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Comment by hellojesus | Hacker News Reader

Jesus Christ no. This person made a voluntary decision. Don't subject the rest of the rational players to tyranny because one person made an individual decision.

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The tyranny of employees engaging in collective bargaining with employers truly does sound like a nightmare.

It is a nightmare because of the Warner Act, which completely removes voluntary transactions from the labor market when it comes to collective bargaining.

I have no problem if employers want to bargain with a single authority, and I have no problem if an employee wants to only work for a company if they can outsource their bargaining. I do have a problem with the law that says that it a majority of people want to unionize then all other employees must join the union and the employer must bargain only with the union. It is nonsense and tyranny. It also leads to terrible band-aid laws like Right to Work.

It is absolutely fascinating that political groups can so strongly praise democracy while insisting that their proximate authority structure that has by far the biggest impact on their day to day lives and life satisfaction should be run like feudal states.

I mean unions are kinda clunky as far as political instruments go but they've at least got the spirit of what the point of it all is. A country where the thing people do for the majority of their working hours is shitty misses the forest for the trees.

> proximate authority structure that has by far the biggest impact on their day to day lives

I wouldn't want my family to be a democracy either.

Would bet anything you didn’t believe that when you weren’t the one in charge.

Like do y’all not have a visceral reaction to “my house my rules” or “because I said so.” Do you look back on that fondly?

Like by any objective measure I had great parents but I’ve never looked back and realized they were right when they blindly asserted their authority. Other stuff sure, but the things I fought my on parents then I still think are shitty.

Your job is not a family, and employees aren't children (I assume you're talking about the non-democracy w.r.t. minor children, because otherwise that's fucking weird).

What's interesting to me is that at first pass I thought you were in agreement with me, but on a second reading it seems that you related the non-unioned work environment to a fedual state when instead I relate the unioned work environment to a feudal state.

Why do you think non unions are fedual states? The way I see it, unions require:

- Forced periodic taxes in membership

- No self representation in negotiations

- Policies largely derived by "status" in the form of length of service, tenure, etc. uncorrelated with performance

- At any point in time the tyranny of the majority can descend on an otherwise libertarian environment and forcibly turn it into a feudal state

While non-unions allow:

- Individual representation and negotiation

- Policies related to merit or other unstructured agreements (e.g., I'll work during Diwali if you work during Easter)

- No forced requirement to pay taxes to any authority other than the government

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but remember that this person was in a position of power in the company as the product manager leading a major effort. She sets the bar for work, and was glorifying sleeping at her desk and working insane hours to push Elon's "vision" out the door. You gotta imagine her underlings were required or pressured to do the same, and got fucked for it.

I agree with your vision of the work environment. However, both the product manager and her underlyings should all have some type of emergency fund that would allow them to risk being laid off for not spending their lives at work. I know it's easier said than done, especially when some emotional attachment and loyalty exists.

My comment was more related to how bad an idea unions are under the Wagner Act rather than anything concrete to these employees' experiences.

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