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Comment by LitFan | Hacker News Reader

Some insight as to why someone may be anti union:

My union has done nothing perceptible during the course of my employment, outside of protecting employees who are under performing.

My union dues cost 1% of my salary, and my perception is that they're taking that money and spending it on protecting bad employees.

I have friends who are higher up in unions at other workplaces, as well as friends who are involved with labor law. The impression all around is that my union and its representatives are "not good".

Unions don't automatically make working conditions better. They need to have good people working in the union to achieve that.

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> Unions don't automatically make working conditions better. They need to have good people working in the union to achieve that.

I see it everywhere, this weird argument that "shitty unions are shitty." Well, yes. "Shitty [anything] is shitty."

Unions are a tool. That tool can be misused! But it can also be used well for great effect.

Sorry your union isn't working well for you.

You're recommending everyone unionize, even though some unions are shitty and may end up being a net negative for people. But, aren't some businesses or sectors not shitty? Why unionize in nonshitty sectors or businesses?

It seems prudent to unionize and protect yourself while the business/sector is employee-friendly rather than have to unionize if the employer is taken over etc.

Unionizing in a non-shitty sector will give the workers a way to help ensure that the sector continues to not be shitty, both by maintaining a baseline for what a union shop looks like, and by contributing money to politicians who will work to pass laws that help keep the sector free of shittiness.

But the sector is already doing a good job of being non-shitty without a union. And what about the case where you're in a non-shitty sector, but end up with a shitty union, resulting in a net negative for the employees? Do you just say "Oh well, it was for the greater good. Someone else somewhere has a union which is non-shitty, just in case some day the sector becomes antagonistic with employees"?

Isn’t the whole point of the OP about how shitty the video game sector is

OP is saying that they don't understand why any workers would not unionize, not just workers in the video game industry.

You can always unionize later. Ununionizing might be a much bigger challenge.

> You can always unionize later. Ununionizing might be a much bigger challenge.

Deauthorization of a union is much more difficult than forming a union in the first place. It is very difficult to obtain sufficient support for deauthorization without the union leadership hearing about it, at which point they can usually find sufficient reason to expel the member from the union. If there is an exclusive contract with the employer (which is usually the case in the US), this may result in the employee's termination.

Even if there is enough support for deauthorization to require an election, the NLRB has the authority to overturn the results of the election, and it has historically wielded this power quite generously in favor of the union.

What assurances do i have that the tool you are offering me is a good tool and not a bad one?

Your due diligence to research and drive change if needed.

Why do I have to do due diligence and drive change for something I don't want or need in the first place?

You're already prefacing that you don't need unions, it's impossible to argue against that. If you don't need or want a union membership, don't get one, nobody is saying anything else. The argument is that you will know whether or not the tool is useful if you do some research.

I posit that if the market of the labor you're offering isn't very advantageous to you anymore, and if you're being mistreated by an employer when you're in a position where you can't use your financial means or time to fight back for whatever reasons, you will feel the need of someone else to fight for you because you can't just find an employer that will shower you with money two blocks away. And when I say "mistreated" I mean that everything you are entitled to in your contract is not something you can count on, so no severance, and when I say you're not in a financial position to fight back I mean that you don't have the means or the time to sue, even if you're 100% in the clear legally.

If you believe that will never happen, you're likely correct. I don't think my apartment will be on fire without me noticing too, it's a very low risk of that ever happening in my life, but I still want a smoke detector. I just can't take the risk. Same thing with union membership for me, I can't take the risk of being treated the same way my ex-wife was treated when she was simultaneously struggling with depression (and wouldn't have gotten anything she was entitled to from her employer during her medical leave if someone else hadn't fought for her).

> If you don't need or want a union membership, don't get one, nobody is saying anything else.

That is incorrect, in the US if my workplace decides to unionize I'm forced to pay union dues. I am fully in my right to criticize unions as they can be foisted upon me without my consent.

