[jbronn]

Abuse of the workforce didn't start in 1940 and end in 1979. Some labor innovations you may enjoy:

  - Weekends (40 hour week)
  - Minimum wage
  - No child labor
  - Workers compensation
  - Not being massacred by your employer¹

Don't be so glib about the necessity of unions -- the Fair Labor Standards Act was written with blood.

¹ See, e.g., the Ludlow Massacre, the Thibodaux Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain.

[selimthegrim]

There is still research continuing into the Thibodeaux Massacre - https://tulane.edu/earth-beneath-dumpsite-offers-clues-racia...

[richardknop]

The 40 hour week is still not guaranteed. Especially in startup environment overtimes are quite common. In US more so than in Europe, you can easily be pulling 50h+ in a startup with all that overtime not paid for. So it's not like we don't need unions anymore.

[varjag]

On the other hand pulling 50h+ on a shoestring budget is exactly how many startups grew into successes we know today. If that's problematic, one shouldn't work at a startup: it's part of risk-reward equation.

But some want the potential (low probability but out-sized) upside at no risk and strain.

[Matticus_Rex]

I'm not anti-union per se, but I am familiar with the economics literature, and the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, and lack of child labor are artifacts of economic development. People don't want their kids to have to work, so when societies become wealthy enough that they don't have to, they stop sending their kids to work, and around that time manage to also ban child labor (which has little effect at this point in the development of societies, and some of the effect it has is negative). Same with the 40-hour work week (and again, some of the effects of enshrining this in law are negative). Similar with the minimum wage, with some variation by country (and yet again, to the extent the minimum wage is above the market clearing wage, you end up with negative effects, as locales that have drastically increased theirs have seen).

[mayniac]

>the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, and lack of child labor are artifacts of economic development

The economy hasn't stopped developing however. 80 hour work weeks at the factory have been replaced with 40 hour weeks with 20 hours of unpaid overtime. Child labour has been replaced with unpaid internships. Minimum wage often doesn't match increases in inflation and cost of living, not to mention regional changes in cost of living.

Also productivity has practically doubled in the UK since 1980, yet labour laws have largely stayed the same. It could be time to implement 32 hour weeks, or ban unpaid overtime, or raise the minimum wage. All of these require strong unions IMO.

[Matticus_Rex]

"Unpaid" internships are good -- they allow people who don't provide much value to learn and build their capital. People who want to work more than 40 hours should be allowed to work more than 40 hours, and should be allowed to make agreements with their employer that don't double their expense per hour at 40 hours. The minimum wage is just a price floor, and doesn't actually determine wages for more than an extremely small margin of workers, and raising it can increase unemployment among the most vulnerable populations.

Unions have the economic effect of boosting working-class wages and well-being for people in a particular group: high-skill working class people. They depress wages, increase unemployment, and reduce well-being for the most vulnerable groups, particularly minorities and those with low education. There is no broad positive effect on labor from unions; we know from the data that the benefits accrue to a certain type of worker, and it's nowhere near the lowest classes of worker. These gains are relative, and do not enlarge the pie.

(EDIT: Downvoting me doesn't make the economics literature less conclusive on this point, and there's no reason why we should expect it to be otherwise. The labor struggle is an intra-class struggle between the more-employable working-class subset and the less-employable, which is exactly what you'd predict looking at who makes up the groups.)

[mayniac]

FYI, wasn't me who downvoted you (check my karma, I actually can't)

But one by one:

>"Unpaid" internships are good -- they allow people who don't provide much value to learn and build their capital

Unpaid internships are not available to anyone who doesn't have the necessary capital to go without income for a year or so. Which is very few people, and mainly the rich. Or people who can take internships near their parents home provided their parents earn enough to support them and provided they're not in an abusive family situation which is still far too exclusive.

>People who want to work more than 40 hours should be allowed to work more than 40 hours, and should be allowed to make agreements with their employer that don't double their expense per hour at 40 hours.

Sure, but that's still paid overtime, I was talking about unpaid. And a lot of the time it's not a case of "people who want to work more than 40 hours" it's "people who have to work 40 hours". I didn't get a choice at my last job, I either did it or I got fired, and that was with the EU working time directive (it wasn't very effective)

>The minimum wage is just a price floor, and doesn't actually determine wages for more than an extremely small margin of workers, and raising it can increase unemployment among the most vulnerable populations.

