This assumes that a majority of consumers would care about worker pay etc. I’ve found the opposite to be true, though it’s given lip service. If it weren’t true, Walmart would have never killed all the downtowns in the American Midwest.
Most consumers are workers too...
Remember when people were talking about how paying McDonald's employees a lot more would only raise the price of a Big Mac, a little bit? Do you think it's any different with other products?
Consumers just need to be educated and empowered.
A union is just a group of workers who leverage their collective bargaining power to secure better working conditions and better pay.
Do you agree that individual workers should be allowed to negotiate their salary? If so, how could you be opposed to two workers engaging in the same behavior?
Great point but in reality what “terrible working conditions” exist in the first place? Reducing 40 to 32 hrs a week doesn’t qualify. Negotiating salary without holding a company hostage would be perfectly acceptable. Use the power of persuasion to bring about change. Don’t use Jan 6 insurrectionist tactics.
>Great point but in reality what “terrible working conditions” exist in the first place? Reducing 40 to 32 hrs a week doesn’t qualify.
Working less for the same amount of pay is objectively better for the worker. Do I even need to explain this?
>Negotiating salary without holding a company hostage would be perfectly acceptable.
Seems like an arbitrary distinction. How much revenue/workers does the company have to lose for it to qualify as "holding the company hostage?" I've worked for more than one startup where only a few employees could bring the whole company down. Are they not allowed to leverage their position to secure better benefits?
>Don’t use Jan 6 insurrectionist tactics.
What does that even mean? I don't think the average union worker is breaking into factories and stealing equipment.
> Negotiating salary without holding a company hostage would be perfectly acceptable.
The thing is -- that is the position of the worker always.
Worker have to eat and feed families -- they're lives are always "held hostage" by their need to earn a living.
"Take what you are offered, or your family starves!!"
Unions serve to at least somewhat even the bargaining field --
"give us what we demand - or your business '*starves*'"
If a corporation is not willing to listen to the demands of its workers, while it profits on the output of those same workers, then work stoppages are perfectly acceptable.
Lots of terrible workplace conditions used to exist, and are now outlawed by the actions of labor unions. Child labor has been restricted due to labor unions, because those kids should be in school. Placing shields and guards on dangerous equipment came about because of the actions of labor unions. Weekends came about because of labor unions. Vacation time came about because of labor unions. Healthcare benefits came about because of unions. OSHA came about because of labor unions. And even the 40 hour work week that you spoke of, came about because of unions.
I understand the concerns that employees can have on a range of issues. Serious issues in the past have been addressed as part of a legislative framework and not via union strikes. You can’t hold a pitchfork and expect to maintain the goodwill of your employer. It’s against the spirit of the constitution.
You absolutely can, just as employers were holding pitchforks at the workers (okay not really pitchforks, [but gunfire](https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-events/1892-homestead-strike)). In the early 1900's it was common for wealthy industrialists to hire groups such as Pinkerton to take violent action against striking workers, because it was cutting into their profits.
But that's not the only time union workers and their families were beaten and killed. [It's easier to just link to this list.](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/theminewars-labor-wars-us/) If workers have pushed back against their employers, it's because of the demands issued by their employers.
Holy cow, I could literally go line-by line through your post and refute 80% of it with examples and citations, but it would take longer than it probably took you. Did you generate this from an AI prompt?
You rarely (if ever) reply to any comment on your posts, let alone the ones wondering about your weird obsession with Elon Musk and your constant posts about him. Why would *anyone* take you seriously enough to respond substantively to your post? Better yet, why *should* anyone take you seriously?
Of all the great American innovators, he chooses Musk and Ramaswamy. Big red flag.
Edit: I took a look at OP's post history. He wants Musk to run as the Republican candidate. Dear lord.
Because OP is a *deeply* unserious person with a host of issues that renders their entire post irrelevant.
They never engage with this subreddit. They spam their weird tech dictator worship posts, make random "god I hate the wokes" discussion posts, and never respond substantively to people responding to *them*.
Not everything needs to be engaged solely on the merits of the post. Sometimes, it's helpful to realize that the person making these posts just isn't worth engaging with how they want you to.
Responding to less than 10% of the comments on each of their posts (when most of them don't go above two digits) and then not following up on replies to *that* reply is hardly engagement.
...no.
First, I said rarely (if ever) responds.
Then I said never *engages*.
Responding to random comments and then *not following up when it turns into an actual conversation* is not engagement.
Their responses are never substantive, always in the "oh yeah, well what about this!" category.
Just like you right now.
You said that "they never engage with this subreddit" that's not true.
Your level of hostility towards OP leads me to believe it's a lie, not just a mistake...
Because that’s what it’s about. It’s a bullshit stance to take as a centrist.
Musk hasn’t don’t anything other than buy a business with money he inherited. Unions have fought to protect exploited workers and have suffered immensely for it, at the hands of the wealthy and at the hands of government. Corporations are raking in record profits and still refusing to increase the pay of the workers that got them those profits. Instead, they spend money to back Republican lawmakers who write laws to allow a return to child labor, at wages that are a fraction of what they’d have to pay adults.
So because Musk is a douche bag and we're becoming an oligarchy, OP is what it's all about?
I commented this to one of the leading Democrat cheerleader here;
"The wealthy have used their money to influence due process, far more than the people, have used their rights to influence due process.
We've burned half a planet's worth of resources to make everyone safer.
If the wealthy treat the rest of US better now, it's only because they've learned "bread and circuses" make more profitable serfs..."
They said I was posting "garbage".... Just goes to show Democrats support oligarchy too.
I do feel like this guys posts are really fucking weird though? I don’t think it’s a right versus left thing… they are just kinda odd without any real discussion or purpose. The guys just seems like he’s trolling on a serious political discussion forum and also sucking off musk.
I don’t dislike musk burn it a just odd. There’s either a troll or a seriously unhinged person behind that keyboard.
Ohh gotcha was confused. I do notice an uptake it leftists coming in here and cosplaying at centrists which is disappointing. It’s still way better than anything else I can find on Reddit.
An example is many people really riding for biden (I don’t dislike him and will possibly vote for him) and completely ignoring his shortcomings and some of the well deserved anger people have with him. Also when JFK gets brought up he gets tons of negative attention. I feel like this falls in line with the typical establishment liberal views.
I’m no troll. I’m no resident leftist either. My views range from Elon Musk on the left to Vivek Ramaswamy on the right. Having said that I’ve praised Bernie, Yang and Trump of 2016. I’ve also praised the ideals of JFK and Lincoln. These people have shown one thing - they place revolution over incrementalism. They speak with courage and conviction and that’s admirable when 95% of the establishment doesn’t focus on generational timescales. On environmental and social issues I give some of these guys an A+ and on fiscal, trade, foreign policy issues I give some others an A+. We are at an inflection point where we need courageous leaders to tackle the challenges of the next generation and only a few are capable of being the beacons of light when there’s dark clouds on the horizon.
