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Comment by aphelion | Hacker News Reader

This is all rather absurd given that the Western European nations that haven embarked on major infrastructure projects in recent decades tend to have higher rates of unionization as well as stronger labor and environmental regulations than the United States. That Europe has high-speed rail and the United States doesn't can hardly be chalked up to unions.

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European unions do not behave as American unions do. They seem to know how to balance their wants with the idea of allowing their host to survive, grow and succeed. American unions tend to extract as much blood as possible out of their hosts. They are really selfish, to the point of causing terminal damage. Look at the cities they've killed off.

Can you take your political opinions and shove them down a dark hole somewhere? Most people are here for a discussion of the technology, not your rhetoric.

It's not really an opinion so much as fact. Labor unions have proven to be beneficial only for the members of the union and politicians. If you had ever done business around them, you'd agree.

Wait, your political opinion reinforced by your own personal experiences is what passes as fact now? By golly, I've never met someone so enlightened.

Please, tell me more.

What would it take to convince you? A peer reviewed study? Just take a look around at what unions have been up to in this country.

Look at the union-born gigantic pension issues in California and Illinois. http://www.illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?ArticleSource=60... or http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-29/news/ct-met-su...

Check out what unions did/do to convention centers in Chicago and Las Vegas. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-17/business/chi-0...

Look at the pay of BART employees. http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area?Entity=Bay%20Ar...

Or is that all just anecdotal as well? I could go on.

It would take some logical argument as to why the concept of collective bargaining is a bad one.

That would be ridiculous, since that is not the argument that needs to be made. Instead, you want a logical argument as to why the concept of collective bargaining in the public sector is a bad one. I won't provide one since they are readily available if you have an ounce of curiosity. I'll just leave this:

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.” - George Meany

American unions are political patronage jobs. They will quite cheerfully spend the entire budget digging holes and filling them back in.

If you do not account for this, you will have no budget left for technology.

Making the design an open source project is a major step towards European style (socialist) unions, where the unions help decide what to do and how to make it succeed.

> Making the design an open source project is a major step towards European style (socialist) unions, where the unions help decide what to do and how to make it succeed.

The difference between European unions and US unions is probably a big part of the reason for the negative connotation of the word "socialist" in the US. If US unions behaved like those in Europe, we would have a more positive connotation.

American unions have not killed off any city. If you are trying to imply that Detroit was killed by unions you are gravely mistaken.

I think at some point in the last few comments I stumbled into an Ayn Rand novel.

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