A fifth of the UK workforce earned less than the living wage in 2017 [1] and the living wage here isn't that much higher than the minimum wage. I wouldn't describe that as a small margin. All those workers would benefit from increasing the minimum wage. Furthermore regarding increasing unemployment, this isn't a valid argument: it's well established in quite a few countries that minimum wage is not enough to actually live on, so if a business cannot afford to pay the minimum wage people need to survive then they are not an effective business. I really can't emphasise that enough. If people are unemployed because of reasonable increases in minimum wage, it is entirely the fault of the business owners for not being profitable, not the fault of minimum wage law.

>Unions have the economic effect of boosting working-class wages and well-being for people in a particular group: high-skill working class people. They depress wages, increase unemployment, and reduce well-being for the most vulnerable groups, particularly minorities and those with low education. There is no broad positive effect on labor from unions; we know from the data that the benefits accrue to a certain type of worker, and it's nowhere near the lowest classes of worker. These gains are relative, and do not enlarge the pie.

Source please.

>The labor struggle is an intra-class struggle between the more-employable working-class subset and the less-employable, which is exactly what you'd predict looking at who makes up the groups

IMO plain wrong. The labour struggle is between workers and owners of capital, in fact pitting the working class against each other has been a tactic those in power have used for millennia.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-populati...

[ekianjo]

There is poor evidence to support your points. And what about Switzerland that has very low union membership, have pretty much 40 hours weeks, no child labor, and the highest compensation across Europe despite having no minimum wage? It does not add up if we follow your narrative.

[jacquesm]

Switzerland is an exceptional country that has a political system far removed from the rest of the world. Democracy in Switzerland is so direct that there is a much higher level of engagement of the voters with the issues at stake.

You can't take something that works in Switzerland out of that context and then apply it to some other country with the arguement 'it works in Switzerland'.

[ekianjo]

Of course you can. The above narrative clearly implied that unions are the motor of social progress while it is blantantly false. Economic development is what brings social progress. And the richest countries in the world are the ones with the best working conditions, regardless of unions power.

[jacquesm]

> Economic development is what brings social progress.

Not necessarily. Economic development can be limited to the owners of the companies whilst exploiting the employees. That is what gave rise to unionization, it was a reaction to abusive practices.

That unions later on became self sustaining and that they work against the interest of some of the people that are employed (seniority system for instance) has nothing to do with why they exist in the first place.

[ekianjo]

> Economic development can be limited to the owners of the companies whilst exploiting the employees.

This is often heard but there is little truth to it. The more developed a market is, the larger the opportunities for employees to move to other jobs, and therefore exploitation is a problem that goes away by itself. Many countries in South East Asia have close to zero unions yet benefit from very high living standards and reasonable working hours (at least very much equivalent to the US).

If the "union" theory had any truth in it, then you would expect unions to be everywhere in the world before and during economic development to lead social conditions improvement. Yet social/working conditions improve regardless of unions presence.

[jackvalentine]

It would be interesting to explore. How did Sweden come to a 40 hour week via parallel means?

[keyle]

Sorry I wasn't trying to undermine the power of unions and what it did for the population in the last decades. I grew up in Europe. But also grew frustrated by the impossible situation it puts startups in, to achieve anything and remain viable.

[jowiar]

That unions make startups unviable says something about the startup industry...

[baud147258]

The unions in France are currently crapping our transportation system with their unlimited strike 2 days out of 5, all because the unions are clinging to their power. Unions in France has stopped caring about workers a long time ago, they just want to have unionized worker in order to get their (and the gov's) money.

[AmericanChopper]

Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws. In developed economies they only serve as a levelling mechanism, which also make it impossible to fire anybody. The only people they serve are unproductive and incompetent employees.

[forapurpose]

> Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws.

I suppose no political organizations are necessary in places where there are decent and enforced laws, not even political parties, but that's not how humans work. Decent laws aren't the result of generosity from those in power - decent labor law isn't a result of corporate altruism - but of political struggles between different elements of society. Democracy doesn't work magically; it works by the people who have a seat at the table competing and negotiating. Those without a seat are ignored - their obvious needs, their priorities (you can always identify those without a seat: the others say about their needs: 'they're exaggerating; it's not that big a deal'), and needs that only they have the experience to know or anticipate. Individual factory workers don't have a seat, but their union does.

The rest of the parent is just hyperbole.

[AmericanChopper]

This comment sounds a lot like hyperbole to me. People have a seat at the table, that’s how democracy works. People also have an incredible amount of entitlements and protection in the labor market. The labor laws in the west are generally quite good, most of the reasonable criticism you could direct at them comes down to enforcement. If you have a problem with them, then participate in your democracy.

