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Comment by Simulacra | Hacker News Reader

The one thing that I've never been able to wrap my head around about unions is their ability to strike, and not be fired. Forming a union, advocating for collective bargaining, those things are good, but being able to put a gun to a corporations head, and say, do this or we are destroying your company, is just wrong. If a person wants to strike, fine, but the company should be able to hire someone else. We as citizens are not forced to work for particular companies, those companies should not be forced to work with us.

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Without striking they have almost zero power.

It’s the same as a company that can’t fire anyone.

What you're really saying is that employers should be allowed to form a large powerful collective organization but employees shouldn't.

In other words, wage slavery should be enshrined as a corporate right --- essentially a lord and peasants system being advocated by the peasants.

> What you're really saying is that employers should be allowed to form a large powerful collective organization but employees shouldn't.

That's not what he said, but you'll ignore it anyway.

If employees want to form a union, they are welcome to do so.

If employers want to fire everyone that is in a union, they too should be welcome to do so.

If the employer can fire the lot of them, then we are back to square one with the employer holding all of the bargaining power, thus no need for a union.

If employers want to fire everyone that is in a union, they too should be welcome to do so.

Just a variation on a theme.

Corporations should have the power to destroy unions but unions should not have the power to destroy corporations.

When employees do good, executives get 40 percent raises, employees get 2 percent.

Anything that doesn't help make the rich and the powerful even more so is unacceptable ... because that's how fairness works in a lords and peasants system.

> If employers want to fire everyone that is in a union, they too should be welcome to do so.

But... why? What would that achieve?

You seem to essentially be asking that unions should not have any legal protections to redress the intrinsic power imbalance between employers and employees.

But you fail to give any argument for why it should be _good_ that this power imbalance should not be addressed legally.

This is the right wing mind virus that has infected the peasants leading them to promote the best interests of the lords over their own.

The most telling aspect that this really is a "virus" is the fact that they've adopted this mentality and course of action without the results even being fully considered.

Here is a clue to the results --- peasants get perpetually screwed. Lords get 40 percent raises, peasants get 2 percent.

Now get back to work wage slave and don't forget to convince yourself that this is somehow "fair".

This is why you only can form a union if you have a critical mass of employees. The hassle it would take to hire and train that many people makes negotiating with the union not a bad choice.

Companies can hire non-union workers.

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