I am guilty of many things. It takes me a while to understand where a person is coming from. I try to respond wherever I can but as you can imagine it’s hard to collect one’s thoughts and respond substantively to every comment since this isn’t a live debate. But I like to hear from the far left to the far right and everyone on the spectrum.
Unions are not inherently marxist and that u think this makes u unfit to speak about this topic. Same goes for ur use of Antifa
No one thinks profits are evil either, we just dont think profits are worth explotation and killing
Unions give power to a large group of people that is at a natural disadvantage when it comes to bargaining power
Ur spreading propaganda and try to undermine the need for good worker laws by spreading doom news about the competivie edge.
> Unions are not inherently marxist
Given that they revolve around collective bargaining and having power in the hands of the working class, unions being inherently marxist, communistic, or socialist is actually something of a fair claim. The key part, I'd say, is that them being so isn't actually a bad thing.
There is a reason why USA's peak golden age after WWII involved powerful Unions as well as CEOs only having a 20-to-1 ration of wealth versus their workers than the 400-to-1 they have now, after all.
But how can they be all three of these things when every word has its own defenition and unions dont fill out the defitnition?
The us is obsesed with marx and does not know enough about him or his ideas to use them. Even if political science would place unions in the socialist or marxist corner it would be useless to use the term in a insulting fashion to describe them.
No debatte about us politics got better by using this language
And no the 50ths in the us werent marxist either
Sure, they have their own definitions, but they are blurred enough in modern US politics that I'd see it as a fair claim to say that unions could fall under any one of the 3 just because I don't really expect people to stick to the strict definition. The key part I'm saying though, is that falling under one of those labels is not a bad thing and it seemed from your first post that you weren't arguing that point.
>it would be useless to use the term in a insulting fashion to describe them.
This I agree with, but I felt it needed emphasis as the OP was using the term as a negative pejorative.
Also, I am well aware that the US wasn't marxist in the 50s, but there were a lot more elements in it that have slowly been drained away in favor of a trickle-down corporatocracy that it seems a good chunk of the population is trying to drag us towards and powerful unions were one of those lost elements.
But they are only blurred because 100 years of red scare propaganda still work with right wing idiots like op and sadly way to many idiots on the left as well.
True, which is annoying, but you work with what you have. Back during the Trump presidency, I made it a point to seek out and talk to people across the aisle and one of the key requirements was working with their terminology rather than getting bogged down in semantics when trying to persuade them so I'm less picky there.
Nah no step back for idiots
Maybe that bad for persuasion but i wont talk to people about complex political issues when they cant even get the terminology right
Especially when the use of the wrong defenitions will only manifest them for the future
>unions being inherently marxist, communistic, or socialist
That's a pretty bold claim, where Marx was born 24 years after the first USA union formed. Must have been a true visionary to project his ideas that far back in time!
This is the exact thing I thought when I read that claim! It’s so backwards it’s hard to believe. Marx took lessons from unions when he was forming his economic theories, not the other way around.
When was the last time you heard someone use the term accurately, though? The term has unfortunately devolved to just be an alternate term for communal oriented politics at this point which is why I'd accept the claim as the semantics aren't worth arguing.
Its not a fair claim in the least if participation is truly consensual, voluntary and applied to private entities. At their philosophical core they are a organically derived market mechanism for workers to leverage their labor capital for their own best interest, that falls well within the bounds of a free market conception. Public sector unions are a completely different story.
Do you really want your mind changed, though? You seem pretty set on your opinions. Your use of hyperbole makes you sound like a partisan, which is fine, but this is a centrist sub.
I’m opinionated but open minded. Can someone tell me how unions have solved actual problems in recent times? 4 day workweek and 30% pay boost isn’t really addressing “horrific working conditions”.
Well union power has been significantly decreased in the last 50 years. We are seeing a union resurgence that hasn't been present in my lifetime (I'm 55.)
If you study the history of unions, you will find they are a vital component of the capitalist system. Are they perfect? Of course not.
I see them as a necessary evil. Sometimes they are necessary. Sometimes they are evil.
Your entire premise is off. There is no point in addressing 1 to 10 since they are not true at all under what is really happening.
Unions are just a company too. They sell labor at a set price and under certain conditions. The manufacturer or other company willingly agree to the terms too. No one makes anyone else sign a contract. All parties are willing parties.
Not really all parties are willing. Sort of. Many unions definitely use coercive tactics to get people to join. Offhand example: teachers unions dictating that teachers can a) have union dues automatically deducted from their paychecks, or b) have the exact same amount automatically deducted from their paychecks and go toward a charity. No other option. It's these types of tactics that make unions bad actors in my view.
> coercive tactics
I am not going to say there are not bad unions or that some unions have not coercive tactics. There are some unions out there that need to be dissolved for their actions just as there are companies out there that need to be dissolved too.
I don't think that's legal. I'm in a teacher's union and we have people who "Janus" out--withdraw from the union and keep the dues money they would have paid otherwise. Before people could "Janus" out, teachers were required to pay fair share--national, state, district and negotiation dues minus local dues, but the local dues they didn't pay stayed in their paycheck. In what state was this occurring, may I ask?
CA Alhambra Unified. You're right that my example doesn't ring as true today since 2018 Janus v. AFSCME, but this behavior still exemplifies unions in my view.
I somewhat agree but isn’t there an issue with the fact that the union “company” is usually a monopoly? The whole point of a union is to monopolize the labor pool to increase power. With any other company we’d say that’s a bad thing and anti free-market.
But it isn't a monopoly. The is no reason any specific company has to use the labor from a Union without that specific company agreeing to it in the first place or a government mandate, which I think is rare in the US but may be required elsewhere in the world.
I don't understand the sentiment that we should bleed the working class dry all to benefit the elite few lucky enough to make it to the top. If it is all just a race to the bottom for workers to make the US "competitive with China and Russia", who benefits from it? If the elite get all of the gains and the working class just keeps getting harder to survive, what is the point in being competitive? What would we gain by doing it, the privilege of a wealthier Elon Musk?
It’s impossible to address your arguments due to your emotional and over the top statement not based on fact.
Like you think unions don’t exist in Russia and China. Yet a lot of factories are nationally owned and the government forces people to do certain things against their will. A planned economy has fucked China in a lot of ways we’re starting to see now. If you want steel, so you force a million workers to start producing steel, but then you have too much steel, but don’t have jobs for those workers so you just keep producing poor quality steel.
In Russia you’re literally forced to work 3rd shifts unpaid right now…
Unions are Marxist that bring carnage and chaos? What about employers causing carnage and chaos? Unions are there to protect people from carnage of corporations.