In economies where minimum entitlements are sufficient to protect workers from exploitation, unions serve no useful purpose at all, they are simply leveling mechanisms. Meaning the do not protect workers from getting less than their worth, they simply pull people down and prevent people from advancing themselves beyond the average. Worst of all they make it nearly impossible to fire the incompetent, which itself seems like exploitation to me, forcing the component to pick up the slack of those who aren’t.

[jackvalentine]

> In economies where minimum entitlements are sufficient to protect workers from exploitation, unions serve no useful purpose at all

They serve the purpose of making sure workers get their legal entitlements.

For example, Unions right in Australia are tackling the problem of underpayment of legally mandated wages “wage theft” and have succeeded in getting a state government to adopt as policy the treatment of deliberate underpayment as a criminal matter with criminal penalties.

[AmericanChopper]

>most of the reasonable criticism you could direct at them comes down to enforcement

Sounds like you agree with me. In a democracy, unions are just about the least efficient way you could possibly address inadequate enforcement of labor laws. If all you want is a workers lobby group, then why do you think the best way to achieve that is with organisations that exploit people with collective bargaining agreements, and enforce a tyranny where nobody can be fired? Want to know why it’s so impossible to fire a corrupt cop? Unions. Want to know why incompetent teachers can last a whole career defrauding our children? Unions.

There’s no rational connection between wanting to better enforce labor laws that are already on the books and wanting unions. Democracies offer many far superior ways to address such issues.

[perl4ever]

I have no first hand experience with unions protecting the rights of labor in the US, but I do see that nobody else is doing it while unions have receded. Forced arbitration seems like a significant problem, which is far more deserving of the visceral outrage you express towards unions.

[jackvalentine]

I gave you a concrete example of the good work unions are doing and you responded by just calling it inefficient and saying "many far superior ways" without outlining any. The reality is it was a thing that was happening and unions took a leading role in the political process to fix it. Unions are people participating in democracy.

Not only that, you seek to put words in my mouth about exploitation and tyranny.

I'd also like to point out that beyond your (in my view) irrational distaste for unions, you have a very US-centric view of what a union is. Those of us looking from the outside in are constantly bemused by people like you.

Please only respond to the things I actually say, not the things that you think I will say in the caricature you have built.

[forapurpose]

> The labor laws in the west are generally quite good

According to who? By what standard? And regardless of their current state, shouldn't workers get as much as they can for themselves, just like everyone else? Corporations sure do everything they can for themselves; IMHO even enlightened self-interest, such as net neutrality or reasonable tax laws, is not a limitation.

[geezerjay]

> Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws.

You clealy have no idea about what you're saying. For your comment to make any sense you need to believe that any worker acting exclusively by himself has the resources to enforce those laws agains any company and suffer no repercussion during the process. This idea is utterly absurd.

Meanwhile, unions do offer specialized legal services and do pressure managers to not overreach or overstep their authority, and do so as a proxy to any employee and even while preserving his anonymity if needed.

In fact, if anything you've said made any sense then unpaid overtime or unpaid weekend work would be unthinkable, but instead it's the norm in some abusive companies without any union.

[AmericanChopper]

>you need to believe that any worker acting exclusively by himself has the resources to enforce those laws

Yes because that’s how laws work, it’s up to the individual to enforce them...

Literally no laws work this way.

[geezerjay]

> Yes because that’s how laws work

Again, you clearly have no idea about what you're talking about. It's quite obvious that a law means nothing if you have no way to enforce it or if there are serious repercussions if you try. The moment a lone employee acting alone creates a problem for his immediate supervisors or higher ups, he singles himself out as a target. In jurisdictions that follow an at-will employment doctrine, where any employee can be immediately fired without any justification, then any employee that raises any problem to the company's managers can be fired just for being a nuisance.

[AmericanChopper]

How can you accuse me of not knowing how labor laws work, and then try to suggest that it is up to employers to enforce employment law/regulation? It is employers role to comply with the law, the department of labor enforces it. You don’t need your employers permission to report law violations to the department of labor.

[perl4ever]

I have always assumed that, since lawsuits and whistleblowing leave public records, that employers can and do blackball employees who cause trouble. Or worse in some cases.

[geezerjay]

> How can you accuse me of not knowing how labor laws work, and then try to suggest that it is up to employers to enforce employment law/regulation?

That's not what I said at all. Please don't attribute to me a claim I never made.

> It is employers role to comply with the law, the department of labor enforces it. You don’t need your employers permission to report law violations to the department of labor.

Again, you keep missing the point. What I've said is quite obvious: an employee acting alone has very few, if any, resources to go against his employer, and in the rare cases an employee goes against his employer then even if he wins he is left wide open to repercussions. I don't understand how you failed to get the point I've made when I've mentioned the effect that at-will employment doctrines has on this.

