Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles

Such as labor boards, or rather the government that gives them power.

In this case, the union was a giant ball of mud whose only existence was to hold the government hostage.

As much as I dislike Thune power corporations can hold, unions are not a fix all and can become the same overlords.

Wage theft is illegal. It should be treated as a legal issue where the state gets involved and uses its monopoly on force to enforce the law. That's what the state is there for.

[Aside, putting violence at the same level as unions: I've been around a union, while working in a factory in the midwest US, that had "kneebreakers" that "encouraged" members to vote a certain way by threat-of-force, support certain candidates for union leadership, and used the Union to blatantly extort local businesses and politicians. Not every union is like this, but blue-collar unions in the US have a history of going this way. Which, even tho I like unionization in theory and cheer a bit inside when I see union action at e.g Starbucks or Amazon, I have seen a very terrible union and so they scare me.]

There is however a third choice, which is government regulation. Unfortunately government regulations can't adapt as quickly as a union can to changes.

Maybe the relatively inflexibility of regulation is what is needed to maintain a minimum necessary commitment to living wages and reasonable benefits though.

High tech and Hollywood generated huge money, and Wall Street style money was always anti-Union. It is worth saying that Hollywood movie production is very heavily unionized, and that small system works pretty well.

I think there's some truth to the old adage that there's a class of Americans, especially represented among the HN crowd that "see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

There are many reasons for the decline of organized labor in the US. Some cultural yeah, but just as much, if not more, legal...

"Right to work" legislation

Employers fighting harder against unionization

Decreased enforcement of labor laws

Judges (including SCOTUS) who keep striking down labor protections

Media portrayal of unions

By the time she retired in 21st century, she hated her union.

She particularly hated their support for Obamacare. They had an exception so it didn’t affect their agreements. But that ignored the fact that the nurses had to actually implement it.

It was an administrative clusterf*ck. Nurses spent hours listening to consultants telling them how to improve patient reviews, which were now tied to compensation.

The unions were like “the Democrats now owe us, so we will get paid back down the road.”

She literally quit over that.

My working class family members (all in the same trade) universally hate unions and their reasons are quite reasonable; my grandfather was in union leadership until he was run out by the mob and my cousin had to pay tribute (e.g a protection racket) to the new leadership.

The reality is that you are adding a lot of extra 'management' on top of the existing company management when you bring in a union. At the end of the day, a union is a business and it is a profit-seeking business. Employees have to raise a massive fuss and get momentum from members in the union to receive any sort of defense from the union for their grievances.

The rotation aspect is also annoying. If you enjoy a particular job, you are forced to rotate out so that other members can have a chance. The juiciest roles always seem to go to the senior members. If you an apprentice, you just have to take what you get, and endure whatever hazing, teasing, and abuse you receive (tech workers jaws would hit the floor if they witnessed what I lived through).

At the end of the day you have to remember that there is one pie. Everyone wants a piece of the pie... management, employees, and union. Adding more overhead and more bosses is not always an effective way of getting more pie to the employees.

Some of these laws hurt unions, others help.

For example, a union contract can’t require an employer to hire only union members.

That would create a situation where people would apply to the union first, and if they union accepted them, then they apply for the job.

That would give unions too much power, so it’s not allowed.

Another law forbids sympathy strikes. Unions can only strike against their own employers, not in sympathy with other strikers.

Modern labor law also seeks to discourage strikes by using a war-game like approach to negotiating. Maybe a good idea, maybe not. But certainly not something that happens for non-union orgs.

If we adopted a “hands off” approach to unions, we could easily wind up with insanely powerful unions.

If 2% of the working population went on strike simultaneously, the economy would stop working quickly.

So general strikes are very illegal, even though they are 100% in accord with libertarian ideology.

That's exactly the thing I'd hope to see. It's unfortunate that it's such a process, considering how easy it is to simply not know.

I think in California, even illegals are eligible for workers compensation.

It's pretty well-known that the point of an internship isn't to actually accomplish any useful work, it's to determine which students you would like to extend an offer to for full-time employment. Not a large leap to assume that a lot of adolescent employment follows this pattern. The wages you'd pay a teen are chump change for most businesses, but responsible, intelligent, trustworthy employees basically disappear from the job market after their first job (because everybody wants to keep them), and so it can be a great investment to identify, vet, and introduce yourself to them before they're on the open market.

That's not correct. Being employed at will means that you _can_ be let go for refusing a promotion (or just about any other reason) but it doesn't mean that automatically happens. There are plenty of companies that understand that some people reach a point where they don't care about climbing the ladder anymore and don't want to take on more responsibility.

"To qualify for exemption, employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and be paid on a salary basis at not less than $684* per week." as of January 1, 2020. It was at the previously mentioned value before that.

So that's $17.10/hr to be a manager, or about $35k / year.

Federally: Currently, the salary threshold for exempt employees is $684 a week ($35,568 annualized) https://www.fisherphillips.com/news-insights/planning-2023-c...

> The Department increased the standard salary level from $455 per week ($23,660 per year) to $913 per week ($47,476 per year) in a final rule published May 23, 2016 (“2016 final rule”). That rulemaking was challenged in court, and on November 22, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas enjoined the Department from implementing and enforcing the rule. On August 31, 2017, the court granted summary judgment against the Department, invalidating the 2016 final rule because it “makes overtime status depend predominately on a minimum salary level, thereby supplanting an analysis of an employee's job duties.” Nevada v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, 275 F. Supp. 3d 795, 806 (E.D. Tex. 2017).

The current standard salary level is $35,568.

> When applied to updated data, these methodologies result in a standard salary level of $684 per week ($35,568 per year) and an HCE total annual compensation level of $107,432. Finally, the Department intends to update these thresholds more regularly in the future.

> The Department estimates that in 2020, 1.2 million currently exempt employees who earn at least $455 per week but less than the standard salary level of $684 per week will, without some intervening action by their employers, gain overtime eligibility. The Department also estimates that an additional 2.2 million white collar workers who are currently nonexempt because they do not satisfy the EAP duties tests and currently earn at least $455 per week, but less than $684 per week, will have their overtime-eligible status strengthened in 2020 because these employees will now fail both the salary level and duties tests. Lastly, an estimated 101,800 employees who are currently exempt under the HCE test will be affected by the increase in the HCE total annual compensation level.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/09/27/2019-20...

edit: added quotation marks to just. I like being an IC.

In this sort of environment, I've never seen a company claim "unlimited".

Companies have a lot of flexibility in deciding how the accruals work. But, as you said, the important part is that when it accrues, at that point it's a legally-obligated right for you to either receive that time or be paid for it.

I generally try to work at places that value my contributions but do not try to micromanage me. If I want/need to take time off, I do. If at some point I'm taking off so much time that they no longer feel that I'm contributing enough to the company, then fine they can let me go.