Hacker News Reader

Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

I'm generally anti-union, but happy to see the union here pushing back against this. This is definitely not in passengers' interests, and normally passengers don't have an advocate with any power, so it's nice to see our interests are aligned with the pilots' union.

View on HN

>I'm generally anti-union, but happy to see the union here pushing back against this.

Damn, it's almost like workers rights and safety are aligned in some way...

Maybe? Unions like to make sure that employers put plenty of their members, especially senior members, on any given job. That could mitigate safety issues related to inexperience or understaffing. But they also tend to protect members from accountability for unsafe conduct, and resist the imposition of safety measures that members find annoying. They’re just pro worker. Workers are human and prone to incompetence and machismo as much as anyone else.

In this case yes. If the issue under discussion was e.g. frequency of recertification then workers rights and safety would be entirely opposed.

Idk if this is an American/West thing but here unions are the main reasons why workers are not exploited and have rights.

Same here in America. It's just that in America we resent that people with rights cost more, so every mistake any union has ever made must be proof that they want to resurrect Stalin and make him President for Life.

The main reason American workers are not exploited is that they can easily get other jobs and would be difficult to replace (but when that’s not the case, they are).

Incorrect, please look up why you have 8 hour work days and other labor laws.

Who is “you”? Software development and most IT related occupations are exempt from overtime. Hardly anyone on HN has an 8 hour workday by law. Ditto for professional, managerial, and administrative - careers that most people would not, in fact, exchange for those with rights.

The law can give a bit of leverage to people who otherwise have none, but I’d wager there are more people who have leverage of their own than whose employers are only restrained from abusing them by law/contract. Especially in a tight labor market like today’s (outside tech).

It’s an American thing: there’s been money pouring into promotion of libertarianism and anti-union ideas like “right to work” laws ever since the Great Depression-era reforms lead to better compensation and rights for workers. A lot of influential writers, preachers, etc. got substantial funding and promotion for generations so now you’ll find many people who are conversant with these ideas but never really understood their origin as a coordinated campaign rather than an organic movement.

The passengers interests are lower cost and more safety, which automation provides the most over having 2 pilots.

I’m also anti-union but what’s going on here seems like typical union negotiation tactics.

One side wants something. However, they have no leverage. Accordingly, they make a claim and see if the public will back it up. If so, you now have a token to trade at the bargaining table that you never actually intended to play. If the public isn’t on your side, you just say you’ve learned from the public’s opinion.

We see this garbage with the NFL all the time. Most recently, it was with the manufactured penalties from touchdown celebrations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com