Wow, what a weird and counterproductive way to implement unions. In Sweden, that's not even remotely how unions work, they're voluntary. That's a pretty messed up system you have, would you be more interested if they're fully voluntary?

I'd have no problem with you joining a union provided I'm not required to also do so or pay any dues. I just don't see any benefit at the current time so I'd have little interest. It seems like another layer of bureaucratic game playing to navigate and additional costs from my perspective.

Not OP, but I'm against unions in the US for many of the same reasons. Yes, my quarrels would be fully resolved if the unions were completely voluntary.

However, unions here in the US have done untold amounts of lobbying to government and employers to make them mandatory. The argument is usually that, "if membership is voluntary, some people will forgo membership but still reap the benefits of our negotiations, therefore you must force them to join us." Considering that many politicians (particularly in rust belt states) win office by getting big union endorsements, this tactic works very well.

I would be likely to join a union that was voluntary, because if the leadership started doing things I disagreed with, I could quit the union, or join a competing union that was more in line with my beliefs.

Then what if the next wave of unions are designed to be voluntary instead of compulsory?

Then they would have my full support.

> Then what if the next wave of unions are designed to be voluntary instead of compulsory?

This would require that the AFL-CIO, UAW, Teamsters, SEIU, etc. all reverse decades of their own established policy not to pursue members-only unions.

It would also require legislation that makes it possible for a worker to dissociate from a union that they don't want to represent them. There is immense opposition by labor organizers against anything remotely resembling this shape of law, so it is unlikely to happen.

Given the weakened state of unions in the U.S., perhaps it wouldn't be too hard to start over from a clean slate with new systems and practices.

> perhaps it wouldn't be too hard to start over from a clean slate with new systems and practices.

Yes, but you want to take on both organized labor (AFL-CIO and the like) and anti-labor forces at the same time... well, good luck to you.

I mean that earnestly, not sarcastically. "Uphill battle" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Disruption is the name of the game, after all.

Federal law requires unions to represent all workers in a bargaining unit. States can decide whether unions can recover those costs from all workers they represent or just members. Mandatory membership is illegal.

Both entrenched unions and corporate interests support the status quo. It strengthens strong unions but makes organizing new unions harder.

> Federal law requires unions to represent all workers in a bargaining unit.

As I've explained above, this is true but misleading. They are required to represent all workers in a bargaining unit, but they can define the bargaining unit however they wish, including defining the bargaining unit to encompass only workers who have decided to sign up for the union and pay their dues. The only thing they cannot do is create contracts which apply to non-members and refuse to represent those non-members.

> Mandatory membership is illegal.

This is a common misconception. Closed shops are illegal, but it is legal for an employer to require (pursuant to a union contract) that employees join the union within 30 days or risk being fired (excluding railway, airline, and government employees).

Unions can also expel members from their union, and if they have an exclusive contract with the employer, this may result in the employer being forced to fire the employee in question, depending on the reason for which they are expelled.

> Federal law requires unions to represent all workers in a bargaining unit.

This statement is misleading to the point of it being a lie.

It is perfectly legal for a union to define the "bargaining unit" as "people who join this origanization".

Unions don't want to do this though. They instead want to force everyone to join.

Federal law does not recognize members-only unions.

Yes it does...

Members only unions are explicitly in the National Labor Relations Act.

We can quibble about how to describe it, but members-only unions in the US do not have the same standing as majority unions in the US or members-only unions elsewhere. Employers are free to ignore them. They can't negotiate exclusive benefits. Members can't commit to collective bargaining. The prevailing legal opinion seems to be that the NLRA does not allow a union to represent more than 50% but less than 100% of a potential bargaining unit.

> They can't negotiate exclusive benefits

Well, obviously. They can make whatever negotiations that they want for their own benefits.

What they cannot do is negotiate for other people who have chosen to not join the union, which is what the word "exclusive" implies.

