and including physical violence once the other members find out. You would be seen as a scab.

In the US I believe there is no direct dealing, though I may be mistaken. Not sure about Canada. Presumably unions work differently (and likely better) in your country.

How does being union stop you from negotiating for yourself or switching employers?

Part of your agreement with the union is usually that you will not negotiate independently. You’d be disciplined by the union.

That's too broad, you can negotiate things like salary independently. Other things you cannot, and it's often to prevent them from saying "Sally agreed to lower her vacation time to 2 weeks, is that ok with you too?"

I still didn't hear how it prevents you from switching employers.

> That's too broad, you can negotiate things like salary independently.

For example I worked with a school where the area management and the union set salaries and individual teachers could not negotiate on their own. I'd say that's pretty typical in unions. It's also the case in for example the NHS and British railways (topical at the moment.)

> I still didn't hear how it prevents you from switching employers.

Because I never said it did.

So what happens if you ever stop being a young single no-debt high-performing worker. For example because you marry. Because you start having kids. Because you’re injured in your workplace. Because some medical procedure bankrupts you. Because you grow older? Solidarity is always give and take. You give while you can, so that someone can give to you when you need to.

You definitely can try to ride all of the ups and downs your life has in store for you but if you’re unlucky, your life will have something that you can’t handle on your own.

You think there are Amazon warehouse workers negotiating? You know this isn't really a full-day interview process, get to know the team kinda job right.

> Whatever their interests are, they will be easier to achieve by unionizing.

For example, say you're a talented younger worker and the majority of the union votes for pay by seniority, that's going against your interests.

Being in the union means you have a chance to influence those kinds of decisions.

Join a union so that you can fail to stop a change you never wanted in the first place? Why would you want to do that?

Is it actually true that most people feel efficacy over their union’s policies? The only unions I’ve been involved with or heard of where fairly indifferent to most of their members’ preferences.

Being in a democracy means you have a chance to influence the decisions, yet you end up with decisions not only you as a minority don't like, but even you as a majority don't like.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com