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Comment by dccoolgai | Hacker News Reader

Yes. It's called a "union". They were discovered around the turn of the 20th century, caused the greatest increase in prosperity and wealth for the greatest number of people of any idea in history but then we decided we were collectively too smart for all that so we're inexorably inching our way back towards children suffering in dangerous conditions to enrich a few warlords (and no, they won't pay you on time).

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And when those "union" bosses run off with the pension fund, who do you call? Or when they insist on the dues and then use them for something else?

The police? Like you would call fir any crime. The union boss is also elected, so you don't vote for people that would do that. You have a lot more power/leverage in that situation than a CEO laying you off right before your options cliff, despite what the people funding whisper/fear campaigns and their shills in the media are desperate to convince you of. Point me to one example of a union boss stealing pensions and I'll bring you 100 cases of CEXs doing worse with no recourse for the victims.

Money is gone by the time police comes

It's gone the instant the CEO takes your options by laying you off a week before they vest.

^ that has happened to me. Along with a million other slights: health care reduced, vacation time reduced, etc. etc. A hypothetical union boss running off with dues never has.

Think very carefully about where this abstract fear of "bad union bosses" comes from.

Do you actually think the police protect workers from, well, anyone?

A lawyer? That’s pretty obvious.

It’s what you do when anyone is in breach of contract or some other civil matter. You just sue them.

If it’s a criminal fraud, there’s other people who will help, we call those the authorities.

Money is already gone

And then the court brings it back. Unless they're hiding in Russia?

Oh, did this happen to you personally? If so, you have my sympathies.

If it's just a hypothetical, consider this:

The money doubles and everyone laughs about it in the end.

We can look to our own history.

Years of crime and corruption caused long perception and union density declines from the 50s to the late 80s, when hundreds of officials finally got RICO’d, some unions fell under government supervision, etc.

They still didn’t really give up on crime and corruption, but they never really recovered in the US.

What's the frequency of this happening in modern times and what are the recourses we've set in place? Are there any forms of recourse that you'd recommend be added? And what representatives are running on such platforms to add those forms of recourse for workers?

Or are you just fear mongering about unions?

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