So yes, they can negotiate. For themselves. Not for other people. Which makes sense, why the heck should they have the right to negotiate a contract for people that they don't represent?

The can absolutely negotiate for themselves, though. Just like you and I can negotiate a contract for ourselves.

It's the other way around. Employers are generally prohibited from bargaining with minority unions.[1] They can change policies that apply to everyone.

[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employers/i...

Unfortunately, if you advocate for voluntarily unions, via things like right to work laws, people call you slurs such as a "freerider".

I am absolutely in favor of voluntary organizations. Just don't make it illegal for me to work at a job while refusing to join one.

Federal law forces unions to represent all workers in a bargaining unit. You can choose not to pay anything in most states. In the rest, you are forced to pay an "agency fee" for the services the union is forced to provide you.

> Federal law forces unions to represent all workers in a bargaining unit.

This is true but misleading. Unions can define their bargaining unit as they choose. It is perfectly legal for a union to decide that its bargaining unit consists only of members (ie, people who have signed up for the union and have paid dues to it). That is exactly how unions work in almost every other OECD country, and which is why employees in countries like Germany, the UK, or France often have the choice of which union they want to represent them at their current job (or the choice not to be represented by a third party at all).

In the US, the main labor union syndicates (AFL-CIO, UAW, Teamsters, etc.) have all decided not to pursue this, instead only forming unions when they can get enough support to unionize all employees in a given class.

> You can choose not to pay anything in most states.

Technically true (27 of 50 states), but the main hubs for tech workers are basically all in states where this is not true (California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois, etc).

> That is incorrect, in the US if my workplace decides to unionize I'm forced to pay union dues. I am fully in my right to criticize unions as they can be foisted upon me without my consent.

Why all the hostility? If there are changes at your employer that you don't agree with, like unionization, just quit and take a different job. There's approximately zero unionization in the software development field right now, so you'll have tons of choices. No one's going to force you to stay in a union job if you don't want to.

Because you do want it.

Organized labor has introduced customs that you benefit from and take for granted.

All you have to do is look at the difference in quality of life that came before and after the changes we obtained from organized labor in the 1800s/early 1900s.

Most people don't appreciate the extreme asymmetry between those who control capital and those who create the wealth of nations (26 individuals have the same worth as 3.5 Billion individuals)

In fact, just look at the quality of life of a worker in a place with strong labor (say most of the EU) vs say, the US.

>In fact, just look at the quality of life of a worker in a place with strong labor (say most of the EU) vs say, the US.

My wife is from the UK, I've looked into things there. I make 4 times what I would make in the UK, and that's before the additional taxes I'd pay (and before you ask the additional taxes for the NHS exceeds my spend for health insurance + copays). Sure they get about two weeks more vacation but I wouldn't trade that for 3/4ths of my salary why should I be forced to do so?

I'd be interested to know what job pays 4 times as much in the US as the UK.

Also the UK is not a good example of a place with strong labor. It's much closer to the US. Look at quality of life in places like Germany or Austria.

I have some particular skills, UK firms simply can't afford workers like myself and thus don't really do business in the sector.

A simple payscale.com comparison (not vouching for the data, it's just the first hit on google)

Average Software Engineer Salary

UK: £34,981 ($44908 USD) [0]

US: $83,483 [1]

The median salary is roughly double, if you are an outlier that number grows to about 4 fold.

[0]https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Software_Engineer/S... [1]https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/S...

I don't need 'the collaboration benefits' of having my desk in an open-office hell, but I get them anyways, with no ability to negotiate.

I put up with it because it's a 'take it or leave' it condition of getting a paycheck.

If your coworkers are unionizing, maybe it would be polite to at least attempt to understand their reasons and goals before dismissing it outright as something you don't want or need.

What a lazy answer when the burden of proof is clearly on you.

> I see it everywhere, this weird argument that "shitty unions are shitty." Well, yes. "Shitty [anything] is shitty."

