Comment by simonjgreen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonjgreen | Hacker News Reader

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The unionised Openreach in UK who are really the de facto layer 1 network provider telco build infrastructure to a staggeringly higher quality than most of the move fast startup alternatives.

Aviation unions force very high standards and represent a lot of the developments in safety and procedures.

Nuclear power is heavily unionised, resulting in a very stable and highly qualified workforce.

Unions in film and tv have done great work defending artists rights and protecting actors, writers, crew, and others from predatory behaviour by studios.

Fire fighter unions stand against unsafe demands and protect the crews in ways the individuals can’t, resulting in meaningful change. (I’m aware of UK but projecting and assuming this applies internationally)

I could go on…

I see the benefit of a union for the workers, but your examples seem strange. They do not illustrate that a union somehow results in a better product.

If that were self evident how come there has never been a company that started with employees unionized? To get this supposed benefit

They’re called cooperatives

Mondragon is a extremely large well structured cooperative that did exactly this and is a hallmark of success for anarchist cooperatives worldwide

It's a bit reversed, labor unions are cooperatives, not the other way around, as cooperatives are more flexible in arrangement than unions.

Don't disagree with the rest of the comment though.

EDIT: also, I wouldn't consider coops an anarchist victory over traditional private companies anymore than democracy over monarchy. The corporation > worker hierarchy is still there, even with the different share distribution. It's a good demonstration of an alternative and underappreciated corporate structure, tho.

> Aviation unions force very high standards and represent a lot of the developments in safety and procedures.

Boeing joined the chat.

The company that does union busting to cut labour costs?

> The unionised Openreach in UK who are really the de facto layer 1 network provider telco build infrastructure to a staggeringly higher quality

and it's crap compared to Romanian or Polish which are not unionised (I think)

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