[qw]

The corporations also organize themselves to influence politicians. Big companies even have their own lobbyists.

In addition you get all the "retirement" packages where former politicians are hired by the companies they were supposed to regulate.

Why shouldn't the employees have the same right?

[AmericanChopper]

It sounds like you’re comparing cartels to unions in respect to corruption and inefficiency. Well, I certainly agree with you there. Both are a threat to an efficient free market.

[enraged_camel]

Laws aren’t permanent. They can be, and in fact often are, rolled back or abolished. See Glass-Steagall Act and the much more recent Dodd-Frank rollbacks as examples.

The fact of the matter is that when you make progress in an area you can’t just sit back and relax. You have to continue to work hard to prevent regression, especially when there are strong economic pressures in that direction. This is why unions are as important today as they were in the mid-19th century.

[adventured]

The perpetual cruft stacking seems to be a far greater problem of passing large laws like eg Dodd Frank. In terms of regulation, the biggest problem the US has, is a century of cruft having built up, and the rarity with which it gets fully removed or even looked at + questioned for whether it should be on the books at all. The perpetual, hilariously absurd expansion of the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations is a nice example of that in action (180,000 pages).

My favorite example, that does a wonderful job of pointing out the absurdity of this endless stacking, is the Twitter account A Crime a Day:

https://twitter.com/crimeaday

Who is going through and removing all of that trash? Nobody, it's perpetually expanding.

They almost never actually remove large bills like Dodd Frank from the system, they stack more cruft forever on top. If you want to roll back a section, you add 20 more pages of cruft to do it.

[PhasmaFelis]

May 17: "18 USC §§2340 & 2340A make it a federal crime for a person acting under color of law to commit torture overseas."

...That doesn't seem to fit the general "frivolous law" theme...

[adventured]

The point was hardly that every law on the federal books is bad. If you read the first 100 tweets on that account, my opinion is maybe 90 are bullshit that shouldn't be on the books. Nobody is going through all of those and removing the trash. Every little thing doesn't need a law, everything shouldn't be a federal crime.

eg

"18 USC §1465 makes it a federal crime to produce an obscene, lewd, lascivious, or "filthy book" for sale in interstate commerce."

"10 USC §2674(c) & 32 CFR §234.11(a) make it a federal crime to drink alcohol at the Pentagon without written authorization."

"40 USC §6307 & 36 CFR §520.4(h) make it a federal crime to play a ball game at the National Zoo, except in an officially-designated ball game area."

"21 USC §§331, 333, 343(g) & 21 CFR §139.150(b) make it a federal crime to sell "egg noodles" that aren't ribbon-shaped."

"18 USC §46(b) makes it a federal crime to knowingly barter for out-of-state water chestnuts."

"16 U.S.C. §§707(a), 718g & 50 C.F.R. §91.14 make it a federal crime to submit an entry in the Federal Duck Stamp contest that you copied from a picture on the internet."

[perl4ever]

I disagree with treating every specific refinement or implication of an age-old law as some irrelevant newfangled detail we don't need.

I looked up "21 USC §§331, 333, 343(g) & 21 CFR §139.150(b) make it a federal crime to sell "egg noodles" that aren't ribbon-shaped."

21 USC §331 is just about regulating fraud in commerce. It starts:

"The following acts and the causing thereof are prohibited:

(a) The introduction or delivery for introduction into interstate commerce of any food, drug, device, tobacco product, or cosmetic that is adulterated or misbranded.

You could show that to someone a couple thousand years ago, and nothing would prevent them from understanding the purpose of it. You could probably get someone from the time of Hammurabi to understand the concept.

21 CFR §139.150(b) doesn't make it illegal to sell egg based pasta that isn't ribbon shaped, it defines "egg noodles" as such, as opposed to tubular shapes which are not "egg noodles". Standards to facilitate commerce are normally considered legitimate even by libertarians who wish to radically shrink the federal government. So unless you are an anarchist or particularly wish to abolish egg noodles or inhibit commerce in them, I don't understand where you're coming from.

[selimthegrim]

Good on you for highlighting the Thibodaux Massacre - I was just reading about it the other day in a New Orleans free paper.

[oh_sigh]

On an unrelated note, can we talk about why aviation has moved away from the biplane? Biplanes gave us the first heavier than air flight. Therefore we should keep flying biplanes forever, because they gave us these great gains in our lives.

[cocacola1]

The comparison doesn't really make sense.

[oh_sigh]

OP seemed to be arguing that because unions provided benefits in the past, we should keep them around now even regardless of whether they can provide current day benefits on order with their earlier benefits.