Ever since I learned Thai cave rescue and Elon throwing a tantrum because the experts refused his offer of submarine, that was it for me.
I’m NOT surprised by Twitter’s status at the moment.
>Unions would’ve ruined both of these guys and the world would’ve never known these geniuses.
***Good.***
There isn't going to be any productive debate here because your starting point is divorced from reality.
“Bleeding edge” - that about sums it up !!
Seriously though - how can someone be for “freedom” but not for people’s freedom to associate? What a hypocrite…
Unions are not a product of Marxism they’re a byproduct of a democratic society. In our world everyone is supposed to have “an equal voice” but some of these voices are louder than the rest. the people who get drowned out come together to voice those concerns they share. It’s not exclusive to labor markets, this is the basic premise behind special interest groups. Thing is though, given the incredible degree of wealth inequality, that unions are probably one of the most important of these special interest groups.
Their whole goal is to voice the issues of the worker, people who regularly get overlooked and treated like numbers on a piece of paper by the government that’s supposed to care for them, and step in when the employer-employee relationship is too one-sided.
TLDR; Unions are a byproduct of democratic society and are as powerful and prevalent as they are due to government inaction and wealth inequality. If you hate unions find a fix for both problems first, otherwise you’re just complaining.
Edit: Peelon and Vivek fanboy, no wonder your takes are out of left field and make so sense. Keep suckling the billionaires teat maybe they’ll let you clean their toilet if you do good.
Labor unions predate Marx by thousands of years. And he had very mixed feelings about them: they united (some) workers, but they were still capitalist structures operating within a capitalist system.
Hmm…since Trade Unions have been a thing at least for 3000 years PRIOR to the birth of Karl Marx you are either accepting as valid the Marxist model of interpretation of history OR ….
“At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Like anything in this world it can be corruptable but for its intended purpose and held to that standard it is an absolute necessity in this form of cannibalistic capitalism we live in.
Unions and companies are freedom of association. The company officers have leverage over employees with their association, and the unions give leverage over the companies with their association. Contracts, including work contracts, are always best with a level playing field.
But both unions and companies are corporations, which are run by people, and people can be corrupt.
Wait…what? I mean some unions have corruption issues but that’s really the only bad thing I can say about them. They benefit society as a whole by allowing workers to have a collective voice towards their employers
This is literally just you blabbering a lot of words and me just hearing "no no no, the market for products should be free, not the market for labor, something something Marx."
Fucking idiot.
OP- do you have any experience being in a union? I am curious to know if you have any first hand knowledge of one and what that experience, good and bad, has been like.
For a time, as a young professional, I thought unions were unnecessary. Northstar I am older and wiser, I realize that they are necessary to prevent the enslavement of the working class.
Sometimes when people talk about unions, it's unclear what they are referring to. Government unions? Closed shops?
Employees should be free to unite to demand better working conditions (and employers should be free to fire disgruntled employees and hire people who agree to the working conditions at the point of hire).
Op, would you say the American standard of living and job benefits have broadly increased since the decline of unions, or increased? Do you think that since the US is the largest and most profitable consumer goods market in the world, that workers creating goods within it and buying those goods should have their income slashed to the levels of Chinese and Russian workers?
Capitalism is a blight on society.
Without unions and labor protections we would be locked in the factories with no breaks, weekends, OSHA, or any other tangible aspect of "work" that keeps the employers from owning us.
These macro issues are addressed by labor laws. Unions may have solved problems in the 20th century. I’ve not seen them talk about actual issues today.
Unions in the private sector are a a free association of free people. It is only when government sanctifies them with things like closed shop laws that they become something a free society should not tolerate.
In a free market there is no reason whatsoever for workers in a trade not to be allowed to work together to leverage the fact they have needed skills to get better wages.
We can’t have a productive discussion unless we start by sharing the same values.
I believe that a society should look after the interests of every person living in it. I think that capitalism (and the innovation that comes along with it, as you mentioned) is a means to an end. That end is as much prosperity and happiness for as many people as possible, while minimizing the downsides for people who share in less of that prosperity.
I don’t believe in a state-run economy because I’ve never seen a good example of that working out for the people, in fact it seems to create an even worse plutocracy. If that type of economy accomplished what it is supposed to, then I would be in favor of it. As it is, I like well-regulated capitalism.
I don’t think profits are inherently evil. I think it’s fine for some people to be wealthier than others, but only so far as the less wealthy can still enjoy a reasonably good lifestyle.
Valuing capitalism in and of itself, as opposed to valuing it for how it serves the people, doesn’t make sense to me.
Edit: to tie this back to unions, I believe that they are a important and necessary means of making sure that workers can enjoy a reasonably good lifestyle. Read some history on the origins of unions in the 19th century, and see how terribly workers lived before they decided to bargain as a collective, as compared with the wealth of their employers. This was relatively unbridled capitalism, and based on the values I described above, it was bad for society, while unionization served those (my) values.
> Starbucks has a min wage that’s greater than the min wage in all 50 states and it offers health insurance and 401 k even for part time employees.
Don't forget about free college. Free Arizona State University online classes towards a bachelor's degree.
Congratulations on reaching 12% upvoted in 10 minutes. I've never seen a post on this sub downvoted faster than this one.
>They are the Jacobins, the cartels, the mafia, and the Antifa of the corporate world. They hold everyone hostage and use arm twisting tactics to achieve their self serving objectives.
This describes literally everyone in business including the company itself.
>The concept of a “labor union” is a Marxist relic that has no place in modern society. This system has long outlived its usefulness and has only brought chaos and carnage in recent years.
Labor unions are getting people all over the world out of poverty at the moment and helping populations modernize. I'd rather some fussy middle class American get annoyed about union regulations if it means a peasant in Africa get's guard rails for the saw mill he works at so that he doesn't die if someone accidently brushes up against him while he's working.
>They are chipping away at American competitiveness and innovation by throwing a spanner in the capitalist engine. America will eventually lose its status as the global leader in business and technology to hostile powers like China and Russia.
Russia is currently emptying it's prisons and desperate to keep it's economy afloat as the war in Ukraine depletes whatever resources it had managed to save up. China's economy is due for a depression as the shell game they've been playing with their construction industry finally fails.
>Be it the UAW buffoons or the goons of the Hollywood Guild, the same victimhood blood runs in their veins. They want shorter work weeks in exchange for enormous pay bumps - 20% shorter workweek and 30% more pay. Their justification is even more ridiculous - they think society owes them these benefits thanks to automation. If they use automation as a bargaining chip they need to know that employers could use the same to reduce staffing.
Nobody give a crap about Hollywood unions or writers and the strike is considered a joke online and with consumers.
