> Employers tend to view their employees at adversaries first.
Then take the high road first.
> e.g. by ignoring safety regulations
If employers do that, then the employees need to report them to the regulators. Don't need a union for that.
Then take the high road first.
> e.g. by ignoring safety regulations
If employers do that, then the employees need to report them to the regulators. Don't need a union for that.
The high road doesn't pay the rent. It doesn't feed your kids.
You're in an incredibly privileged position Walter, and unlike the vast majority of people you have actual bargaining power and the ability to negotiate terms. Most everything you've written in this thread is incredibly out of touch with the situation many workers, especially ones that would find themselves working at an Amazon warehouse, find themselves in.
Starbucks offers to pay full college tuition for their employees.
I suspect the salient difference with me is I see opportunity everywhere in America, where others do not. All I'm doing here is pointing out that opportunity.
Note that the millions who try to sweep over the border into America seem to see that opportunity, too.
> Starbucks offers to pay full college tuition for their employees.
No starbucks offers tuition reimbursement, for the online programs only, at one school, for some degrees, if you complete the entire degree while working at starbucks. Almost no one is actually able to take advantage of that. It's for their customers to feel better about supporting starbucks not for their workers to go to college.
This is actually a great opportunity for you to pull your head out of your ass and see how the world actually is, instead of how it was for you or how you think it should be.
Some things have indeed changed:
1. it's easy to get a loan for the full cost of college
2. pay for STEM engineers is a lot higher
3. you can start a business and reach a worldwide audience for free
4. you can start a business and hand over the logistics of shipping world wide for free (i.e. pay as you go, no upfront costs)
5. you can learn anything you want, via the internet, instantly for free
6. you can start investing in stocks for only a few bucks, with ZERO commission fees
7. you can reach collaborators for your business all over the world, for nothing
8. you can get funding via gofundme.com or kickstarter.com. Wow!
9. if you run an online business, nobody needs to know your name, background, race, religion, age, gender, whatever, unless you choose to tell them. Even then, you can just make it up, because nobody checks or cares
None of this was available in my youth.
Want a ticket from poverty to the middle class? This works:
a. stay in school
b. pay attention in school and learn the stuff
c. get a loan and go to college, selecting a lucrative major
d. don't do drugs
e. don't do crimes.
And then spend the next few decades paying it off, having it as a constant stress.
> 2. pay for STEM engineers is a lot higher
Not everyone can be a STEM engineer. Not everyone wants to be; Society would be pretty terrible if all we had was STEM engineers.
> 5. you can learn anything you want, via the internet, instantly for free
Only for some skills. Watching some youtube videos will not make you a competent woodworker.
> 9. if you run an online business, nobody needs to know your name, background, race, religion, age, gender, whatever, unless you choose to tell them. Even then, you can just make it up, because nobody checks or cares
Until a lawsuit comes your way, or the local tax man decides to come by. As soon as your business becomes mildly successful, that easy anonymity starts to disappear.
> Want a ticket from poverty to the middle class? This works:
You forgot one more point:
f. get extremely lucky to never suffer financial setbacks. Be lucky to have parents who aren't so overworked that you're forced to spend your time taking care of siblings. Be lucky to have parents that can even work into their older age. Be lucky to never suffer a major health problem that financially ruins you. Be lucky to never be injured or hurt such that you can work.
Speak for yourself. While it might be harder these days, the people I've seen that followed Walter's plan above were all able to get good jobs and support their families, including people who, like the sibling says, are poor, had to take care of siblings, had overworked parents, and so on. Yes, systemic inequalities exist, but well, an individual can't do much by themselves if they use that as the yoke on which they exist, they are not going to solve their problems or their family's poverty within a few years via voting or protesting, more immediate solutions exist. One must not fall into the trap of learned helplessness, and at some point, one has to cast off the yoke of bondage and begin to solve one's problems.
I've run into a couple Afghans who I got to talk with (at different times). Both had escaped and arrived here with nothing but their skin when the US pulled out. Both had founded businesses and were thriving.
A third had arrived some years ago, and had become a deca-millionaire.
Isn't freedom great?
>Free markets have vaulted more people out of poverty, by far, than any other system yet devised. The historical record on that is pretty clear.
And unions are part of that free market. I don't know how much more free market one can get than people coming together to offer their labour in an organized fashion.
Good luck on thst. The regulator is in the same country club as your boss. On top of that most of the worker rights and safety rules that regulator is meant to check came to be because unions fought for them.
Read on the history of these rights and regulations in the dawn of worker movements. This is not some new unknown topic, but something people have fought for over centuries. The incentives of the regulators and governing bodies will rarely align with workers rights, hence the need for those people to organize for their own good.
Don't get me wrong here I do not suggest that employers are always evil and unions always good, this is not what history shows. Far from it. Yet historically whenever workers lives improved, there is a big chance unions were involved as a driving force.
I'd love to see a world where companies would treat their employees in such a way, unions don't need to exist. But that is not how companies operate in most cases.
Why? When has taking the high road ever worked out for the ones with lesser power?
Oh, it's worked plenty well.
It's worked well to get a lot of: "there are more pressing issues right now, let's solve this one tomorrow", where that "tomorrow" in many cases ended up being 150 years later.