Yes, but some things have structural properties that lead to shittiness. Some would argue that unions have this property.

What are the structural problems that would cause unions to be inherently bad?

The fact that "shitty unions are shitty" implies that unions represent both cost and risk that must be weighed against current and potential future states-of-affair. Those who have experienced the downsides of those costs and risks are informed by those experiences and unsurprisingly more likely to be cautious about unions in the future.

Their feedback is desirable because again, they can help others build better unions. A 2.0 version, if you will.

The people high up on the union food chain have no desire to fix a broken system. Just like any other system.

That assumes that new unions cannot be created, which is like assuming that new startups cannot be created.

You're assuming a new union would be immune to the same fate.

You can be as clever as you like but all systems are exploitable.

I would expect a new union to design around some of the pitfalls that have affected unions past.

Your general attitude sounds defeatist and strange on a community that is all about improving from past mistakes and learning to build better systems by breaking existing ones.

I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying, I do think your perspective is somehwat wrong however. The ultimate goal of a union is of course to improve the state of affairs. But the larger reason reason to have a union is because it is a right to be able to affect your own future.

There are shitty unions, but there are also shitty companies and you only have the right to affect one. If people say shitty things, should you abandon free speech or should you engage in the free speech you believe in? Most people would say the latter because they think free speech is an important right. I guess a similar conclusion would be that worker participation is too important to be left to shitty unions.

The poster responded to someone saying “why would anyone not want to unionize” by saying “some unions are shitty”, is that not reasonable? They aren’t even saying it’s a good reason, but a lot of people seem to have this idealistic view of unions and I do think it is healthy to keep in mind that this isn’t the case, just wanting to unionize and handing the reigns over to people who are lazy or greedy can leave you with labor problems AND a bite from your paycheck.

Then isn’t the solution to design and build better unions, not reject the concept entirely?

Designing and building better governance bodies by a democratic process is hard. Very hard.

And may be even impossible depending on the people under its governance.

And yet, is tech not about solving hard problems? Isn’t the supposed vision of this industry to make the world a better place?

Indeed we should try to solve the problem. Tech is already helping (things are much better than just a decade ago), and there are plenty more opportunities to help.

But I'll stick with my point. Creating an union right now is not completely safe, so there are reasons to be wary of people proposing them, and to debate the details. There is even reason to not create one if the details are not right.

Have you ever considered that you one day could be that "under performing" employee grasping on to their livelihood during a period of poor health, family problems etc?

Under performing was an understatement. I could have as easily said "employees that are asleep at their desks" and it would have been true for some cases.

Management doesn't pursue these people because of the effort involved with dealing with the union.

You are in a unionized desk job? What is the industry?

Yes. I work for the software development department of an insurance company.

This is the good old, but ultimately petty, Pyrrhic victory of wanting to make sure to punish the few freeloaders.

Of course you want them punished when you have to pick up their slack.

I've worked with people who would have produced more for the company collecting their paycheck and just not showing up to work. Don't let the freeloaders distract you, and maybe let the ball drop occasionally so they HAVE to catch it, or prove they can't anymore. Let them hang themselves, no need to punish!

Well, Pyrrhic implies that I think it's too great a cost because you'll take down the people with social issues (and more) along with the much fewer obvious freeloaders.

I'm in favor of allowing people to live without needing to work. I understand that there needn't be a job for every person in the world. I'm aware that nobody should have to work 40 hours a week anymore.

I'm open to a system that allows all of these things to happen.

However - applying that system on a micro scale (one workplace at a time, through unions) introduces way too much friction between employers and their employees, employees and their peers, and employers and unions.

It also causes an internal conflict for the employee - where they have to mask their lack of contribution by busywork, ultimately feeling unfulfilled in their life.

Unionizing all workplaces is a sub-optimal means to distribute wealth.

