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Comment by gosub100 | Hacker News Reader

If I had a union it would demand a bunch of unqualified people join my team (and get paid the same as me) and it would forbid me from doing certain things because,say, moving the computer or plugging in a cable is IT's job, whereas I'm SE. No thanks

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While you will find some extreme examples that could go that far, unions don't generally do that. Organisations that fight unions however do like to bring up that example, so... you've been had with anti union propaganda.

So my coworker who was a UAW member who told me stories about sleeping on the roof, and being reprimanded for moving a desk to retrieve a pen...was trying to dupe me?

Why are you getting all of your thinking from one co-worker?

So I should ignore evidence directly from the source of one of the largest unions in the US, because it doesn't support your view? I should only accept evidence from your trusted sources? Ok.

Edit: or my UPS friend who told me how the union box loaders would falsely claim alcoholism or drug addiction before being fired so they could abuse the union "protection" that was given to them? Is he trying to dupe me too?

Think about your own employment experience. Was the work environment always static, or did your employer ever introduce change that wasn't popular? Were you still singing the corporate anthem afterwards?

As far as I can tell, unions only show up after decades of management malfeasance. They're kind of a natural reaction. The line "the only thing worse than a union is no union" is probably a hundred years old.

> While you will find some extreme examples that could go that far,

I don't know how much more clear I could make it to you.

"while I should ignore evidence that contradicts what you claim..."

Aren't hackers supposed to be a curious bunch? Is that really the only way you can imagine unions working? Can you not see the imbalance of power between a single individual and the corporation that employs them? Unions are fundamentally about balancing that power dynamic.

i'm a big union advocate, but i worry that the traditional messaging that unions use doesn't work for tech employees.

things like more pay/better hours/safer working conditions are appealing to people working low-paid, dangerous jobs but don't really click with most tech employees because those aren't the things they hate about their work.

to win over tech employees unions should talk about more ambitious things like codetermination (i.e., getting workers on the board), 4-day work weeks, remote work policies, employee sabbaticals, etc

My wife is part of a union and there’s none of that bullshit. However when her employer wanted to reduce costs across the board the union negotiated a shorter working week for everyone instead of a pay rise next year. They voted on it and accepted it with an overwhelming majority.

The union offering "shrinkflation" as the way for the business to cut costs is an interesting framing. Your wife's union associates must hang out with grocery store executives.

The union spoke to its members and asked them what they wanted, negotiated it and voted on the final result.

If that’s your take away from it I don’t know what to tell you.

That isn't how unions work, rather the usual US fearmongering of having them.

It just dawned on me how this argument runs perfectly parallel to religion if you point out intolerance, misogyny, or violence. It's always "those other people" that do the bad thing, and everyone only reaffirms their own system of worship. You could almost do a 1-1 find/replace of keywords and have the same argument.

Everyone who works for a living understands why unions exist even if they don’t need one locally.

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