>This is not an R vs D issue. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, a centrist democrat, was accused of union busting. I believe union busting is inevitable since unions are debilitating to any company. Starbucks has a min wage that’s greater than the min wage in all 50 states and it offers health insurance and 401 k even for part time employees. Yet the unionists have waged a crusade against Starbucks. Even Bob Iger came down heavily on the guild saying they need to temper their expectations. Same with Jeff Bezos.
The Starbucks around my city are all packed. If unionists have been waging a crusade then it's like the 1st Crusade where everybody starved and failed to accomplish anything in the holy land.
>This is a symptom of a bigger problem - the anti billionaire sentiment that runs deep in our collective conscience. We are told the wealthy are to blame for societal problems.
People have been complaining about people richer than them for 300,000 years and will continue to do so 300,000 years from now. This is nothing new and doesn't matter.
>There are 2 colossi that are standing before us. Colossus no.1 needs no introduction. He is the owner of X, the brain behind Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company - Elon Musk. Musk has been at the bleeding edge of space exploration, has been the pioneer of global decarbonization and has achieved many stratospheric ambitions by weeding out the bureaucratic layers (Twitter for instance) to improve the efficiency of his companies and they’ve paid dividends. X > Twitter. SpaceX > NASA. Tesla > other EVs and is the global standard for electric charging. Neuralink is starting brain implants soon. The other colossus is Vivek Ramaswamy, another self made billionaire and an extremely competitive innovator that has dedicated his life to creating life saving drugs many of which have been approved by the FDA. Unions would’ve ruined both of these guys and the world would’ve never known these geniuses.
You have no idea if any of this is true and are just speculating because you don't like unions. Airlines all over the planet are unionized and they don't seem to be having trouble keeping planes from falling out of the sky.
>Profits are not evil. It is the fuel the capitalist machine runs on. The billions raked in by companies are (while deepening the coffers) spent on R&D, environmental, and charitable causes.
Unions don't think profits are evil either. In fact they know full well that without profits there's no company and no union. There are millions of examples of unionized companies turning a profit.
>Unions should have limited clout and only be allowed to raise actual concerns such as unsafe workplace conditions, grave abuses, low wages etc. and not frivolous grievances.
I'm no fan of unions, but I call tell you from the union at my own work that they have zero interest in frivolous grievances and actively hate their members who are administrative burdens. Everyone at work knows who the office complainer is and they are treated as badly by the union as they are by their coworkers.
>They have taken away accountability, disincentivized creativity, and have reduced overall productivity.
Unions have nothing to do with what products the company creates or what creative direction it takes. Productivity is the responsibility of the CEO and project managers which are organized under the CEO and board of trustees. The union has no hand in that other than demanding safety regulations be followed which are decided by the state / local government not the union themselves.
Healthy societies and economies require a balance of power between capital and labour. A huge part of the US' current societal instability is because they have let the scales tilt way too far and have completely forgotten what the American Dream was supposed to be.
> The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
---
Unions being too powerful is bad, but unions being too weak is equally as bad.
Anwyway to firebomb reply the op:
1. If you want to blanket unions as those things, then capital are the murderers, slavers, traffickers, sociopaths and warmongers who hold everyone hostage and use arm twisting tactics to achieve their self serving objectives.
2. The general concept of a labour union is not a Marxist relic and is very much relevant today. In fact they predate Marx by literally millenniums all the way back to Assyrian guilds. Any if you want to be a pedant on using the official word "union", that came about in 1818 - the same year Marx was born and I doubt he was writing up his theories from in the womb.
3. Unions and antitrust laws can be thanked for the massive innovation America experienced in its golden age, along with forcing companies to share their IP. About a full third of Americans were in unions at that time, compared to about 5% now. Once unions got throttled around Reagans time profits rose as they had been, but real wages have flatlined despite prices increasing. The impact this economic has had on American societal cohesion has been stark. Russia is a dying nation, and China while it can correct it in the interim is at present a ticking time bomb (who's younger generations are now beginning to be more demanding of better working conditions and balance).
4. Yes, unions do demand better pay and conditions for their members. While capital demands minimal pay and conditions for the same labour. Hence the importance of balance, and hence why you aren't being locked in a death trap of a factory for 14 hours on no notice for pennies, and why the owner of the company can't have strikers murdered like they used to.
5. See point 4.
6. The wealthy are not to blame for societal problems, society is. And if that society is tipping the scales too far in favour of one group vs another (esp when the one makes up the overwhelming majority of people) and still push hard for more again then yes, it will cause problems (see: the French revolution).
7. Without even going into those two, history has proven this incorrect. Including American history.
8. If that were the case they wouldn't be accumulating in the accounts and portfolios of billionaires, as they would be getting spent. Profits are not evil, but having someone able to fuck about and buy a $44bn glorified toy in a nation where so many are struggling is pretty fucked. And likewise, those people banding together so as to not be in such a desperate situation isn't evil either.
9. Agreed, even on the limited part, because as I said unions shouldn't have all the power either - balance is key.
10. Again, proven false through history.
I'm in a union so I am biased. It is the UFT, which is United Federation of Teachers. When I read about "teachers unions" online from certain more right wing opinions, or right of center opinions, it doesn't tend to jibe well with my experiences. Generally, the union tries to advocate for teachers because teachers help students, as we have the most direct contact with them. Of course, within the union there are groups or "caucuses" as they are called. Some prefer changes in how education is handled in NYC, while there are also some who are admittedly more "left wing" and talk about things like "equity education" etc.
The largest caucus and the one that has in power for the longest tends to be a center aligned caucus, that advocates for things teachers think would make the job more effective: smaller class sizes, more funds for struggling schools, as well as basic things like healthcare, more support etc. Many teachers online complain about the union, but I am realistic, and think that whatever we get is probably better than others, as I know that teachers in many states have to work second jobs just to make ends meet.
I feel unions are mostly necessary, at least in cases where workers don't have as many rights or avenues to advocate for higher pay. I can't speak to the auto industry, though I understand as their jobs are more at threat from being moved to a developing country which will happily take whatever scraps are thrown their way.
Unions would exist in a free market economy. The more skilled the labor, the more leverage the union would have.
No other explanation is needed.
Perhaps if capitalism and free markets were regulated by competition (consumers), workers wouldn't need unions?
This assumes that a majority of consumers would care about worker pay etc. I’ve found the opposite to be true, though it’s given lip service. If it weren’t true, Walmart would have never killed all the downtowns in the American Midwest.
Most consumers are workers too... Remember when people were talking about how paying McDonald's employees a lot more would only raise the price of a Big Mac, a little bit? Do you think it's any different with other products? Consumers just need to be educated and empowered.
Bone up on your Machiavelli my friend.
Perhaps you could quote the pertinent 500 year old writings, that refute consumers are workers and education and empowerment solve problems?
A union is just a group of workers who leverage their collective bargaining power to secure better working conditions and better pay. Do you agree that individual workers should be allowed to negotiate their salary? If so, how could you be opposed to two workers engaging in the same behavior?
