Comment by colemannugent | Hacker News Reader

Comment by colemannugent | Hacker News Reader

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I think unions are a great way of balancing the power of the employer and employee, but there are some major drawbacks.

I'm not sure how it is in Europe, but in the public higher education space here in the U.S. the unions are way to powerful.

An example of this imbalance:

All faculty and staff members for the California State University system are part of the same union. That means that the union has the collective bargaining power of all 50,000 employees. The union is very good at their job of protecting employees, and will always resist any disciplinary action by the administration, even if the employee is clearly in the wrong. This leads to a situation where administration will simply ignore extremely low-performing individuals because they would have to fight the union to do so.

Also, all CSU employees must pay the union dues, even if you are not part of the union, which is insane.

When unions are this big and this focused, their collective bargaining power, IMO, exceeds what is necessary to protect workers.

With the union you mentioned your a part of things seem to be better structured. Though it is large at around 140,000 members, they seem to be spread across many companies and I imagine that not every company is made up of 100% union employees. Also the fact that your union encompasses a wide variety of professions is definitely a big positive. That seems more like a fairer balance of power to me.

> Also, all CSU employees must pay the union dues, even if you are not part of the union, which is insane.

This is to avoid the free rider problem. Removing this requirement basically kills a union. Right-to-work laws, for example, are 100% about neutering unions, and they do so by precisely this mechanism. Voluntary associations have serious problems that severely limit their effectiveness. Same reason e.g. taxes can't be voluntary.

That was not so much a commentary about right-to-work as it was about the absurdity of the situation.

California is decidedly against right-to-work laws, so why in this case you are allowed to opt out of the benefits of the union while still having to pay for it is what I take issue with.

If you are allowed to choose not to join the union then you shouldn't have to pay union dues.

The problem is that most of the union benefits are really hard to opt out of. I benefit from an improved payment schedule, better overtime rules, a safer work environment, nicer insurance, etc. whether I'm a member of the union or not.

Don't think of it as club membership, think of it as a negotiator's fee that's baked into your employment contract.

It's not practical to opt out of various benefits that come from the union's activities. For instance, your employer's not going to be able to cut your pay/benefits much below that of union workers, or try to give you an abusive schedule/workload, since if they try you'll (I assume) just join the union at the first opportunity.

Further, the union may negotiate things like compensation and benefits packages for all workers because not doing so would terminally weaken them by letting management entice workers to leave the union, until it eventually dies—and then management can enjoy the deeply unequal bargaining position of giant-organization versus uncoordinated individuals, until workers organize again—but this time management can kill it more easily and inexpensively before it even gets started, through he same process, but with the bonus that this time they can also be much more coercive and punitive in their approach toward certain especially troublesome individuals since they have less-effective oversight.

[EDIT] bah, I effed up my reasoning on that second part by starting with one thing then going another direction and not fixing the first bit. There are two separate problems: 1) if non-union folks don't have to pay dues, the employer can kill the union by enticing people away from it, and 2) if they can hire non-union at below-union compensation (say, if you have to pick up-front whether you're union and can't sign on later) then they can simply only hire people who don't join the union (and preferentially retain non-union folks) until it dies.

> California is decidedly against right-to-work laws, so why in this case you are allowed to opt out of the benefits of the union while still having to pay for it is what I take issue with.

You misunderstand the situation. California public employees covered by a union can opt out of union membership and full membership dues and pay reduced “fair share” fees, get all the benefits negotiated by the union (including union representation in disciplinary proceedings); they only benefits they lose are voting rights and non-representational benefits (e.g., if the union has separate arrangements to make products or services available to members separate from benefits negotiated with the employer.)

I'm not sure I understand. Why couldn't the company only provide union-negotiated benefits to the members of the union, and treat all non-union employees the way they normally would? What constrains the company to give union treatment to non-union members?

See my reply below. TL;DR a situation where people can receive different compensation if they're non-union, and can get out of paying union dues if they're non-union, makes it trivial for management to strangle the union. They can entice people to leave the union until it dies.

[EDIT] more generally there's a bunch of game-theoretic stuff that keeps unions from being effective if all participation in them is totally voluntary. Union-busting laws usually aim to disrupt the preconditions necessary for the survival of unions, often by simply forcing them all to be voluntary, probably choosing that tactic because there's a personal liberty argument to be made in its favor. Why these people are so insistent that one particular requirement for working for a given employer (join the relevant union) should be outlawed while all manner of other requirements the employer themselves may have are just fine is left as an exercise for the reader.

> Right-to-work laws, for example, are 100% about neutering unions,

No, they're not. The idea that you should have to join an outside organization to work for a government agency is ridiculous. Doubly so when those same groups spend extremely heavily on politics.

You just provided a (good or not is another question) justification for neutering unions, not an argument supporting the position that right-to-left laws aren't about neutering unions.

I did not, but I understand why some would want to read it as such, because it's an indefensible position to claim that one should be forced to join a politically active organization (or any outside organization for that matter) to become a public employee.

My point is that you should be able to work for a government agency without joining a union. That is a reason for right-to-work laws that has nothing to do with neutering unions. If unions can't survive without people being legally obligated to join them that is on them and they should adapt to meet that reality.

> I did not, but I understand why some would want to read it as such, because it's an indefensible position to claim that one should be forced to join a politically active organization (or any outside organization for that matter) to become a public employee.

You dodged the point above, but the governmental agencies themselves are politically active. So are very nearly all employers.

[EDIT] my point being, why is aiding one politically-active organization (your employer) as a requirement for employment entirely fine, but being required to aid two is some abridgment of liberty? It's not like it's sprung on you after the fact. It's exactly as much a choice as aiding your employer's political agenda (i.e. you can not work there).

Why's it more ridiculous than other restrictions and requirements for employment? Or, on the political spending issue, than what companies and trade organizations spend on the same (though usually to different ends)? Hell, even governments and governmental agencies participate in lobbying (of larger/parent governments or agencies), if we're restricting it to that in order to have a potential conflict-of-interest on the political lobbying front for the union. Should their employees be able to opt out of that and receive higher pay in return?

To head off "if you don't like the political spending of your employer then you can just quit"—right, and you can quit working at a place with a union membership requirement if you don't like the union's political spending. "But that's impractical because almost all the unions spend in ways I don't like". Oh, I know. Guess how lots of people feel about the political spending of almost all employers/companies? Good for the goose, good for the gander.

Again, why is required paid membership to a non-governmental group an acceptable requirement for employment by the government? It's a very, very simple question. I don't care what trade groups or companies do.

Why's it unacceptable?

> All faculty and staff members for the California State University system are part of the same union.

No, they aren't. As you, yourself, note later (see final quote below).

They all just get the benefit of representation by the same union, even though they can opt-out of actual membership.

> This leads to a situation where administration will simply ignore extremely low-performing individuals because they would have to fight the union to do so.

No, what leads to that is lack of accountability of the administration for aggregate performance. If leadership was accountable, they'd be motivated to act where necessary even if the union would be opposed. (Given the lack of accountability for performance, without union resistance, disciplinary power would be used arbitrarily, and not effectively target low performers either.)

> Also, all CSU employees must pay the union dues, even if you are not part of the union, which is insane.

No, they don't. Non-members (membership is opt-out for classifications covered by the union) have to pay what are called "fair share" fees which are related to the functions that the union must provide them as non-member represented employees; only union members pay actual union dues.

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