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Comment by cameronfraser | Hacker News Reader

Everlane workers tried to form a union and they were all fired https://twitter.com/EverlaneU/status/1243615472307695618

When there are a ton of people looking for work it is not really a good time to be striking

Speaking as a former employee with many friends on the front lines of this event, the lay-offs have very little to do with the team that (previously) wanted to unionize, and much more to do with COVID financial impact and the retail team, of which many many more are now out of a job (vs the team where some percentage of the members previously wanted to unionize).

Whoever the person running that account is, they are not interested in you knowing all of the facts. I assure you.

Why was the company (and many like it) so vulnerable? Many of my friends wear everlane.

Sales of everything non essential are expected to drop drastically.

Why don’t they have enough cash on hand to weather a few months of no sales? Why are american businesses so vulnerable to a downturn after two decades of discussing “black swan” events and “antifragility”? I am honestly bewildered.

Because a competitor business will instead use that cash to offer a better product and customers will flock to them.

If you see a new or renovated hotel next to an old one, which one will you stay in? If an airline keeps flying old planes and the other airlines invest in new, nicer planes, which one will you choose to fly on?

We see this story play out on these very Hacker News forum, where the common mantra is businesses that don’t invest in the future, that don’t spend on R&D, that don’t take risks deserve to die out and new businesses that did take risks deserve to take their place.

> Because a competitor business will instead use that cash to offer a better product and customers will flock to them.

Then how come competition doesn’t produce better products?

In my experience, products have gotten better. The cars I drive, the hotels I stay in, the internet and devices I use, the planes I fly in, etc.

I suppose it's a matter of perspective.

Interesting, did not know that. There is a reddit thread in malefashionadvice you may want to comment on as well as there is no contradicting perspective there.

The amount of vitriol directed at Everlane for this Union thing is astounding.

There never was a union. Some people on the team wanted to form one, but most did not. It caused huge cultural issues and tension across the team, and the pro-union employees were very loud and went to VICE pretty much any time they had any minor complaint about the company (which VICE would of course eat right up).

Now Everlane is being framed as union-busting... when it was their own employees that couldn’t form or didn’t want a union. Everlane has always been fine with it, if that’s what the team wanted.

Striking is not just cause for firing employees in every developed country, except US

Strike is a worker's right

Thank god I don't live in a society where people get fired for unionising.

I don't understand how such a thing happens in any democratic society.

Do workers really not like the idea of collective bargaining, or are there more business owners than workers in your state/country?

> Do people really not like the idea of collective bargaining

Since the gutting of private-sector unions, the average American’s exposure to collective bargaining is public employee union strikes.

Your implication being that the average American who is negatively affected by a public employee union strike takes the side of the government and blames workers for inconveniencing them?

It's far more petty than that. No one actually has to be inconvenienced. The average American is just plain resentful of unionized public employees.

Maybe it's because police unions form a sizable chunk of those unions...

Jealous because they get benefits private companies don't offer anyone below a certain level. This is accepted because top level pay is so mucher higher.

Unionized employees realized it is better we get more now and take less if/when we make it to the top(which won't happen anyways).

Don't forget screwing the next generation! Unions love incumbancy.

Yes, it's one thing to gang up to extort General Motors, and another thing entirely to gang up to extort the taxpayer.

Public-sector unions should not be a thing.

Because we see incompetent employees constantly protected by unions and unions themselves become corrupt money making operations that become a business into themselves with a focus on self service and self preservation over that of their members long term interests. Very similar to politicians.

That still isn't an excuse to completely destroy unions tipping the business vs labor competition completely in favor of business. We don't completely dismantle businesses whenever they exhibit "corrupt behavior".

We also see corrupt and incompetent companies that fraud states and customers everyday and bribe politicians to make their scams legal

Why don't you abolish them?

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