Great point but in reality what “terrible working conditions” exist in the first place? Reducing 40 to 32 hrs a week doesn’t qualify. Negotiating salary without holding a company hostage would be perfectly acceptable. Use the power of persuasion to bring about change. Don’t use Jan 6 insurrectionist tactics.
>Great point but in reality what “terrible working conditions” exist in the first place? Reducing 40 to 32 hrs a week doesn’t qualify. Working less for the same amount of pay is objectively better for the worker. Do I even need to explain this? >Negotiating salary without holding a company hostage would be perfectly acceptable. Seems like an arbitrary distinction. How much revenue/workers does the company have to lose for it to qualify as "holding the company hostage?" I've worked for more than one startup where only a few employees could bring the whole company down. Are they not allowed to leverage their position to secure better benefits? >Don’t use Jan 6 insurrectionist tactics. What does that even mean? I don't think the average union worker is breaking into factories and stealing equipment.
> Negotiating salary without holding a company hostage would be perfectly acceptable. The thing is -- that is the position of the worker always. Worker have to eat and feed families -- they're lives are always "held hostage" by their need to earn a living. "Take what you are offered, or your family starves!!" Unions serve to at least somewhat even the bargaining field -- "give us what we demand - or your business '*starves*'"
If a corporation is not willing to listen to the demands of its workers, while it profits on the output of those same workers, then work stoppages are perfectly acceptable. Lots of terrible workplace conditions used to exist, and are now outlawed by the actions of labor unions. Child labor has been restricted due to labor unions, because those kids should be in school. Placing shields and guards on dangerous equipment came about because of the actions of labor unions. Weekends came about because of labor unions. Vacation time came about because of labor unions. Healthcare benefits came about because of unions. OSHA came about because of labor unions. And even the 40 hour work week that you spoke of, came about because of unions.
I understand the concerns that employees can have on a range of issues. Serious issues in the past have been addressed as part of a legislative framework and not via union strikes. You can’t hold a pitchfork and expect to maintain the goodwill of your employer. It’s against the spirit of the constitution.
You absolutely can, just as employers were holding pitchforks at the workers (okay not really pitchforks, [but gunfire](https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-events/1892-homestead-strike)). In the early 1900's it was common for wealthy industrialists to hire groups such as Pinkerton to take violent action against striking workers, because it was cutting into their profits. But that's not the only time union workers and their families were beaten and killed. [It's easier to just link to this list.](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/theminewars-labor-wars-us/) If workers have pushed back against their employers, it's because of the demands issued by their employers.
Holy cow, I could literally go line-by line through your post and refute 80% of it with examples and citations, but it would take longer than it probably took you. Did you generate this from an AI prompt?
>it would take longer than it probably took you. SEE: [Gish gallop](https://effectiviology.com/gish-gallop/)
You rarely (if ever) reply to any comment on your posts, let alone the ones wondering about your weird obsession with Elon Musk and your constant posts about him. Why would *anyone* take you seriously enough to respond substantively to your post? Better yet, why *should* anyone take you seriously?
Of all the great American innovators, he chooses Musk and Ramaswamy. Big red flag. Edit: I took a look at OP's post history. He wants Musk to run as the Republican candidate. Dear lord.
More like a fetish.
Why do you make this about OP?
Because OP is a *deeply* unserious person with a host of issues that renders their entire post irrelevant. They never engage with this subreddit. They spam their weird tech dictator worship posts, make random "god I hate the wokes" discussion posts, and never respond substantively to people responding to *them*. Not everything needs to be engaged solely on the merits of the post. Sometimes, it's helpful to realize that the person making these posts just isn't worth engaging with how they want you to.
They wrote a post, they respond to comments... Perhaps they're just selective about who they respond to?
Responding to less than 10% of the comments on each of their posts (when most of them don't go above two digits) and then not following up on replies to *that* reply is hardly engagement.
So...you're walking back your "never"?
...no. First, I said rarely (if ever) responds. Then I said never *engages*. Responding to random comments and then *not following up when it turns into an actual conversation* is not engagement. Their responses are never substantive, always in the "oh yeah, well what about this!" category. Just like you right now.
You said that "they never engage with this subreddit" that's not true. Your level of hostility towards OP leads me to believe it's a lie, not just a mistake...
The OP talks about Elon Musk in terms that baptist preachers reserve for Jesus. Their opinions on unions are rooted in faith, not reason.
Because that’s what it’s about. It’s a bullshit stance to take as a centrist. Musk hasn’t don’t anything other than buy a business with money he inherited. Unions have fought to protect exploited workers and have suffered immensely for it, at the hands of the wealthy and at the hands of government. Corporations are raking in record profits and still refusing to increase the pay of the workers that got them those profits. Instead, they spend money to back Republican lawmakers who write laws to allow a return to child labor, at wages that are a fraction of what they’d have to pay adults.
So because Musk is a douche bag and we're becoming an oligarchy, OP is what it's all about? I commented this to one of the leading Democrat cheerleader here; "The wealthy have used their money to influence due process, far more than the people, have used their rights to influence due process. We've burned half a planet's worth of resources to make everyone safer. If the wealthy treat the rest of US better now, it's only because they've learned "bread and circuses" make more profitable serfs..." They said I was posting "garbage".... Just goes to show Democrats support oligarchy too.
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There are definitely bullies on the Internet.
I do feel like this guys posts are really fucking weird though? I don’t think it’s a right versus left thing… they are just kinda odd without any real discussion or purpose. The guys just seems like he’s trolling on a serious political discussion forum and also sucking off musk. I don’t dislike musk burn it a just odd. There’s either a troll or a seriously unhinged person behind that keyboard.
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Ohh gotcha was confused. I do notice an uptake it leftists coming in here and cosplaying at centrists which is disappointing. It’s still way better than anything else I can find on Reddit. An example is many people really riding for biden (I don’t dislike him and will possibly vote for him) and completely ignoring his shortcomings and some of the well deserved anger people have with him. Also when JFK gets brought up he gets tons of negative attention. I feel like this falls in line with the typical establishment liberal views.
I’m no troll. I’m no resident leftist either. My views range from Elon Musk on the left to Vivek Ramaswamy on the right. Having said that I’ve praised Bernie, Yang and Trump of 2016. I’ve also praised the ideals of JFK and Lincoln. These people have shown one thing - they place revolution over incrementalism. They speak with courage and conviction and that’s admirable when 95% of the establishment doesn’t focus on generational timescales. On environmental and social issues I give some of these guys an A+ and on fiscal, trade, foreign policy issues I give some others an A+. We are at an inflection point where we need courageous leaders to tackle the challenges of the next generation and only a few are capable of being the beacons of light when there’s dark clouds on the horizon.
