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Comment by slt2021 | Hacker News Reader

slt2021

how exactly? looking at american unions I dont see a single effective at "stifling CEOs from becoming rich".

american automakers produce one of the low quality cars, and heavy lobbying from lawmakers is the only thing that keeps them afloat.

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I really want to break your argument down, so you can maybe see how it doesn't really argue in any sort of way for what you think it does, and doesn't really make sense. I'm not trying to be hateful, but I really think you might benefit from seeing this from an outside perspective.

Argument: I do not see a single [union] effective at "Stifling CEO's from becoming rich".

1st Proof: American Automakers produce low quality cars.

2nd Proof: The only thing keeping them in business is lobbying from American Lawmakers.

Your proof has nothing to do with your argument. At all. They're not related. They're also very subjective and impossible to actually prove. They're not proof; they're opinion.

A more effective argument would be:

Proof: The largest Union employers are x, y, z, and their CEO's make $x, $y, $z.

you are right, but the argument itself is flawed in the first place.

CEOs are not the rich class, they are elite but they are employees. Plenty of CEOs get fired for doing bad job, or get softly pushed out.

Argument that labor union keep CEOs from getting rich is absurd because CEOs are part of labor force.

it is shareholders who get rich by squeezing profit, so I dont get why bring up CEOs. A CEO maybe get paid $10 mln a year. But shareholders get dividends/buybacks in order of hundreds of mils/blns

My argument was that labor unions lead to piss poor quality due to mediocrity (example: US automakers).

the japanese automakers have factories in the US and produce much higher quality cars without labor unions. How come???

> CEOs are not the rich class, they are elite but they are employees.

While this is sometimes true, the executive status class overlaps significantly with the haut bourgeois economic class (and most of the rest of the executive status class is in the petit bourgeois economic class; there are probably working class “CEOs” somewhere, but they are very much not the norm), and very typically they are specifically significant holders of capital in the firm of which they are CEOs. CEOS are not just employees, and their relationship to either the firms they control or the economy more generally are not very much like those of regular employees.

huh? if we talking about tech layoffs and tech employees needing union - pls explain how Satya Nadella or Sundar are elites? they became CEOs just from being immigrant students. Started as engineers, and slowly rose through ranks.

tech is more merit based, compared to traditional boomer's industries. I dont see how CEOs in tech are part of elite, while they are simply hired managers. You do your job well - you can become ceo one day

Employees typically depend on their salaries to pay for necessary living expenses. If they lose their job, they need to get another one, or they'll eventually go broke.

Any CEO making $10M/yr would only need to work for a year before they could retire and live comfortably the rest of their life without ever touching the principal.

Layoffs affect these groups differently.

Interestingly many engineers in the German car industry (often seen as high quality), e.g. at Audi or BMW and other large non-automotive enterprises like Siemens work under IG Metall union contracts and the companies do rather well.

I think that's because in those countries a loss of employment doesn't have the potential to cause gigantic disruptions to life through the loss of health insurance and often housing. There are much more robust systems in place to help an individual worker handle life while between jobs. So the union isn't as incentivized to try to prevent any and all layoffs even when the company needs to respond to changing economic factors that might require scaling back.

Mexico has some strong unions, one of them is the SINDICATO NACIONAL DE TRABAJADORES DE LA INDUSTRIA. AUTOMOTRIZ (auto maker/manufactring union). Still, there are lots of cars manufactured in Mexico which are of quite high quality[1]:

    Audi Q5
    BMW Serie 3
    BMW Serie 2 coupé
    Honda HR-V
    Hyundai Accent
    Infiniti QX50
    Infiniti QX55
    Jeep Compass
    KIA Rio
    KIA Forte
    Mazda CX-30
    Mazda2
    Mazda3
    Mercedes-Benz GLB
    Nissan Kicks
    Nissan Versa
    Nissan NP300
    Nissan Sentra
    Nissan March
    Nissan NV 200 Cargo
    Toyota Tacoma
    VW Tiguan
    VW Taos
    VW Jetta

There is indeed a stigma that American cars (Ford, GM, Chevrolet) are trash, but I think that has more to do with a company policy, more than with Unions and manufacturing employees.

[1] https://www.motorpasion.com.mx/industria/autos-produccion-me...

with all due respect to Mexican workers - in Mexico most OEMs do mostly assembly of ready made parts.

Engines, tranny, suspension parts are manufactured in US/Europe/Japan and simply shipped to Mexico for assembly due to NAFTA favorable trade agreement and cheaper labor for simple assembly

> how exactly? looking at american unions I dont see a single effective at "stifling CEOs from becoming rich".

You removed a major conditional.

I do not care if the CEOs become rich, the dream of getting rich via business success is why capitalism works, what I care about is if they do it by underpaying their employees because of a power differential.

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