The anti-union messages in North American work culture were so effective it takes an incredible amount of abuse before a workforce actually seeks out a union.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...
For me, the worst thing is: as a German, I grew up with "never again" and "at least us Germans learned from our own history, even if barely anyone else did" - and it's all been bullshit. We've learned nothing, we forgot everything once the last living reminders and witnesses from 1933-1945 died.
Your definition of Fascism is... interesting...
That's not an opinion but a historical fact. The Nazis in Germany were supported by large industrialists (Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben), how made a killing (quite literally). Similarly in Italy and Spain, the Fascists were supported by the big capitalists.
It's self preservation, more than anything. Cross the powers that be, and you'll find hard times ahead (Jack Ma...). That's true regardless of political ideology.
My original point was some people's definition of fascism is absurd given historical or modern contexts. But it's a fun whip to crack.
So what is a correct definition of fascism in your opinion? Are you contesting that the Nazis in Germany, Mussolini in Italy or Franco in Spain were Facists? The whole point the previous poster made was essentially all of these got into power with significant support by the ruling economic powers.
I see we're going to ignore history then...
That's more to do with authoritarianism (ie. a strong state) than just fascism. In such a political climate, you're forced to be cozy with the state, because of how powerful it is. Doing so can get you favors with the government (eg. lucrative contracts, favorable legislation/foreign policy), and not doing so can result in your competitors outcompeting you or getting investigated and sent to the gulag.
> you're forced to be cozy with the state, because of how powerful it is
Indeed we learbed nothing
Strong corporations can play the same role, they can create authoritarianisn.
This is why I really wonder about how society might change if humans figure out how to give themselves biological immortality.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/union-membership-rate-fell....
It's more complicated than that.
For starters, fewer industries need unions these days. Unions don't help most office-work and white-collar careers, where pay is on-average sufficient or high, and hours are standardized already (nobody in Accounting or HR is working 12 hour days on the routine).
Additionally, in some sectors, unions are a net-negative. Take software for example, where folks routinely make bananas money for regular work. In those environments, unions typically protect unproductive peers, and limit high-performer's maximum compensation.
Union does not always mean better...
As an aside, people do need to learn to say no to work. Just because you want to work on say, video games or VFX doesn't mean you should accept a job that compels you to work horrendous hours for little pay. Just say no and move on... the market forces will correct and adjust accordingly out of necessity. AI will not replace creative work anytime in the near future - these folks are needed but they accept the abuse and therefore there is no market force to correct.
Yeah, they'll go offshore instead while you try to navigate an intentionally kafkaesque maze of red tape to apply for fucking food stamps.
This is a bizarre, and unrealistic take.
Realities are, so long as there's a zillion capable people willing to step in and replace you with a moment's notice, then your job will have downward pressure on compensation.
However, just because you can't get a good paying job in VFX doesn't mean you're now doomed to food stamps. There's no reality where that makes any sense...
Is it? Ever tried to file for unemployment? No matter the country, it will always be a nightmare of bureaucracy, intentionally designed to make it as difficult as possible to "nudge" people to rather accept shitty work conditions than to try to get money from the government.
The hoops and hurdles that have been placed in front of getting unemployment insurance money are, hands down, the biggest enabler of workplace exploitation.
> However, just because you can't get a good paying job in VFX doesn't mean you're now doomed to food stamps.
Either you accept a shit pay job, or you move towards a different career, or you file for unemployment. (Or you're lucky and have a partner or family that can support you)
The government doesn't have money to give. It's worker's money. Let that point sink in...
Nobody is owed money from the government. That mentality is wild and ridiculous.
> Ever tried to file for unemployment? No matter the country, it will always be a nightmare of bureaucracy,
No it's not. It's literally an online form and a follow-up phone call. It couldn't be easier actually, and it's a system filled with abuse. People live on it for months to years without seeking actual employment - stealing money away from hard working individuals.
> Either you accept a shit pay job, or you move towards a different career, or you file for unemployment.
Your outlook on work life is insanely bizarre and not grounded in any reality. You should check your assumptions, because they are absurdly false.
Or it's European. We expect that our governments take care of all our citizens, no matter their ability to work.
> No it's not. It's literally an online form and a follow-up phone call.
Supplying a truckload of documents, detailed financial statements and whatnot is definitely a bunch of work, particularly if the affected person has lost their home and/or possessions (e.g. homeless people), or can't read. Like half the US is barely literate enough to pass 6th grade reading proficiency. On top of that, processing of claims can take weeks to months because of understaffing. All of that was a massive issue during the COVID pandemic, across all Western countries but I also remember a lot of HN discussions at the time.
> Your outlook on work life is insanely bizarre and not grounded in any reality. You should check your assumptions, because they are absurdly false.
As said, I'm European. That y'all don't even seem to know how good a life Europe provides is a continuous source of disappointments.
Creative unions establish minimum pay and working conditions but not maximum or promotion.
Otherwise you wouldn’t have actors making millions.
Actors say no to a lot of opportunities because they don't compensate well enough, or don't align with the actor's goals.
No VFX person will ever earn millions, no matter how cool their intro title screen is or whatever. Nobody cares... which limits compensation.