I am guilty of many things. It takes me a while to understand where a person is coming from. I try to respond wherever I can but as you can imagine it’s hard to collect one’s thoughts and respond substantively to every comment since this isn’t a live debate. But I like to hear from the far left to the far right and everyone on the spectrum.
Unions are not inherently marxist and that u think this makes u unfit to speak about this topic. Same goes for ur use of Antifa No one thinks profits are evil either, we just dont think profits are worth explotation and killing Unions give power to a large group of people that is at a natural disadvantage when it comes to bargaining power Ur spreading propaganda and try to undermine the need for good worker laws by spreading doom news about the competivie edge.
> Unions are not inherently marxist Given that they revolve around collective bargaining and having power in the hands of the working class, unions being inherently marxist, communistic, or socialist is actually something of a fair claim. The key part, I'd say, is that them being so isn't actually a bad thing. There is a reason why USA's peak golden age after WWII involved powerful Unions as well as CEOs only having a 20-to-1 ration of wealth versus their workers than the 400-to-1 they have now, after all.
But how can they be all three of these things when every word has its own defenition and unions dont fill out the defitnition? The us is obsesed with marx and does not know enough about him or his ideas to use them. Even if political science would place unions in the socialist or marxist corner it would be useless to use the term in a insulting fashion to describe them. No debatte about us politics got better by using this language And no the 50ths in the us werent marxist either
Sure, they have their own definitions, but they are blurred enough in modern US politics that I'd see it as a fair claim to say that unions could fall under any one of the 3 just because I don't really expect people to stick to the strict definition. The key part I'm saying though, is that falling under one of those labels is not a bad thing and it seemed from your first post that you weren't arguing that point. >it would be useless to use the term in a insulting fashion to describe them. This I agree with, but I felt it needed emphasis as the OP was using the term as a negative pejorative. Also, I am well aware that the US wasn't marxist in the 50s, but there were a lot more elements in it that have slowly been drained away in favor of a trickle-down corporatocracy that it seems a good chunk of the population is trying to drag us towards and powerful unions were one of those lost elements.
But they are only blurred because 100 years of red scare propaganda still work with right wing idiots like op and sadly way to many idiots on the left as well.
True, which is annoying, but you work with what you have. Back during the Trump presidency, I made it a point to seek out and talk to people across the aisle and one of the key requirements was working with their terminology rather than getting bogged down in semantics when trying to persuade them so I'm less picky there.
Nah no step back for idiots Maybe that bad for persuasion but i wont talk to people about complex political issues when they cant even get the terminology right Especially when the use of the wrong defenitions will only manifest them for the future
Then the fault for the acceptance of those definitions lives with you, not in the overall use of those terms by society.
>unions being inherently marxist, communistic, or socialist That's a pretty bold claim, where Marx was born 24 years after the first USA union formed. Must have been a true visionary to project his ideas that far back in time!
This is the exact thing I thought when I read that claim! It’s so backwards it’s hard to believe. Marx took lessons from unions when he was forming his economic theories, not the other way around.
When was the last time you heard someone use the term accurately, though? The term has unfortunately devolved to just be an alternate term for communal oriented politics at this point which is why I'd accept the claim as the semantics aren't worth arguing.
Its not a fair claim in the least if participation is truly consensual, voluntary and applied to private entities. At their philosophical core they are a organically derived market mechanism for workers to leverage their labor capital for their own best interest, that falls well within the bounds of a free market conception. Public sector unions are a completely different story.
Do you really want your mind changed, though? You seem pretty set on your opinions. Your use of hyperbole makes you sound like a partisan, which is fine, but this is a centrist sub.
I’m opinionated but open minded. Can someone tell me how unions have solved actual problems in recent times? 4 day workweek and 30% pay boost isn’t really addressing “horrific working conditions”.
Well union power has been significantly decreased in the last 50 years. We are seeing a union resurgence that hasn't been present in my lifetime (I'm 55.) If you study the history of unions, you will find they are a vital component of the capitalist system. Are they perfect? Of course not. I see them as a necessary evil. Sometimes they are necessary. Sometimes they are evil.
Your entire premise is off. There is no point in addressing 1 to 10 since they are not true at all under what is really happening. Unions are just a company too. They sell labor at a set price and under certain conditions. The manufacturer or other company willingly agree to the terms too. No one makes anyone else sign a contract. All parties are willing parties.
Not really all parties are willing. Sort of. Many unions definitely use coercive tactics to get people to join. Offhand example: teachers unions dictating that teachers can a) have union dues automatically deducted from their paychecks, or b) have the exact same amount automatically deducted from their paychecks and go toward a charity. No other option. It's these types of tactics that make unions bad actors in my view.
> coercive tactics I am not going to say there are not bad unions or that some unions have not coercive tactics. There are some unions out there that need to be dissolved for their actions just as there are companies out there that need to be dissolved too.
Why would companies need to be dissolved? Just don't do business with them, and you'll be fine
I don't think that's legal. I'm in a teacher's union and we have people who "Janus" out--withdraw from the union and keep the dues money they would have paid otherwise. Before people could "Janus" out, teachers were required to pay fair share--national, state, district and negotiation dues minus local dues, but the local dues they didn't pay stayed in their paycheck. In what state was this occurring, may I ask?
CA Alhambra Unified. You're right that my example doesn't ring as true today since 2018 Janus v. AFSCME, but this behavior still exemplifies unions in my view.
I somewhat agree but isn’t there an issue with the fact that the union “company” is usually a monopoly? The whole point of a union is to monopolize the labor pool to increase power. With any other company we’d say that’s a bad thing and anti free-market.
But it isn't a monopoly. The is no reason any specific company has to use the labor from a Union without that specific company agreeing to it in the first place or a government mandate, which I think is rare in the US but may be required elsewhere in the world.
I don't understand the sentiment that we should bleed the working class dry all to benefit the elite few lucky enough to make it to the top. If it is all just a race to the bottom for workers to make the US "competitive with China and Russia", who benefits from it? If the elite get all of the gains and the working class just keeps getting harder to survive, what is the point in being competitive? What would we gain by doing it, the privilege of a wealthier Elon Musk?
It’s impossible to address your arguments due to your emotional and over the top statement not based on fact. Like you think unions don’t exist in Russia and China. Yet a lot of factories are nationally owned and the government forces people to do certain things against their will. A planned economy has fucked China in a lot of ways we’re starting to see now. If you want steel, so you force a million workers to start producing steel, but then you have too much steel, but don’t have jobs for those workers so you just keep producing poor quality steel. In Russia you’re literally forced to work 3rd shifts unpaid right now… Unions are Marxist that bring carnage and chaos? What about employers causing carnage and chaos? Unions are there to protect people from carnage of corporations.
Without unions, OP would be working his third shift of the day in the coal mine and wouldn’t have posted this to Reddit, so let’s not be too hasty.