How would you go about achieving these things through this conflict averse approach? I find it naive at best, and it's firmly in the best interests of business. I mean, this is why corporations in the US (and elsewhere) have fought tooth and nail against unions and labour movements for its entire history and continue to do so. Comparing the welfare systems and labour laws & benfits to western Europe shows the result of this.

>Unions don't automatically make working conditions better. They need to have good people working in the union to achieve that.

True. Unfortunately, many unions are incredibly milquetoast. However, even in such cases the union can still function as sort of an insurance policy against future severe abuses. Folks can also engage with their union: they will listen to workers.

> Folks can also engage with their union: they will listen to workers.

Uh, the same group dynamics that cause cliques to form and higher powers within bureaucracies also can happen in unions. This happens regularly, and I've been a part of one, where regular workers were not listened to but the upper "management" of the union (can't use that word though) controlled the fates of everyone below.

You needed regular workers to rebel against the union to even get representation against management. All the while they collect dues.

Plenty of unions are good. But acting like all of them are, or why you can't understand why everyone wouldn't want to unionize, is really naive.

Workers are ultimately in control of their union. If the union is doing a bad job, workers can fix it. It just requires coordination and will.

If the workers are capable of doing this, then they wouldn't need a union. They would represent themselves against management.

No, they couldn't, because unless you bargain collectively, you have a lot more to lose in these negotiations, then your boss does.

You derive 100% of your income from your employer. Your employer derives ~0.01%-1% of their income from you.

> No, they couldn't, because unless you bargain collectively, you have a lot more to lose in these negotiations, then your boss does. You derive 100% of your income from your employer. Your employer derives ~0.01%-1% of their income from you.

You derive 100% of your income from your union membership, which is a mandatory term of your employment. Your union derives ~0.01%-1% of their income from you.

(It actually derives even less than that, because it operates as a syndicate representing workers across multiple employers).

The historic links between unions and political machines and unions and organized crime suggests that the concept of workers fixing a bad union is great in theory but nearly impossible in practice.

The historic links between the capital owning class, political machines, and organized paramilitary forces suggests that the concept of individual workers fixing a bad company is great in theory but nearly impossible in practice.

I'm not sure that undercuts my argument. At best, most unions provide an ineffectual outlet for worker frustration at the company negotiating with the union with the union leaders colluding with management and eating steak and caviar on management's tab. At worst, union leaders are completely ignored by management and line their pockets on the misery of their members, occasionally stepping in to right a wrong but mostly acting the treacle in the gears of actually getting things done.

Almost every modern union is the textbook definition of controlled opposition.

The only escape is likely violent revolution of the anarcho-capitalist or anarcho-communist variety, these systems still share the problem of rich and powerful people with guns.

You mean that unions do not work? Because that's what I understand from what you said.

"The Union," as an entity, has power over the workers in many of the same ways that corporations do (especially the power of coordination). You'd need a union-union so that workers could bargain collectively with the union leadership. For N people employed by a corporation, you could have N groups: One containing all N (the corporation), one containing N-1 (the union, whose membership consists of all but the CEO), one containing N-2 (the union union, whose membership consists of all but the CEO and the top union leader), and so on all the way down to the N-(N-1)th subunion which consists only of the intern.

Now, there may be more than one equal among the top corporate leadership, and there might be more than one equal in the top union leadership. So, instead of having to have N unions, you could have N/m where m is the number of voting equals at the top of each level of the hierarchy.

This is not entirely facetious, many democratic countries essentially work like this. For example, Americans have a county legislature, a state legislature, and a federal legislature, and to some extent (a greater extent early in the country's history), they perform this sort of nested bargaining.

Have you actually been part of a union? In practice, this is very rarely true when dealing with a poor-quality union.

> the union can still function as sort of an insurance policy against future severe abuses

Except by the union.

I'd say it's worse than just that. A union is close to useless if capital has global access to labor, and labor can't or won't move globally.

Let's say gamedevs unionize. What prevents EA from moving their studios to Poland or China?

> What prevents EA from moving their studios to Poland or China?

