Why is collective negotiation fair but non-collective unfair? That feels like a faulty premise.
A negotiation happens when both sides have a fairer footing in terms of what they have to offer and lose.
When a union goes to negotiate with a corporation, their relationship is on an equal footing. This allows for better negotiations in terms of compensation, working conditions, benefits and what not.
It is the check and balance that the inequal relationship between a sole worker and a corporation needs.
The industry colludes to depress our wages as a whole (Apple/Google anti-poaching agreement and outsourcing). The industry lobbies to enact legislation that brings our wages down (H1B). The entire system tries to prevent unionization through legislation.
If we look at industries that haven't experienced our continued boom, we can see what the future has in store for us as a whole. Depressed wages that haven't increased, decreased to no benefits and a transition from salaried employee to contract work, jobs dissolved by automation and not many options for finding work.
We need a front to negotiate with the industry as whole as we are already on the chopping block.
Reality, however, dictates that not everyone can be truly irreplaceable, no matter how hard they try, and that is what takes away bargaining power. The solution to this is not easy and involves learning a new (and hopefully more valuable) skills, or looking for work elsewhere, and I acknowledge that this can be hard in depressed areas of the country. Many are unable or unwilling to do that sort of thing and think that they should not have to.
However, just because there is no extra industry in your area should not mean that the existing ones should be muscled by unions to make up the difference. And it is very un-realistic to expect that.
Many of the items that you pointed out are (I would argue) directly because of union influence over the years -- automation aside.
An employment contract is an agreement between the company and the employee. If the employee is (relatively) unskilled or (relatively) easily replaceable, then the company has more negotiation power because it has the money.
I have still not heard a good argument in this entire discussion thread as to why that is evil (it is just assumed to be) and why more is not expected of the employee in the negotiation. It just seems very fashionable, right now, to think of companies as inherently evil.
"Being irreplaceable" is a pipe dream. If you've found yourself in an irreplaceable role in a company, you've got incompetent management. If all you have to offer is your skill and time, you can be replaced.
The point is that in negotiations, you are at a disadvantage solely because you are an individual. Your class states that employers expect to pay you between X dollars and Y dollars with some wiggle room.
As a class, your median wage should be higher given the productivity increases and profits yielded by the industry in the past 30 years.
If you excel, you still have a higher base from which to negotiate from.
> However, just because there is no extra industry in your area should not mean that the existing ones should be muscled by unions to make up the difference. And it is very un-realistic to expect that.
No one is muscled into anything. Employers freely choose to enter contracts with unions. The issue is that some employers do not want to make good on the stipulations they agreed to.
It's unrealistic to think that labor should remain divided to be conquered, as the tides in the past pushed for organized labor until it was neutered by legislation.
>I have still not heard a good argument in this entire discussion thread as to why that is evil (it is just assumed to be) and why more is not expected of the employee in the negotiation. It just seems very fashionable, right now, to think of companies as inherently evil.
Things that are negotiable on a individual level are left up to the employee to suss out of their employer. Bonuses, supplementary pay, extra time off are usually up to you to negotiate.
Items that are negotiable on a class level are left to unions. Base pay for employees, working conditions, employee benefits etc are not individually negotiable. No organization is going to bend over backwards for one employee at the bottom of the totem pole.
It takes a group of people (the corporation) to provide those basic niceties and it takes a group of people (the union) to advocate and use its weight in negotiation to ensure their members are provided with them.
Agreed, I should have written "harder to replace than hiring and training a replacement". If you need a concrete example, Linus Torvalds is more difficult to replace for the Linux Foundation, than the anonymous cashier at Burger King. Do you not agree that different people can have different value to a company?
> As a class, your median wage should be higher given the productivity increases and profits yielded by the industry in the past 30 years. If you excel, you still have a higher base from which to negotiate from.
>No one is muscled into anything. Employers freely choose to enter contracts with unions. The issue is that some employers do not want to make good on the stipulations they agreed to.
Collective bargaining is the definition of muscling, as your other alternative is losing your entire workforce, even those happy with their work and pay. Most companies are terrified of becoming unionized because of the new and often unwarranted demands that will be made as a collective, just because of that threat.
