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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

The younger American middle-classs hate their HOAs but want unions at work. If you don’t like your HOA telling you how to cut your grass you’re also not going to like your union telling you how to do your job. Both are ostensibly democratic but in practice oppressive.

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The HOA comparison doesn't make much sense here. Unions give people a democratic way to exercise power against an existing powerful organization (corporations), in what would otherwise be an authoritarian workplace. HOAs are a way to exercise power as a group against individuals in the group. It's true that democratic institutions can be frustrating, but this (obvious) fact is not the clever gotcha you seem to think of is.

Yes, it seems a far more apt comparison to union dues would be government taxation.

> HOAs are a way to exercise power as a group against individuals in the group.

s/HOA/Union/ and this statement is still true

This is solving a problem with the wrong tool. I shouldn't need another layer of bureaucracy in order to exercise my power as a citizen/employee against a powerful organization. The same way i don't need a priest to hook me up w/ the guy in the sky.

I'd take Democratic but imperfect over authoritarian any day. The company can also tell you how to "cut your grass", only you have no say at all in their leadership.

My union is fighting to raise my stake in the business I work for. Even if that means there are a couple new rules from the union it's still a hugely net positive.

Presumably these are the arguments that led to the HOAs? ‘More democratic’, ‘everyone has a say’, etc. In practice it’s a tyranny of the majority, right? Same in a union, the majority have power and may act against your interests.

HOAs became this way because people can’t be bothered to show up and participate. Unions can and should be better.

HOA's are designed to short-circuit democracy. It's a firewall to keep towns from bothering upper class people and keep the poors out.

This is a common anti-union talking point but I’ve never seen anything like it at that anywhere I’ve worked - the unions have been what shut down those actions by management.

I’m sure there are some bad unions but that doesn’t mean we should give up on the concept any more than bad moves by companies means we should give up on the concept of private business.

Your manager is trying to tell you how to do your job. The union gives you a way to push back.

The union will only push back if I’m in a majority group. If I’m part of a minority they won’t push back and will also prevent me negotiating individually with my manager if they’re using collective agreements.

That’s also what goes wrong in an HOA. If the majority want you to paint your fence then that’s it to have to paint it.

Whereas your manager will always push back and the individual will always have much less negotiating power than the billion dollar corporation.

Some agency gained is better than no agency at all.

No always. Take the very common union rules around seniority. Can the employer offer some benefit to an individual union member (e.g. preferred shifts, certain shifts that get bonuses, etc).

Sure! But often only by seniority.

So the guy who has been around the longest, but doesn't do a great (because the union will protect him) gets the best hours and best bonuses. Can you do a better job? Sure! But it doesn't matter, you don't have seniority.

Take that same scenario and apply it across a bunch of other issues you might have with coworkers and you'll get a sense how unions can go wrong.

They'll push back unless it's not good for the union. And you might think that means "not good for the workers", but not always.

Unions basically mean you give up individual autonomy in your job in exchange for group protection.

In some cases that's an improvement, in some cases it's not.

This analogy makes zero sense. How is this analogy even supposed to work?

CEO = homeowner

Union = HOA

Employees = Grass on your lawn???

In a HOA the members are the home owners. In a union the members are the employees. In both cases a majority of members get to dictate to a minority. You may not like the outcome if you're in a minority on some issue.

Like if you like long grass, the HOA can dictate you can’t do that. Or if you like pay by performance but the majority of the union wants pay by seniority they can dictate that to you.

I don’t mind the HOA handling all sorts of exterior work I can’t be bothered with. I may not like to the fees, but I understand that is the price I pay for amenities. So you’re saying a union would operate similarly? Not bad.

The HOA mandates the work you do on your own property - they don't do it for you as a service.

And while it sounds good in theory... in practice many people hate HOAs. They hate not being able to decide what to do themselves and they hate the pettiness and politics of it.

Sure, but if I don’t have anything I want to do in contravention to their guidelines, then I don’t care. The monthly fee is an annoyance but they take care of the exterior work I don’t want to manage. A relationship I am fine with.

> Sure, but if I don’t have anything I want to do in contravention to their guidelines, then I don’t care.

And if you're in the majority in the union then you're also ok.

The problem is when you're in a minority for some reason.

Word of warning, this is what I thought HOAs were about when I bought a house in one, with extremely reasonable rules and landscaping services. But unfortunately power corrupts and the board members went out and hired a lawyer in secret, re-wrote the CC&Rs, and then used obscure vote procedures to take total control.

Once the board members gave themselves the ability to write rules without a vote, they started going after everyone for petty violations, like parking a car in your driveway for too many days or having the wrong colored door mat. And they have the legal power to foreclose on your house if you don’t play along.

So your analogy breaks down because there is nothing corresponding to CEO/Management.

Yeah, this is a terrible analogy.

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