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Comment by JasonFruit | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, what they oppose isn't unions as such, but compulsory union membership. They consider that a union should arise from the expression of worker needs, and a union that they are forced to join and that exists whether they want it or not might lack incentives to represent their needs instead of the needs of the union. It's kind of like the saying about organizations in general: eventually they come to serve the needs of the organization instead of the purpose for which they were originally created.

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> compulsory union membership

Yea, it can be frustrating be barred from jobs, like construction, being a non-member, or being forced to pay union dues to a union you feel is doing nothing for you.

Small, company-sized unions have always been a lot more appealing to me than the huge behemoths the US currently has.

I think that's part of the problem. In germany for example, we have Unions and we have working councils in the companies. And while unions are "just" associations/clubs working councils are are regulated by laws and get elected by the workers of the company. Of course there is some realtionship, but it is not unheard of, that in a working council are members from more than one union (though usually only one has negotiating powers for tariffs, but that's another topic, because usually unions negotiate with associations of companies for the whole sector. And those unions without negotiating power are sometimes not even considered real unions...), and even independent members.

When I was younger, I worked in the theater industry. We all knew that the IATSE stage hands were making great wages, but the options we had to join were:

1.) A grueling apprenticeship period in which you would work very long hours for very little pay. I could be wrong but I think this was a several year long process.

2.) You could skip that process if you were vouched for by an existing union member. In practice, this often meant that membership was passed down through families.

I understand that it’s similar for firefighters.

That's been my experience as well. It's pure reactance psychology. From the first paragraph of the wiki page

> Reactance is an unpleasant motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. Reactance occurs when an individual feels that an agent is attempting to limit one's choice of response and/or range of alternatives.

When I think about the people who I know who are anti-union, they all have high reactance as a trait. If I were to try to change their mind, it would be to frame their non-union environment as more freedom-limiting than the unions alternative re: workplace democracy etc.

You say "loves freedom" like it's a bad thing.

"Loves freedom" isn't as clear of a maximum of utility as it's sometimes made out to be. Again, the association with those of high reactance strong.

I'm fully aware that there will be attempts to naturalize "freedom loving." That's the interesting thing about psychology and I suppose in this case sociology, particulars are often universalized into a neurosis. It's funny how this pattern holds.

Let me put it in a less-fun way: "high reactance" is in this context just another way of saying "values freedom". Describing it using a wording that expresses psychologically-educated disapproval verbally pathologizes that preference, but it doesn't constitute a supported value judgment. In neither of your comments have you offered any support, so just like my "loves freedom", it remains an empty weasel-word.

The lack of empathy and unfavorable labeling of opinions that differ from your own is not something you should get in the habit of.

Rather, it is precisely an empathic explanation. It attempts to find an underlying basis for such an opinion rather than writing it off as unfounded. People with high reactance have an emotional response when compelled to action and this emotional response is what I'm empathizing with.

Any reading of my response as judgemental is a perversion of intention and I'd encourage anyone doing so to get curious and assume positive intent rather than reading it with malicious subtext. Something is only pathological if it negatively impacts someone's life.

That is not empathy. That is labeling them based on what you think their perspective is and using that label to reason why you understand their point of view. Characterizing another persons mental reasoning by putting it into some generic box is, by definition, NOT empathy.

Edit: I can’t help but feel like I’m being trolled, so this is where the conversation ends.

Please try to put yourself in my shoes and give me the benefit of the doubt.

I think that's fair enough, but it's not like workers in the USA have a lot of protections or are getting fairly compensated for their work. So unions, whether compulsory or not, still benefit them in one way or another.

This isn't just uniformly true, though. As a worker you may be better off without the union you're a part of- it depends as much on the union as the company.

I mean Americans are paid far more highly than Europeans, so I don't see how this is correct.

Only highly skilled workers are paid more. Compare fast food workers and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Are they, really?

How did they end up not having enough cash on hand to cover minor emergencies, then? How are they going bankrupt over healthcare costs - even when insured through their job - while having to worry about not being able to take a day off?

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