>As a class, your median wage should be higher given the productivity increases and profits yielded by the industry in the past 30 years.
Do you imagine that unions would agree to the reverse? If the total profits have declined for a sector, do you imagine they would agree to a wage deduction? The "collective bargaining" aspect of modern unions is only there as a threat to ever increase benefits to the employees whether they are warranted or not.
> Things that are negotiable on a individual level are left up to the employee to suss out of their employer. Bonuses, supplementary pay, extra time off are usually up to you to negotiate.
As they should be. You are an individual with an individual value to a company. Your pay and benefits should reflect what you are bringing to the table, not what someone else is bringing to the relationship.
Unions are the loss of that autonomy in exchange for seniority, often over ability, no chance of individual excellence within the company, instead, even though the union has raised your floor, they have created a ceiling for you as well, less collaboration, each cog can only do one function after all, holding back your company as a whole if automation or new technology is available that may replace some of the workers, etc.
> Items that are negotiable on a class level are left to unions. Base pay for employees, working conditions, employee benefits etc are not individually negotiable. No organization is going to bend over backwards for one employee at the bottom of the totem pole.
Base pay and working conditions are law now, and are not going to revert. If they did, I would be for unions, that is what they are good for.
> It takes a group of people (the corporation) to provide those basic niceties and it takes a group of people (the union) to advocate and use its weight in negotiation to ensure their members are provided with them.
Does it? You can't think of any companies that offer good salary and benefits with no union? None?
I am for more legal protection of employees. Class and regional minimum salaries (and wages) for different types of jobs, national health insurance, living wage guarantees and unemployment guarantees, retirement guarantees, etc.
Labor unions are not for those types of legislations, as it would completely remove any legitimate role they might have.
I am very for the thought of labor unions, but practically, they hold back a business and any skilled or ambitions employees, for the sake of those that might not be as skilled or ambitious or otherwise should be worried about job security.
I agree with that point. My point is that to management, you are a worker. You are an expense that is to be maximized for profit. That end will always be sought. You are stuck within the bounds of what they expect to pay someone for your role + wiggle room.
>Collective bargaining is the definition of muscling, as your other alternative is losing your entire workforce, even those happy with their work and pay. Most companies are terrified of becoming unionized because of the new and often unwarranted demands that will be made as a collective, just because of that threat.
Collective bargaining is legally protected and a contract stipulation employers agree to.
Employers can just as easily engage in manager lockout and prevent employees from working if they feel the bargain isn't worth it.
>Do you imagine that unions would agree to the reverse? If the total profits have declined for a sector, do you imagine they would agree to a wage deduction? The "collective bargaining" aspect of modern unions is only there as a threat to ever increase benefits to the employees whether they are warranted or not.
To quote bsder:
"Many of the steelworkers unions in the early 80's went out of their way to try to get people retired so that the younger people would still have jobs. They also worked very hard to get people transferred to other sites to reach the point where they could retire even if it meant sacrificing some salary.
Or, for something more recent, many of the unions involved with Hostess took several rounds of cuts before finally standing up and taking a hard line that eventually led to the bankruptcy. And, it looks like Hostess is going to be better off because of it."
>Base pay and working conditions are law now, and are not going to revert. If they did, I would be for unions, that is what they are good for.
Minimum wage is law, standards are set up for most work places. Industry specific laws are in place, but they do not cover all industry specific workplace needs.
Tomorrow, if Keyboard X comes out, and is proven to prevent CTS, you can bet that unions would advocate for making them available.
> Does it? You can't think of any companies that offer good salary and benefits with no union? None?
Of course I can. Do you think those niceties will last forever and for everyone? They are an expense to be cut as soon as possible.
> I am for more legal protection of employees. Class and regional minimum salaries (and wages) for different types of jobs, national health insurance, living wage guarantees and unemployment guarantees, retirement guarantees, etc.
Unions have been the vehicle for enacting legislation to provide these things at the national level. Industry will lobby against provisions if it will affect the bottom line.
Having a dozen programmers call your representative won't change much in the face of lobbyists.
