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Comment by BitwiseFool | Hacker News Reader

>"How can you not be for it?"

I'm wary because unions in the US start out strong by addressing very real grievances and putting the greedier aspects of management in-check. But it seems inevitable that they become entrenched, bloated, and protectionist to the point of hurting the company's ability to adapt to market pressure and disruptions from non-unionized competitors. I'm not anti-union per se, and I would rather see them structured the way they are in Europe, and particularly, those in Germany.

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Unions/Governments/Companies/Families/HOA's/Schools/Restaurants/Colleges/etc.. are great at first.

Eventually they crumble under their own apathy, bureaucracy, mismanagement, entropy and waste and a more lean competitor takes their place.

Thankfully

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy

It's quite simple. Either you believe the workers deserve representation or you don't. Business is the intersection of workers and corporations. You need both sitting at the bargaining table to get anything real done.

How are unions structured in Europe?

There’s not much structurally different about unions in Europe, but they exist in very different legal circumstances. Unions in the US are micromanaged by the NLRB and many complex laws enacted during the cold war.

Unions aside, Germany requires by law that corporate boards have a minimum percentage of representation from bottom-level employees, meaning employees who are nobody’s boss. This law seems to have been invaluable to working conditions in Germany. The catch is that the American ruling class would simply never allow such a law to be passed. Germany has the law as a result of history. Remember the Soviets defeated the Nazis, “first they came for the communists” and so on.

this law is also in effect in a lot of other european countries.

Remember that after World War One and during the interbellum, most european countries had massive social unrest. Giving workers representation inside the company was usually meant as a way to appease to communist/socialist voters during those times.

Mind you, this all happened before world war 2 and the iron curtain.

I’m weary…

You’re tired?

I think you mean wary. Or leery. Not weary.

Interesting, I did not know this. Fixed.

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