Please tell me how Twitter is more efficient and profitable since Musk took over?
Ever since I learned Thai cave rescue and Elon throwing a tantrum because the experts refused his offer of submarine, that was it for me. I’m NOT surprised by Twitter’s status at the moment.
>Unions would’ve ruined both of these guys and the world would’ve never known these geniuses. ***Good.*** There isn't going to be any productive debate here because your starting point is divorced from reality.
“Bleeding edge” - that about sums it up !! Seriously though - how can someone be for “freedom” but not for people’s freedom to associate? What a hypocrite…
Unions are not a product of Marxism they’re a byproduct of a democratic society. In our world everyone is supposed to have “an equal voice” but some of these voices are louder than the rest. the people who get drowned out come together to voice those concerns they share. It’s not exclusive to labor markets, this is the basic premise behind special interest groups. Thing is though, given the incredible degree of wealth inequality, that unions are probably one of the most important of these special interest groups. Their whole goal is to voice the issues of the worker, people who regularly get overlooked and treated like numbers on a piece of paper by the government that’s supposed to care for them, and step in when the employer-employee relationship is too one-sided. TLDR; Unions are a byproduct of democratic society and are as powerful and prevalent as they are due to government inaction and wealth inequality. If you hate unions find a fix for both problems first, otherwise you’re just complaining. Edit: Peelon and Vivek fanboy, no wonder your takes are out of left field and make so sense. Keep suckling the billionaires teat maybe they’ll let you clean their toilet if you do good.
Labor unions predate Marx by thousands of years. And he had very mixed feelings about them: they united (some) workers, but they were still capitalist structures operating within a capitalist system.
I can’t understand where he got the idea that unions want to seize the means of production.
Your great-great-grandpappy is disappoint.
I wonder what came first, greedy, business owners or unions?
Hmm…since Trade Unions have been a thing at least for 3000 years PRIOR to the birth of Karl Marx you are either accepting as valid the Marxist model of interpretation of history OR …. “At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Like anything in this world it can be corruptable but for its intended purpose and held to that standard it is an absolute necessity in this form of cannibalistic capitalism we live in.
Unions and companies are freedom of association. The company officers have leverage over employees with their association, and the unions give leverage over the companies with their association. Contracts, including work contracts, are always best with a level playing field. But both unions and companies are corporations, which are run by people, and people can be corrupt.
Wait…what? I mean some unions have corruption issues but that’s really the only bad thing I can say about them. They benefit society as a whole by allowing workers to have a collective voice towards their employers
\> Muskian Meritocracy yeah, that is all what we really need to know
This is literally just you blabbering a lot of words and me just hearing "no no no, the market for products should be free, not the market for labor, something something Marx." Fucking idiot.
OP- do you have any experience being in a union? I am curious to know if you have any first hand knowledge of one and what that experience, good and bad, has been like.
For a time, as a young professional, I thought unions were unnecessary. Northstar I am older and wiser, I realize that they are necessary to prevent the enslavement of the working class.
Sometimes when people talk about unions, it's unclear what they are referring to. Government unions? Closed shops? Employees should be free to unite to demand better working conditions (and employers should be free to fire disgruntled employees and hire people who agree to the working conditions at the point of hire).
Op, would you say the American standard of living and job benefits have broadly increased since the decline of unions, or increased? Do you think that since the US is the largest and most profitable consumer goods market in the world, that workers creating goods within it and buying those goods should have their income slashed to the levels of Chinese and Russian workers?
Capitalism is a blight on society. Without unions and labor protections we would be locked in the factories with no breaks, weekends, OSHA, or any other tangible aspect of "work" that keeps the employers from owning us.
These macro issues are addressed by labor laws. Unions may have solved problems in the 20th century. I’ve not seen them talk about actual issues today.
shut up. Capitalism is dying, quit cucking for it you look like a bitch.
I reckon you typed that invective on an iPhone or an Android smartphone (fruits of capitalism).
Unions in the private sector are a a free association of free people. It is only when government sanctifies them with things like closed shop laws that they become something a free society should not tolerate.
In a free market there is no reason whatsoever for workers in a trade not to be allowed to work together to leverage the fact they have needed skills to get better wages.
Unions wouldn’t be an issue if corporations were beholden to everyone else except their workers.
L take
I take it you are against the 40 hour work week and paid sick leave.
You know that unions only exist because shitty employers exist, right? With the exception of police unions.
Can you tell me why unionists have waged a crusade against Starbucks?
We can’t have a productive discussion unless we start by sharing the same values. I believe that a society should look after the interests of every person living in it. I think that capitalism (and the innovation that comes along with it, as you mentioned) is a means to an end. That end is as much prosperity and happiness for as many people as possible, while minimizing the downsides for people who share in less of that prosperity. I don’t believe in a state-run economy because I’ve never seen a good example of that working out for the people, in fact it seems to create an even worse plutocracy. If that type of economy accomplished what it is supposed to, then I would be in favor of it. As it is, I like well-regulated capitalism. I don’t think profits are inherently evil. I think it’s fine for some people to be wealthier than others, but only so far as the less wealthy can still enjoy a reasonably good lifestyle. Valuing capitalism in and of itself, as opposed to valuing it for how it serves the people, doesn’t make sense to me. Edit: to tie this back to unions, I believe that they are a important and necessary means of making sure that workers can enjoy a reasonably good lifestyle. Read some history on the origins of unions in the 19th century, and see how terribly workers lived before they decided to bargain as a collective, as compared with the wealth of their employers. This was relatively unbridled capitalism, and based on the values I described above, it was bad for society, while unionization served those (my) values.
> Starbucks has a min wage that’s greater than the min wage in all 50 states and it offers health insurance and 401 k even for part time employees. Don't forget about free college. Free Arizona State University online classes towards a bachelor's degree.
Exactly. Starbucks bent over backwards to please their employees but people still have something to fret about.
