[srkmno]

Whatever your thoughts about arbitration there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method, what this unfortunate development accomplishes is enlarging the pool of well to do clients and plaintiffs for the lawyers to exploit.

In a related note: organized labor almost killed the US car industry, when economical foreign cars got popular, domestic car companies couldn't quickly make the necessary adjustments to compete with the foreign product largely because of the inertia of union agreements.

Labor unions are adversarial to change and innovation and especially in this era there is no place for them and hopefully automation will eradicate them completely, it's disheartening that many HN commenters would support such antiquated and inefficient agreements.

[40acres]

This is a strange comment and something I see a lot in online forums, I guess you could characterize this as the "slippery slope" or "worst case scenario" argument. Unions have no power in big tech right now, none of the top tech companies have something resembling a union -- and yet even the discussion of unionization within the tech industry, despite some really terrible working conditions for "auxiliary" tech workers (ride share drivers, fulfillment center workers, delivery app drivers) and "core" workers (ageism anyone?) the slight mention of unionization and/or collective bargaining brings up these types of scenarios. Unionization in tech is not going to look like it does in other industries, I can't help but wonder why some folks shoot it discussions so quickly with this type of argument.

[srkmno]

The reason "auxiliary" workers get a raw deal in this country is that health insurance is dealt through employers via a terrible WW2 era tax incentive.

If companies didn't get on the hook for providing health insurance they would directly employ more people instead of using contractors.

So this is why I'm worried about labor unions in tech and the private sector in general; they are never the solution, and their lack isn't the cause to any of the described problems.

[s17n]

The point of unions is to get workers a better deal through collective bargaining. In a company that's growing rapidly, it doesn't make sense for either the employees or the owners / management to worry too much about how the pie is getting divided up. As companies mature and growth slows, employees who aren't unionized are inevitably going to get screwed. In an industry where corporate profits can exceed $1000000 per employee, I'd say we need more unionization.

[srkmno]

So they can kill these companies faster?

[FridgeSeal]

Hahahahaha, I don't think half these startups need any help grinding themselves into the dirt any faster, nor do I think that unions would contribute meaningfully to extinguishing something that wasn't already in process of that.

And honestly, if some hotshot startup dies because it's treating its workers like trash then good riddance. In this day and age we ought to do better than exploiting workers to the bone just because we can.

[BookmarkSaver]

>The reason "auxiliary" workers get a raw deal...

is because they are something of a commodity. It's low-skill work that is managed in bulk and individuals can be replaced with little friction. The core IT work is in demand by companies, rather than the other way around.

I mean, your point is also true, but it's more of an additional factor rather than the main one.

[srkmno]

Yes, they are a commodity, so either they can invest in their education and skills to make themselves more valuable or make it easier for companies to take on more of that "commodity".

A stronger safety net that would allow unemployment workers to acquire new skill is a much better social endeavor than antiquated labor unions.

[JohnFen]

> there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method

I don't think anyone is disputing that. The problem is that "cheaper" and "faster" comes with the cost of injustice.

> Labor unions are adversarial to change and innovation and especially in this era there is no place for them

Why not? What replaces them? The entire point of unions is to try to correct the serious power imbalance between employer and employee, an imbalance that historically (and currently) has been eagerly leveraged against employees.

What sort of protection against this would you recommend? Much stricter regulation?

[srkmno]

1. I can't take seriously someone who writes "the cost of injustice" in this context.

2. When unions muddle the machinations of corporate management and production ultimately shutting the whole thing down surely they will be happy about the power balance they achieved.

In a free market an employee's own abilities and the dynamism of the economy determines their value. So the trick is to invest in one's education and coming up with policies that keep the economy chugging at a healthy pace, labor unions is not such a policy.

[jdmichal]

This is removing forced arbitration. Parties can still agree to settle a case via arbitration. But now it will actually be an agreement between the two parties for a particular case, as opposed to a blanket contractual obligation with unbalanced power dynamics.

[ThrustVectoring]

Quicker and cheaper is not a good thing. Your negotiating power is based on your BATNA, or Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement.

With a binding arbitration agreement, the company's BATNA is paying for arbitration proceedings. Without it, their BATNA is getting sued and going through discovery. Discovery in high-profile cases will wind up resulting in a gigantic PR disaster, which means that the company settles for basically whatever damages the aggrieved employee asks for.

[srkmno]

> Discovery in high-profile cases will wind up resulting in a gigantic PR disaster, which means that the company settles for basically whatever damages the aggrieved employee asks for.

And that's good thing?!

[ThrustVectoring]

For employees, yes. The company can offer a settlement for basically all the monetary claims if the employee skips discovery and agrees to not speak about the case.

[gpm]

> there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method

Yes there is. One of the primary motiations some companies have for forcing abitration is to make claims that would usually be covered by class actions prohibitively expensive to pursue. Recently that has backfired for Uber with 12,500 individual actions being filed against them [0].

Also, when arbitrators actual go ahead and do things properly with discovery and all, the costs can be greater than court because instead of the taxpayers paying for the judge the parties in the suit do, e.g. [1].

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-us-otc-uber/forced-int...

[1] https://www.employmentclassactionreport.com/flsa/eleventh-ci...