The hostess example is a good one, as they would not take a reasonable salary after the market turned, over 18,000 people lost their jobs, and now they get to re-emerge with no unions...I guess that is what you mean by better off.
However, I would just like to point out, that companies do not go to people's houses and foist unfair job offers on them. There is a reason that companies have an advantage on negotiation in general, that is because there are not many companies, but there are many potential employees. It is the burden of the potential employee to stand out and demonstrate his or her value in that situation. Why should you have a job instead of someone else? Why should you make more? Why should you make less?
In reality, they are good at getting floor-sweepers $32 an hour, while limiting other workers with ambition through seniority and contract prices for "classes" of people. They are good at getting employees to only do the minimum amount to fulfill their work obligation and be a slave to that corporation. After all, where else are you going to get those benefits and wages with no training or skills?
In my opinion, unions have destroyed industry in America and led to the wealth disparity that we now have to deal with, by encouraging industry to seek cheaper labor in other countries that do not have unions.
I already agree that unions helped American in the early part of last century, but have been an albatross since.
If unions only petitioned for labor laws to protect all employees, not just union employees, and if union used collective bargaining to set a base wage (with each person's individual wages depended on his or her ability and work ethic), I would be all for them.
Above $50k individuals absolutely have the ability to negotiate. And to do so strongly from a position of power. Good help is hard to find. When you're in the 6 figure range negotiating with huge corporations is the best. Small shops are tight on cash. There's not a lot of wiggle room. For huge corporations there's a lot of room to negotiate. Salary, bonuses, paid time off, and more. It's not crazy to negotiate 50% more compensation than their median offer for a given position.
If you have more power when you earn more and the people hiring you are incentivized to minimize your earnings, you create a down-ward spiral of value. Why'd you pick $50,000? If I make $40K and with a union I'd make $60K, then obviously I've lost negotiating power.
I have never in my life seen a company tell a valuable (note: valuable to a company is a person that is saving or making the company money, not just someone alive and willing to work) employee to go suck it, if they made a reasonable request for more money.
Why in the world would anyone think that it is ok for everyone to "Just Make More Money" simply because they are in a group?
Clearly in any group of employees, some will be more valuable to the company, and others less valuable. This is not a slight against the less valuable employees, just a fact of life.
If you can accept that all employees are not perfectly identical in every way, then it stands to reason that the productive employees do have bargaining power. Their leverage is that they can leave. It would further stand to reason that less productive or easily replaceable (unskilled, untrained, etc.) employees would have less bargaining power, because of the fact that they can easily be replaced.
With discrimination, minimum wages, OSHA, child labor, etc. already on the law books, why are people even talking seriously about unions these days?
You example is a perfect demonstration of union mentality: As a group you want to bully an extra $20k out of a firm, for what reason? Just because you are a group and can?
You will notice that you actually being worth the extra $20k wasn't a prerequisite, only that you now have the power of a union to muscle it out of the employer.
And having more power makes you more valuable, because having powerful people work for you is a boon. So we're full circle again.
You example is a perfect demonstration of corporate mentality: As a group you want to bully an extra $20k out of an employee, for what reason? Just because you are a corporation and you can?
>With discrimination, minimum wages, OSHA, child labor, etc. already on the law books, why are people even talking seriously about unions these days?
Maybe because unions caused those things to happen, dummy.
"With NASA putting men on the moon and building numerous technological advances, why are people even talking seriously about funding NASA these days?"
See how absurd that sounds?
How is this true? If it were true that having a powerful group work for you (powerful in the sense of collective negotiations) why would nearly all industry move to India and China? Why not enjoy the local "boon" of unions to your company?
> You example is a perfect demonstration of corporate mentality: As a group you want to bully an extra $20k out of an employee, for what reason? Just because you are a corporation and you can?
First, I am for minimum national salaries (or hourly pay) for jobs based on description. Second, you are again just assuming that the fact that a person walks into a company and is willing to work that they are worth maximum money available from that company.
The corporation is not "bullying" because the person can go work for another corporation (possibly today) in response to it, the union is bullying because the corporation can not hire the "other" workforce in response to it. You are falsely comparing the ability of a person to work with money, when you should be comparing that person's actual labor to money.
