Don't Expect Unions to be Back

[Champakian]

What do you think?

Big Labor supporters like President Joe Biden are cheering the first successful vote to unionize workers at an Amazon facility, in this case, an 8,000-worker warehouse in Staten Island, New York. The effort was spearheaded by a couple of best friends who built support on TikTok, among other places. "Amazon, here we come," promised the president at a recent union rally.

...

It's proven so hard for unions to gain a toehold at Amazon because it's actually a pretty good place to work. If we are indeed in a time of "rising worker power," that's because of incredibly low unemployment rates and historically high job vacanciesgiving the rank and file more leverage than ever to negotiate more pay and better conditions.

...

It's not just Amazon, either. The main reason that unions in the private sector have been fading for decades isn't that there are union-busting Pinkertons terrorizing organizers but because of the changing nature of work and the willingness of employers to offer better terms. Unions flourished during the era of assembly lines and standardization, when schedules were rigid and outputs, employees, and even customers were expected to be identical. As everything in our lives becomes more personalized, it only makes sense unions would fade, which is exactly what's happened.

Personally, I see them as a thing of the past, unless we want to unionize robots and Chinese slave labor.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Amazon should move all it's warehouses to Right-to-Work states.

 

[Chobham]

They've found a home in the public sector............for now.

 

[Champakian]

The implication of this article is that a Big Business
(note the capitalization to make it more ominous)
can actually reduce wages with union labor...

Kickbacks to union bosses are cheaper
than individual negotiation.

 

[Champakian]

They've found a home in the public sector............for now.

The last bastion of the incompetent.

 

[Chernosoth]

Large corporate employers are struggling to hire. Later they'll be dying off.

 

[ll74]

Unions are beneficial. The right has successfully made people think they aren't.

Either employees are part of the business goals or they arent.

 

[pecksniff]

Large corporate employers are struggling to hire. Later they'll be dying off.

Big businesses are more efficient than small ones. They're not going anywhere.

 

[ishtat]

Big businesses are more efficient than small ones. They're not going anywhere.

No they are not. Thousands of small businesses exist precisely because they can out compete in terms of both price and service. Big business has had its greatest success in corrupting politics and politicians in pursuit of taxpayer $. Detroit for example has been extraordinarily successful at extracting financial support from Washington following the GFC. More recently they have extracted huge subsidies from Biden for electric vehicle development; subsidies denied to Tesla, VW and Toyota. Yet Toyota is the USA's largest car manufacturer and VW and Tesla are way ahead technically. Some years back Ford even had to cut a deal with Mazda to get the Japanese company to show them how to engineer decent cars.

 

[JakBird]

I am a firm supporter of unions, especially for lobby groups who profess to work for the poor but are some of the worst exploiters of cheap and volunteer labor. Let's start with a $50/hr minimum for grad assistants in universities! After all, they do have a degree; that deserves more than minimum wage.

 

[Champakian]

I've twice been in a Union.

The first one was toothless and got us very little in the way of wages and benefits.
The second one was better when it came to wages, but the benefits were crap.
I did better in the private sector when it came to benefits.
It's a tossup, but unions are becoming
a thing of the past unless you're
being paid by taxpayers.

 

[Rightguide]

I am a firm supporter of unions, especially for lobby groups who profess to work for the poor but are some of the worst exploiters of cheap and volunteer labor. Let's start with a $50/hr minimum for grad assistants in universities! After all, they do have a degree; that deserves more than minimum wage.

All that would do is keep them from being hired.

 

[JakBird]

All that would do is keep them from being hired.

On the contrary, demand (from schools) would face an inflexible supply (unionized TAs) with no alternatives. Isn't that the purpose of a union, collective bargaining, forcing employers to accept demands or go out of business? In non right to work states the unions could be mandated by law as the only source of labor, at least at any institution receiving state or federal money. Grants could be rewritten to include set-asides for TA unions.

 

[Biggs_Darklighter]

Unions suck for the most part. Amazon needs em tho.

 

[LittleDixie]

I'm in favor of unions, but I want all government protections for them stripped.

If you want to be in a union, fine, if not, fine. The government should not give the unions any rights whatsoever above any other club or organization. If they want to collect dues, then they should not be compulsory. No one should be legally punished for being in a union or choosing not to be in a union. Lastly, if you go on strike, your boss should be able to fire you.

I think that is the best way to balance labor/management.

 

[pecksniff]

No they are not. Thousands of small businesses exist precisely because they can out compete in terms of both price and service.