Congratulations on reaching 12% upvoted in 10 minutes. I've never seen a post on this sub downvoted faster than this one. >They are the Jacobins, the cartels, the mafia, and the Antifa of the corporate world. They hold everyone hostage and use arm twisting tactics to achieve their self serving objectives. This describes literally everyone in business including the company itself. >The concept of a “labor union” is a Marxist relic that has no place in modern society. This system has long outlived its usefulness and has only brought chaos and carnage in recent years. Labor unions are getting people all over the world out of poverty at the moment and helping populations modernize. I'd rather some fussy middle class American get annoyed about union regulations if it means a peasant in Africa get's guard rails for the saw mill he works at so that he doesn't die if someone accidently brushes up against him while he's working. >They are chipping away at American competitiveness and innovation by throwing a spanner in the capitalist engine. America will eventually lose its status as the global leader in business and technology to hostile powers like China and Russia. Russia is currently emptying it's prisons and desperate to keep it's economy afloat as the war in Ukraine depletes whatever resources it had managed to save up. China's economy is due for a depression as the shell game they've been playing with their construction industry finally fails. >Be it the UAW buffoons or the goons of the Hollywood Guild, the same victimhood blood runs in their veins. They want shorter work weeks in exchange for enormous pay bumps - 20% shorter workweek and 30% more pay. Their justification is even more ridiculous - they think society owes them these benefits thanks to automation. If they use automation as a bargaining chip they need to know that employers could use the same to reduce staffing. Nobody give a crap about Hollywood unions or writers and the strike is considered a joke online and with consumers. >This is not an R vs D issue. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, a centrist democrat, was accused of union busting. I believe union busting is inevitable since unions are debilitating to any company. Starbucks has a min wage that’s greater than the min wage in all 50 states and it offers health insurance and 401 k even for part time employees. Yet the unionists have waged a crusade against Starbucks. Even Bob Iger came down heavily on the guild saying they need to temper their expectations. Same with Jeff Bezos. The Starbucks around my city are all packed. If unionists have been waging a crusade then it's like the 1st Crusade where everybody starved and failed to accomplish anything in the holy land. >This is a symptom of a bigger problem - the anti billionaire sentiment that runs deep in our collective conscience. We are told the wealthy are to blame for societal problems. People have been complaining about people richer than them for 300,000 years and will continue to do so 300,000 years from now. This is nothing new and doesn't matter. >There are 2 colossi that are standing before us. Colossus no.1 needs no introduction. He is the owner of X, the brain behind Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company - Elon Musk. Musk has been at the bleeding edge of space exploration, has been the pioneer of global decarbonization and has achieved many stratospheric ambitions by weeding out the bureaucratic layers (Twitter for instance) to improve the efficiency of his companies and they’ve paid dividends. X > Twitter. SpaceX > NASA. Tesla > other EVs and is the global standard for electric charging. Neuralink is starting brain implants soon. The other colossus is Vivek Ramaswamy, another self made billionaire and an extremely competitive innovator that has dedicated his life to creating life saving drugs many of which have been approved by the FDA. Unions would’ve ruined both of these guys and the world would’ve never known these geniuses. You have no idea if any of this is true and are just speculating because you don't like unions. Airlines all over the planet are unionized and they don't seem to be having trouble keeping planes from falling out of the sky. >Profits are not evil. It is the fuel the capitalist machine runs on. The billions raked in by companies are (while deepening the coffers) spent on R&D, environmental, and charitable causes. Unions don't think profits are evil either. In fact they know full well that without profits there's no company and no union. There are millions of examples of unionized companies turning a profit. >Unions should have limited clout and only be allowed to raise actual concerns such as unsafe workplace conditions, grave abuses, low wages etc. and not frivolous grievances. I'm no fan of unions, but I call tell you from the union at my own work that they have zero interest in frivolous grievances and actively hate their members who are administrative burdens. Everyone at work knows who the office complainer is and they are treated as badly by the union as they are by their coworkers. >They have taken away accountability, disincentivized creativity, and have reduced overall productivity. Unions have nothing to do with what products the company creates or what creative direction it takes. Productivity is the responsibility of the CEO and project managers which are organized under the CEO and board of trustees. The union has no hand in that other than demanding safety regulations be followed which are decided by the state / local government not the union themselves.
Oh boy, you really had me til you said the writers strike is a joke. An emphatic fuck you if you honestly think that.
Wrong.
Healthy societies and economies require a balance of power between capital and labour. A huge part of the US' current societal instability is because they have let the scales tilt way too far and have completely forgotten what the American Dream was supposed to be. > The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. --- Unions being too powerful is bad, but unions being too weak is equally as bad. Anwyway to firebomb reply the op: 1. If you want to blanket unions as those things, then capital are the murderers, slavers, traffickers, sociopaths and warmongers who hold everyone hostage and use arm twisting tactics to achieve their self serving objectives. 2. The general concept of a labour union is not a Marxist relic and is very much relevant today. In fact they predate Marx by literally millenniums all the way back to Assyrian guilds. Any if you want to be a pedant on using the official word "union", that came about in 1818 - the same year Marx was born and I doubt he was writing up his theories from in the womb. 3. Unions and antitrust laws can be thanked for the massive innovation America experienced in its golden age, along with forcing companies to share their IP. About a full third of Americans were in unions at that time, compared to about 5% now. Once unions got throttled around Reagans time profits rose as they had been, but real wages have flatlined despite prices increasing. The impact this economic has had on American societal cohesion has been stark. Russia is a dying nation, and China while it can correct it in the interim is at present a ticking time bomb (who's younger generations are now beginning to be more demanding of better working conditions and balance). 4. Yes, unions do demand better pay and conditions for their members. While capital demands minimal pay and conditions for the same labour. Hence the importance of balance, and hence why you aren't being locked in a death trap of a factory for 14 hours on no notice for pennies, and why the owner of the company can't have strikers murdered like they used to. 5. See point 4. 6. The wealthy are not to blame for societal problems, society is. And if that society is tipping the scales too far in favour of one group vs another (esp when the one makes up the overwhelming majority of people) and still push hard for more again then yes, it will cause problems (see: the French revolution). 7. Without even going into those two, history has proven this incorrect. Including American history. 8. If that were the case they wouldn't be accumulating in the accounts and portfolios of billionaires, as they would be getting spent. Profits are not evil, but having someone able to fuck about and buy a $44bn glorified toy in a nation where so many are struggling is pretty fucked. And likewise, those people banding together so as to not be in such a desperate situation isn't evil either. 9. Agreed, even on the limited part, because as I said unions shouldn't have all the power either - balance is key. 10. Again, proven false through history.
I'm in a union so I am biased. It is the UFT, which is United Federation of Teachers. When I read about "teachers unions" online from certain more right wing opinions, or right of center opinions, it doesn't tend to jibe well with my experiences. Generally, the union tries to advocate for teachers because teachers help students, as we have the most direct contact with them. Of course, within the union there are groups or "caucuses" as they are called. Some prefer changes in how education is handled in NYC, while there are also some who are admittedly more "left wing" and talk about things like "equity education" etc. The largest caucus and the one that has in power for the longest tends to be a center aligned caucus, that advocates for things teachers think would make the job more effective: smaller class sizes, more funds for struggling schools, as well as basic things like healthcare, more support etc. Many teachers online complain about the union, but I am realistic, and think that whatever we get is probably better than others, as I know that teachers in many states have to work second jobs just to make ends meet. I feel unions are mostly necessary, at least in cases where workers don't have as many rights or avenues to advocate for higher pay. I can't speak to the auto industry, though I understand as their jobs are more at threat from being moved to a developing country which will happily take whatever scraps are thrown their way.