>Creative unions establish minimum pay and working conditions but not maximum or promotion.
Is the type of union that you're getting up for debate when people are voting for unions? My impression is that "voting for a union" just sets up the organization, but you'd need to wait for it to be established and for the representatives to be voted in to know how it turns out. Absent a concrete plan that's being voted for, "voting for a union" could easily turn out to be a brexit type of situation, where people have different ideas on what a "union" (or brexit) is, but no single idea actually has majority support, so most people end up not liking the outcome.
These are literally anti union talking points dressed up as some kind of “reasonable considerations.”
No
If you choose not to be a part of collective bargaining then you are actively ceding power to the board and your management.
You’re saying neither you nor your coworkers deserve equal say in how the organization treats you all.
None of what you say actually happens in the real world. Find me a court case or any actual third party judgement, not hearsay, that has found a Union to be shielding one of these “unproductive peers” from doing work or otherwise somehow breaking contract.
Pure unwitting propaganda
Few of us actually need a union to advocate for us. We're perfectly capable of securing higher pay, and benefits through performance or threat of leaving for greener pastures.
That's not propaganda. That's worker's rights... which pro-union people are supposedly in favor of.
These days, Unions protect under-performing staff and enrich the Union leadership - all while negotiating a token raise once in a while. You can see it with your own eyes - just go work somewhere that has a union for at least one group of it's employees.
> Pure unwitting propaganda
Laughable...
I gladly had ~500 AFGE employees under me as CTO two jobs ago. I worked regularly with the Union representatives and we had multiple high stakes situations that I was glad to have them there for (I was not covered by the Union because I was too high rank).
What has been your first hand experience with unions such that you can make such claims?
I suggest you be more open to those who may be less capable, if you are so capable as to be in such high demand. Think about others.
What was your hiring process like? Did it require union approval?
What happened if the new-hire didn't want to belong to the union?
What happened if a union-member decided they no longer wanted to be in the union?
What happened if you wanted to pay a new-hire more than the pre-defined salary bracket?
Conversely, what happened if a new-hire lacked qualifying experience and you wanted to bring them on below the pre-defined salary bracket?
What happened if part-way through the hiring process, you decided the job requirements needed to be changed? Did this require union approval?
Were disputes always settled with lawyers, or could you resolve an issue internally?
My points are, the union ends up running your business. It's pervasive, like a virus, and the outcome is not good for everyone.
> Conversely, what happened if a new-hire lacked qualifying experience and you wanted to bring them on below the pre-defined salary bracket?
The goal of a union is the antithesis to this question. They enforce a minimum standard of pay and work conditions.
So the answer is that person doesn't get hired...
That person never gets the chance to grow into the job, because the union wouldn't approve it. Fun...
The idea that workers are like cattle... and that each one is the same and deserves exactly the same compensation is absurd, is demonstrably untrue, and is de-humanizing. Funny, because unions are supposed to be pro-worker, no?
> These are anti union talking points
The pro-union folks need better come-backs than "anti union talking points" or "propaganda". It's a classical technique - assert your opponent is spewing propaganda while you promote your own propaganda as "truth" in it's place.
Unfortunately we've had decades to judge unions - and people are well aware of their issues. There's plenty of reasons unions are not as pervasive today as they once were.
I’m not going to respond after this because either you have no idea what you’re talking about or you are intentionally arguing in bad faith.
We do? That's news to me.
It's rather interesting seeing people support unions but won't admit any of the downsides.
It's almost like the pro-union folks have a theoretical idea of how a union should work, but that's in stark contrast with how they do work.
> I’m not going to respond after this
Almost like saying you have no real argument to offer so we'll just take our ball and go home.
Anyone who says anything negative about unions is clearly a Anti-Union shil spreading false propaganda. It's a tired tale...
Reducing people's opinions and arguments to "propaganda" or "talking points" attacks the individual instead of the argument, and attempts to misdirect through means of actual propaganda. Not one time have you offered an actual rebuttal... Which is pretty damning on its own.
Just because someone is brilliant with computers or electronics or any other tech job does not mean automatically that they're capable of securing the best working conditions, pay and benefits that they could have. Labor negotiation is a skill in itself.
Everyone has to unionize and endure all the bad that comes with that so a few people can be relieved of having to learn inter-personal communication?
These are areas unions can help with. "Good" benefits in the US can be pretty bad. I can take like 2x week long vacations. The rest gets used for odd days (which is nice). This is the "super deluxe" benefit I should be over the moon for?
I learned first hand in my last job that getting on the bad side of the wrong person can be miserable and career altering; guess you could argue that a union just adds one more of these people, but it also adds an advocate. They may defend "anyone", but that also includes people that have been marginalized and may be underrated, due to being unpopular.
You can be fired for any reason. Your employer might be hesitate to put you on the firing line for political, and legal reasons, but that's not a guarantee anything.
What made it shake out differently for the Screen Actors Guild? Clearly there the high-performers earn top money, yet they are in a union.
Those top-tier actors represent the SAG more than they are protected or benefited by the SAG.