No, they exist by finding niches where big biz doesn't entirely dominate yet. A mom-and-pop restaurant can hold out in the presence of franchised competitors, but a mom-and-pop grocery store cannot. Economies of scale -- the supermarket can offer lower prices, even if the service is more impersonal.

See Big is Beautiful: Debunking the Myth of Small Business, by Robert Atkinson and Michael Lind.

Now, I can understand where the contrary view comes from, idealizing the free and independent small businessman or farmer -- it's very Jeffersonian, meaning Americans had the general idea long before non-socialist-but-lefty Catholics came up with distributism. The most persuasive utopia I have ever read is Pacific Edge, by Kim Stanley Robinson. It depicts America after a Green revolution, apparently nonviolent. Apart from strong environmentalist policy, it is distinct from the status quo in our timeline in two important ways: First, everybody gets a basic annual income of $10,000 and nobody is allowed to have more than $100,000 a year. This achieves a rough economic equality while still leaving scope for ambition -- as one character remarks, "Everybody wants to be a hundred." Second, the size of businesses is limited -- no actual figure is stated, but the rule of thumb is that when a business has too many employees for all of them to know each other personally, the state must break it up into smaller businesses. This regime is willing to sacrifice economic efficiency just to avoid the impersonality of large business organizations. And that does make a certain sense, because in our world, an employee, to an executive, is only a red line on the ledger, a cost; but in this Green world, it's always somebody you know, which should make for better labor relations.

 

[The_Trouvere]

Labor unions are necessary to reverse the growing income gap.

 

[YDB95]

Let's start with a $50/hr minimum for grad assistants in universities! After all, they do have a degree; that deserves more than minimum wage.

Provided they know the subject they're teaching, that's not unreasonable. They have a specialized skill that's in limited supply, and which the university needs (especially if, like most universities these days, the administration is avoiding hiring tenure track faculty in any way it can).

 

[jaF0]

Labor unions are necessary to reverse the growing income gap.

We need ironclad rules that the top and bottom wage and benefit packages cannot differ by more than X%. I'm just not sure what 'X' should be.

The fact that low end workers make $10/hr while top end C Suite Critters yield tens of millions annually is criminal.

 

[Champakian]

On the contrary, demand (from schools) would face an inflexible supply (unionized TAs) with no alternatives. Isn't that the purpose of a union, collective bargaining, forcing employers to accept demands or go out of business? In non right to work states the unions could be mandated by law as the only source of labor, at least at any institution receiving state or federal money. Grants could be rewritten to include set-asides for TA unions.

In other words, you believe that unions exist to shake down the consumer
(which, ironically the union member is too) in the mistaken economic fallacy
that I encounter a lot with people who think that increased costs do not get
passed on to the consumer because they just come out of profits (and every-
one knows that business is evil [though 90% of it is Mom & Pops] run by the
equivalent of Scrooge McDuck). And fyi, federal and state contracts generally
do specify that the labor/services are provided by union labor, because let's
face it, the bureaucrats don't really pay for it, the taxpayers do (and, again,
ironically, pretty much everyone involved in this Ponzi is a taxpayer...).

FairTax.org

 

[Champakian]

Labor unions are necessary to reverse the growing income gap.

There might be an income gap (the second example this morning that I've run across
of taking a stat out of context to make a specious point) but the average citizen of the
United States enjoys a steady increase in his/her(/its) standard of living and really has
nothing to complain about, but does enjoy a lot more leisure time in which to do it....

 

[Chobham]

Private sector unions ceased to serve any beneficial purpose the day after OSHA was created. Public sector unions NEVER served and beneficial purpose.

 

[Champakian]

Yeah, I've always pointed out the irony of the government that is supposed to protect us
employing people that need to be protected from it. That should serve as a clarion warning...

And yet we see ample evidence of large numbers of people who continually clamor for more government.

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

Private sector unions ceased to serve any beneficial purpose the day after OSHA was created. Public sector unions NEVER served and beneficial purpose.

Besides wages and safety.

 

[JakBird]

the average citizen of the
United States enjoys a steady increase in his/her(/its) standard of living and really has
nothing to complain about, but does enjoy a lot more leisure time in which to do it....

It's not about standard of living, or leisure. It's about fairness. If I only have $1 in my pocket, but you have $5, to be fair you should give me $2. Then we both have enough to buy a cheeseburger at McDonalds, equal leisure, equal standard of living.