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Comment by jdminhbg | Hacker News Reader

The 8 hour day [0] did not happen because employers were nice, it was a hard, often bloody, fight in countries all over the world. Spain put it into law in the 16th century, most of the world didn’t get it until the early 20th century.

Increases in productivity probably help, but you could say the same thing about the last 30 years — a time when globally wage growth has been flat for most.

Time again, history shows labor rights are demanded not given, except for the few industries where people are most valuable asset of a company.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

If the length of our work week followed productivity, the workweek would be at 13 hours today. Your claim is completely and utterly baseless.

You can easily work 13 hours a week if you are willing to enjoy early 20th century living standards! The gains from productivity are distributed between extra leisure time and extra material benefits.

Ah yes, the 20th century standard of owning a home with land and providing for a family of 8, easily affordable on 13 hrs per week.

In the middle of nowhere with no car or household appliances or health care where half of your food comes out of your garden, of course you can afford that.

You could also afford to live in a fire trap tenement house with your family of 8 in two bedrooms, although said houses are now illegal so you probably can't physically do that anymore.

When has providing for a family of eight been the norm in america? I assume you're thinking something like two kids plus all four grandparents living under one roof? That's never been the norm.

Most of the 1600s and 1700s for New England. Quebec for longer, possibly the end of unit 1800s. That’s average number of children per woman, not an extended family. 1800s Ireland, which was probably poorer than the US has been since 1600 had similar fertility.

I still wouldn't say that is the norm, since the infant mortality rate was ~40%. And, if you're producing a baby every 2 years, by the time you're on your 8th baby, your first-borns, should they have lived, would be nearly able-bodied adults with the ability to also work a bit to help support the household or going out and getting married.

And landlords. Productivity improvements get baked into the price of land.

Productivity gains do not lead to increased worker benefit, they lead to increased owner benefit. Organized labor leads to increased worker benefit.

Nah, depends on the ability to coordinate. Communist governments can suppress wages even with enormous productivity gains, like post 1949 Shanghai. Capitalists mostly can’t though. Even with non state puppet unions completely illegal as in the PRC or Vietnam competition for workers leads to rises in wages. Maintaining a cartel without being able to enforce contracts to that effect is hard with fewer than 10 conspirators. Once you have more than 100 people bidding for workers’ labour it’s impossible.

Unions aren’t necessary for increasing wages. We can tell from countries that they’re illegal.

Unions are necessary, as we see when we look at the US. As productivity has increased workers are receiving a smaller and smaller piece of the resulting wealth. Not coincidentally labor is less organized now than it has been in almost a century. If you have power you get resources, simple as that. Individual workers usually have almost no power - they may get a little bit of power temporarily when their skill is heavily in demand but that isn't enough to counteract the inherent power imbalance capital possesses.

This is demonstrably untrue - looking at the tech industry for example. Salaries are enormous with no unions.

You shouldn’t state opinions as fact.

I think you've misinterpreted GP. Tech salaries started high, and that is mostly a scarcity problem. The market will correct that in due time without labor organizing because the profits go to the owners, not the workers. The owners are the ones who decide what happens with the profit (reinvestment, their employees' wages, their own wages, etc.).

Yes, with a powerful union you can restrict entry so there are fewer workers. The workers who are allowed in get a better deal. The people who are kept out by the union suffer and the consumers suffer through lower production and higher prices.

It's not necessary to restrict the number of workers - only to refuse to work if the owners allocate too little of the resulting profits back to the workers. This is in fact the whole point of a union.

No need for that. The golden c64 generation will start with early retirements in a few years. Younger generations have less interest in IT (on average) and will yield fewer and fewer tech workers.

What I describe is the mechanism by which unions increase wages for their members. It would be good if you could explain what you were trying to say and its relevance.

Less workers means scarcity and implies better wages and conditions.

Yes. You get less workers by restricting entry. That reduces output but increases union workers bargaining power, making society generally poorer but the members of the union richer.

This greatly depends on which part of the 'tech' industry you're in. Yes, if you're at the top, salaries are enormous, but uh, vast majority of people in 'tech' are not receiving enormous salaries.

You comment is greyed out, even if it's correct. At least your holding up a flag for the remnant.

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