Culture, for one thing. Especially game series like Fallout or GTA live from the absurd amount of US-centric cultural references in even the tiniest details.

GTA is developed in the UK - but I suppose there is at least no language barrier.

Really? So you are saying people from China can't chung out copies of NFL with slightly higher numbers? Because those are EA's bread and butter.

Just wondering, why are union dues mandatory even if you do not want to join a union? This to me is the biggest reason to be anti-union.

I think at least part of the argument is that if the union spends time and money improving general working conditions, you're benefiting regardless of whether or not you're part of the union.

At least if the laws were less hypocritical and applied to all things that improve our living conditions (such as open source software development) then I could understand it, but right now as it is I find it unacceptable.

In the US mandatory union fees for the public sector were struck down by the supreme court, I'm not sure if this also applies to private sector jobs though. This was due to the Janus v AFSC ruling see. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf

Varies from state to state. Some states have union requirements for certain sectors, or as businesses are either unionized or not. Right to work states make it so that there can be no requirement to join a union.

Of course Arizona itself has a weird kind of reverse union of hospitals that covers nursing that afaik hasn't been challenged yet, which seems like it would be either a right to work or trust violation. Can't speak to a broader sense.

> Varies from state to state. Some states have union requirements for certain sectors, or as businesses are either unionized or not. Right to work states make it so that there can be no requirement to join a union.

Even under right-to-work laws, the employees can still be required to be covered under the union contract. Right-to-work laws just mean that the union can't forcibly withhold or charge dues from people who aren't union members.

> Just wondering, why are union dues mandatory even if you do not want to join a union? This to me is the biggest reason to be anti-union.

It's a similar reason to why you still have to pay taxes even if you don't want to become a citizen.

The problem is, this is exactly what you would expect from a union that's working.

If the union is successfully scaring the management from pulling any shenanigans on the good workers, then, they have a lot more free time for the borderline cases.

As for moral character: let me introduce you to the average person in management at a large corporation!

Unions may not always do the right thing. And there are lots of cases out there where unions have too much power or abuse that power. And sometimes you have an annoying co-worker who is so zealous about taking cases to the union that they seem to be in an extractive relationship with the company.

But that just means that unions are another human institution. Apparently the nearly-infinite number of cases where management abuses their power doesn't count? Where management is in an extractive relationship with the company?

If you want negotiating power over certain issues, for many kinds of workers or concerns, unions are the only game in town.

Is your salary higher because of the union?

I work for myself now, but I was in a TA/RA union in grad school. The answer is an unequivocal yes. Among other things, they prevented the school from charging us hundreds of dollars extra a quarter in fees. They also commonly protected grad students against illegally long hours as TAs.

For my specific case: I can confidently answer "no" to this question.

Unfortunately I don't think I can share the details here.

All employees are equal, but some employees are more equal than others.

Have you ever considered that maybe it's due to past union efforts that they currently don't have massive transgressions they must currently fight against?

Sure, we've all heard the anecdotes of a union protecting some guy who probably wasn't competent or cut out for the job. But how do you like your weekends? Benefits? Work/life balance? It's not perfect, but those things would gradually erode away without unions to fight for and defend them. Don't think companies will preserve that forever just out of the goodness of their hearts. Don't think it's just a permanent, inviolate fixture of our culture now. It's a hard-earned way of life that our ancestors carved out for us.

Actually, those things are gradually eroding away this very moment, because unions are now terribly weak and most Americans have internalized this contrived hatred of organized labor. It's not going to go well for workers in the future if we're so complacent. Make no mistake, you and I both enjoy the fruits of bitter and intense union battles from previous generations. They may seem unnecessary relics of the past now, but without them we'd be back in tenement housing working 16 hour days and making barely enough money to afford rent and food from the company store very quickly. Lots of industries are already pushing us back to that state. Be grateful your career has a union. It's definitely well worth one percent of your salary.

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