Your top tier actors literally fill seats - so like Sports Stars they are compensated by their star power more than anything else. Brad Pitt deciding to accept or decline a role can earn or lose a movie millions.
Meanwhile, your typical working union compels high school kids to pay dues for what exactly? Minimum wage, and a lunch break?
A union in SFX will result in gatekeeping a ton of people out of the industry. It will raise wages for a select few that were blessed by the union and allowed to work in the industry, and everyone else will have to find alternate industries to work in. Doesn't sound like a net-win for everyone...
With SFX in particular, the issue is there's a zillion people willing to replace you and work for less with even more demanding hours. I don't know how you fix that industry-wide, but I'm betting a union's solution isn't as rosy as people think.
As an aside - where was the SAG during all these Weinstein and Polanski situations? These went on decades and nobody was protected from being abused by powerful gatekeepers. What does SAG even do?
This entire discussion revolves around a fictitious VFX union resolving abuses within the industry... so why would SAG receive a pass?
The SAG pretended like none of this was happening. We probably only know about the tip of the abusive-iceberg countless actresses endured.
A union can’t just take action by outing the women who could have complained. And largely the affected women decided that they would rather make money than be disbelieved by media and courts on a rape allegation. Let’s say the union has your back: then what? SAG can’t guarantee you won’t be silently blacklisted as a troublemaker by individual directors making hiring decisions. They can’t guarantee you’ll be taken seriously by the police and courts. #MeToo was a watershed moment, and it’s hard to see how a union could have made the social structural stars align in our entire culture any earlier than it actually happened.
What does the SAG even do? They don't seem to be protecting or advocating for anyone.
I routinely hear about people doing super long hours in loads of industries. Sit-down jobs. Hell, loads of people in IT get put through the wringer.
> Additionally, in some sectors, unions are a net-negative. Take software for example, where folks routinely make bananas money for regular work. In those environments, unions typically protect unproductive peers, and limit high-performer's maximum compensation.
Would you rather make the obscene amount of money or work with a bunch of people who aren't permanently stressed out from internal rat races? How many stories about people getting chewed up at places like Amazon do we need to hear about?
> As an aside, people do need to learn to say no to work. Just because you want to work on say, video games or VFX doesn't mean you should accept a job that compels you to work horrendous hours for little pay. Just say no and move on... the market forces will correct and adjust accordingly out of necessity.
Unions and labor action can make all of this happen on a way smoother time scale, and without squeezing half a generation of people dry. Why sit around and wait for a bunch of companies to collapse, people to go jobless, when you could instead coordinate efforts, figure out what people want, and move towards that in a coordinated way?
There's nuance, but employers negotiate as a bloc (in that even a single company has its own overall policies), having employees do the same just feels like common sense.
A bit of an aside: I do think it's important to look at what actual union agreements look like. Places like Netflix got better deals when they were smaller. Unions often end up with tiered payments anyways. Agreements get made over multi-year periods offering a good amount of stability. The idea that a union forces everyone to get paid the same and for a strike to be inevitable the instant the kind bars disappear from the break room is prevelant, but the reality is much more nuanced (partly because people usually just want to do work and get paid and do what they want to do).
You offer this like they're mutually exclusive. They're not - and that point needs to be understood by pro-union people.
Just because a place is non-union does not mean the staff are automatically abused.
Plenty of places offer lucrative compensation and sane work hours.
> How many stories about people getting chewed up at places like Amazon do we need to hear about?
Despite the narrative, there's still thousands of engineers happily working for Amazon. Has it ever occurred to the pro-union folks that maybe some people don't share that "experience"? Or perhaps that "experience" was being touted by disgruntled, unproductive employees that found Amazon difficult to coast at...?
> There's nuance, but employers negotiate as a bloc (in that even a single company has its own overall policies
This isn't true for every company of course - and eve for companies where it is true, there's often exceptions that can be carved out for desirable people or high performers.
> Unions and labor action can make all of this happen on a way smoother time scale
Or people can just stop accepting crappy jobs? Unions once-upon-a-time fought for a standardized 8 hour workday. Today, if unions disappeared tomorrow, would anyone agree to work standard 14 hour days again? I think not...
The problem with VFX and that sub-industry in particular is the glut of people willing to do the work for next to nothing and endure absurd hours just for the opportunity of working on some project.
So unions will come in, demand absurd pay, and gatekeep tons of people out of the industry. A select blessed few will be allowed to work, and the rest will have to find a different industry anyway... so what's the difference?
If you think a negotiation between a single individual vs. a company of tens of thousands (or, likely, a cartel of companies of millions of combined employees a la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...) is anywhere close to an even fight, you're naive.
Do you know anybody in Accounting? Quarter end closing is a lot of work that can't be done until after the end of the quarter and must be done within a small amount of time. Public accountants suddently get an awful lot of work come the ides of March when everyone realizes their taxes are due in a month. And another bunch when the extension filers all come back when the real due date hits.
It's interesting that you think we should take it for granted that "maximizing high performer's pay" is a good idea. You seem to be convinced you're one of those. Maybe you're just friends with the boss.
I have some beef with unions, but there's plenty of reasons to have them in the office.
War is peace ignorance is strength