> Maybe because unions caused those things to happen, dummy. > "With NASA putting men on the moon and building numerous technological advances, why are people even talking seriously about funding NASA these days?"
False equivalence. What new breakthrough in labor law might unions create comparable to the breakthroughs in science and medicine that NASA makes every week? Do you imagine that it might revert back to child labor? Shall we still have abolitionists for the USA? Do you imagine that, since we have laws against it, that we might snap back into national slavery?
Unions had a useful purpose in our history. They might even be useful still, but existing to strong-arm companies (and that is what it is) is not useful to modern United States.
What is your problem? Seriously. Labor WOULDN'T move overseas if unionized workers had any power. The labor moves over seas because those with the power decide where to move the labor, and it is decidedly NOT unions.
>Second, you are again just assuming that the fact that a person walks into a company and is willing to work that they are worth maximum money available from that company.
I made no such assumption. I only assumed that the worker should be able to negotiate their worth by using other employees as a resource for evaluating what that is. If all the other workers agree you are worth X, the company should pay X. The company should not be in charge of both determining what you are worth AND paying you, because they are likely to minimize both, no matter what reality has to say.
The only reason you have competitive wages anywhere without unions is because companies compete against each other. And if they collude, you lose that. It doesn't matter what you are worth, only how much collusion is legal or accepted.
>Do you imagine that, since we have laws against it, that we might snap back into national slavery?
Do you know that the laws can be repealed? And that the people who would repeal them are the same people you're asking everyone to forfeit their political and economic power to?
How do you expect a law to stay on the books if the only ones championing for it have their hands tied?
Yes seriously. You stated that having a union makes the company more productive because of it cooperative power. Corporations are economic entities, and made an economic choice, proving that this is not the case.
> I made no such assumption. I only assumed that the worker should be able to negotiate their worth by using other employees as a resource for evaluating what that is. If all the other workers agree you are worth X, the company should pay X. The company should not be in charge of both determining what you are worth AND paying you, because they are likely to minimize both, no matter what reality has to say.
Why should it be up to your coworkers to judge your worth. There is very clearly another better way. You make or save X dollars for your company, you are worth some amount of that. The bigger the X the more you are worth to the company.
>The only reason you have competitive wages anywhere without unions is because companies compete against each other. And if they collude, you lose that. It doesn't matter what you are worth, only how much collusion is legal or accepted.
I am not for company collusion, and it is illegal in most place already anyway.
>Do you know that the laws can be repealed? And that the people who would repeal them are the same people you're asking everyone to forfeit their political and economic power to? How do you expect a law to stay on the books if the only ones championing for it have their hands tied?
I expect a law to stay on the books because people still have the right to vote in this country.
The laws that would help American workers the most (Obamacare, living wage, guaranteed retirement, guaranteed unemployment benefits, etc.) are not supported by unions. Guess why?
The corporation freely signed a contract with the union to follow certain stipulations. There is no bullying on either side.
The breakthrough unions provide is a power balance from which your profession can advocate for setting base pay, working conditions and benefits. It provides a front against mismanagement/abuse and ensures you get the protections regulation and contracts provide. These are problems that existed in the past, exist now and will exist in the future as long as organizations of people are around.
You have a mischaracterization of unions of simply existing to force money out of companies, when their purpose has been explicitly stated many times.
Jobs move over seas because it allows companies to produce something for less money. Period. Unions have the opposite effect of making production cost less money.
>Almost all software shops are not unionized. Jobs move overseas because companies are not expected to act as beneficial actors in other countries, they know they do not have to respect basic human rights or pay a fair market value wage for labor.
>The corporation freely signed a contract with the union to follow certain stipulations. There is no bullying on either side.
How many companies do you imagine "freely" signed a contract with unions without the threat of walk-outs hanging over their heads. This is the definition of bullying.
> You have a mischaracterization of unions of simply existing to force money out of companies, when their purpose has been explicitly stated many times.
I am very clear what unions do in practice, not theory.
Unions might force your company to spend more on something intangible, but they do not reduce production efficiency.