Hacker News Reader

Wouldn‘t that be the opposite of aligning incentives? Unions want the workers to do well, stockholders want the company to do well. The company paying people less is better for stockholders, worse for employees obviously. So that seems like an awful idea.

View on HN

The union could hold shares in a trust, pledging not to sell. Then vote with the shares, and distribute any dividends through to the workers.

How does that fix the issue? For every marginal dollar the workers would rather receive the entirety of that (through wages) than for that same dollar to be paid out as profit to shareholders, of which they'd only get a fraction.

I think you’ve just invented the ESOP.

I encourage you to read up on the history on unions. People on this site have this insane idea that $CORP=bad and $UNION=good. The truth is that neither party is inherent good/bad. Unions can and have done plenty of shady things. Union leadership can be primarily self-interested (just like any other individuals).

Employees with equity shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com