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Comment by HowTheStoryEnds | Hacker News Reader

As a european(Belgian) I can only anecdotally tell you: no, it doesn't. They're the same instrument of collusion with the employer to keep wages down for the many in exchange for benefits of the upper few while also serving as the counterweight that keeps both the incompetent and the malicious firmly fixed in place. To put it in current days' terms: they're a major source of toxicity.

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Well it works in Portugal and Germany from my point of view.

I take my 40h week, health insurance, vacations anywhere I feel like, paid overtime, over some magical wage in exchange for less benefits that exploit working class.

Anyone that feels it isn't their thing is free to make their own business, free of union agreements and see how they manage for themselves in the market.

> Anyone that feels it isn't their thing is free to make their own business, free of union agreements and see how they manage for themselves in the market.

In the United States this is not true. In many states once the union is established in an industry, it becomes illegal to operate a new business without the union.

We have bad union laws.

It is sad that one of the countries where the union movement was born out of the abuse from companies during the industrial age revolution, a subject that Charlie Chaplin even joked about, has turned into an union hate country.

Arguably we have had the industrial successes we have because of the caution about unions. Unions definitely have incentives which hold back innovation and productivity increases (in the economic sense).

But also I didn't say union laws are bad. There are some specific industries/occupations in which unions are A Good Thing. What I said is that the laws we have around unions are really non-ideal and lead to worse outcomes for everybody.

> Unions definitely have incentives which hold back innovation and productivity increases (in the economic sense).

I happen to see it in other way.

Then again, I surely wouldn't like to be on US during the McCarthy era.

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