[bearmcbearsly]

I dunno... I was a victim of this wage-fixing scheme, as were all of my coworkers at the time. And I don't know of a single one who would have preferred to have a union collectively negotiating wages.

The whole scheme was that the companies stopped their recruiters from cold-calling each others' employees. That kept wages down by reducing the opportunities for people to get a better salary by moving between companies (or threatening to). If wages were collectively negotiated, those opportunities would not exist in the first place.

[piva00]

Why do you think that strong unions will fight for collective negotiation of wages?

Sweden has one of the strongest union system in the world and at the same time is one of the most entrepreneurial nations with high wages and lots of billionaires, salaries are lower than the US but they are still negotiated and not fixed by the union. The minimum wage for a specific job might be but apart from that I'm free to negotiate my salary. At the same time I have more days of vacation than the minimum 25 because of collective bargaining. I have requirements for minimum amount of natural light by my desk while at the same time can negotiate bonuses, shares, stock options or whatever because those aren't regulated by a collective agreement.

Kollektivavtal[0] are one of the backbone of how Swedish entrepreneurship works, to help society as whole and to give power to the weak link of the chain, it's an interesting model and one of the reasons why I chose to live here.

One of the ways it work is that by covering so many people the few companies that aren't covered by a collective agreement are naturally forced by the labour market to match the minimum, be it wages or benefits. Because unemployment is low people can shop around if there are better places to work.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement

[bobbytran]

It's very difficult to actually grow a company in a country like Sweden because of the regulations and taxes you are required to pay after a certain amount of employees.

[gamblor956]

I would rather pay employees a living wage as part of a sustainable business than deal with the hypergrowth VC bullshit that destroys entire market segments with nothing to show for it except ruined lives after the startups finally implode.

[bobbytran]

There will be no sustainable business. Regulations and taxes strangle your business before it gets to that point.

If you look at the business landscape of Sweden, it mostly consists of large multinational corporations with bases outside of Sweden (IKEA is a good example of this) and government jobs.

It doesn't leave much room for individuals wanting to start a business and actually having an chance at success.

[pnako]

It's a country of 10 millions that builds jet fighters (Gripen), 5G technology with Ericsson, Minecraft, etc. The current NASDAQ trading platform was also developed in Sweden.

I would say they're doing very well when it comes to business and technology.

[bobbytran]

All government funded operations except Minecraft..which is now owned by Microsoft.

Funny..the Original owner of Minecraft never stayed in Sweden with his billion dollars.

My point still stands: you can start a company in Sweden, but will never be able to grow it to sustainable levels unless you incorporate elsewhere (or get purchased).

All examples I've seen so far have only helped prove my point.

[Apocryphon]

How was Spotify invented, in your mind?

[bobbytran]

You made my point again. If you look at the wikipedia page, it's not incorporated in Sweden. It's a multinational corporation with an office in Sweden.

[piva00]

Do you have some data to share to back that statement?

[Frost1x]

Perhaps that's a good thing.

[nine_k]

So goes the Sweden's GDP and tax base.

BTW Ikea is no more operating primarily from Sweden, partly because of these reasons.

[piva00]

No, it is because tax evasion using international ports to hoard wealth is a thing, because other countries don't have any will to disallow that when they can earn free tax money from companies trying to evade their duties.

It is a race to the bottom with tax schemes, not the fault of Sweden to try to uphold its values and ways of living. So far it has worked pretty well, tell me more how it can be improved because as a country of 10m people I'd say it is pretty impressive.

Even more if your whining about taxes is so real, then you should come teach the Swedish government how to do it right and better because we are losing a lot of money it seems...

[freeone3000]

Collective bargaining does not necessarily include collective negotiation of wages.

[djrogers]

Can you point to an example of a large US union that doesn't collectively bargain wage scales?

[Herrin]

The Screen Actors Guild, and the players unions for most professional sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, etc). They recognize that their members have different levels of talent, and allow the stars to make more, while still ensuring basic rights for every member.

[aidenn0]

SAG and all the professional sports unions do set minimum pay scale. In the case of the NBA, the maximum pay is set well below open-market levels.

[Phillipharryt]

Presumably a maximum pay is set with the intention of allowing that money to go elsewhere in the sport? The NBA knows stars will get paid very well, but they want to ensure not all the money is spent on them so that lesser known players are fairly compensated as well. It seems a smart idea especially because an instituted max is still allowing stars to be paid 8 figures a year.

[sokoloff]

IMO, the maximum pay/salary caps are set to promote competition across the league. As an entertainment product provided by a monopoly supplier, that's exactly the right thing to do. As a (clearly hypothetical if you'd ever met me) top talented employee under such a scheme, it's terribly counter-productive to my individual situation.

[jdminhbg]

> the players unions for most professional sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, etc)

This is wrong. The major sports unions all collectively bargain minimum salaries, and in some cases maximum salaries as well.

[Igelau]

You can't get a job in a SAG affiliated production until enough SAG members are hired, but you can't become a SAG member until you've been in a SAG affiliated production.

I'm not an actor, but on the outside that Catch 22 stinks of Old Boy Network tactics.

[bearmcbearsly]

And how's that working out for them? The median SAG/AFTRA member makes less than $1,000 per year from acting. And the pro sports players associations are tiny -- they exclude the much larger group of athletes who try to make a living playing sports but don't make the big leagues.

[gamblor956]

SAG/AFTRA is a large union that represents actors in TV/film, as well as actors in theater, who generally make diddly squat because not many people watch theater performances in the US.

By way of comparison, the rate for a single background-role (i.e., as an extra) in a commercial at SAG rates is more than 3x the non-SAG rate for the same time. ($630 vs $200). If you live in a city like LA or NY, you could make a living wage working (as a background actor) just 45 days a year.

[makomk]

SAG's hourly rates are great on paper - well above market, in fact. The net result of this is that your typical SAG member who doesn't have the power to demand higher rates anyway based on their own reputation ends up with almost no work because so few productions can afford to hire them, which is why their actual income is so low. The way SAG maintains its power despite this is by requiring productions that want to hire more in-demand actors to only employ SAG actors, forcing everyone to sign up to SAG and commit to waiting tables rather than acting most of the time.

If you cast your mind back to the video game voice actor strike a few years ago, for example, you may recall that one of the justifications for that was that they needed more money because many of them were only getting something like one day's work a month on average. Mostly because no-one outside of the big triple-AAA games could afford to hire union voice actors. Back in the day, a lot of video game and anime voice acting was apparently done by union members under pseudonyms so the union didn't find out; that's probably harder to get away with these days.

[Apocryphon]

Lesser leagues also have unions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22359888

And those that don't, want them:

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/6/5/17251534/mlb-draft-min...

https://www.theringer.com/2019/1/23/18193121/ufc-unionizatio...

[prawn]

I'm not familiar with union laws, but couldn't those workers form a union that did exactly what they wanted and none of what they didn't want?

[nine_k]

Why can't we have any other organization to which we delegate our power, but which then does exactly what we want it to do?

Because with the power comes an opinion on how to best wield it — maybe entirely for the good of the community, but often not limited by that. People why strive to be in control most often have their own axe to grind, too.

But a larger problem is the "they want". "They" are many people, and their opinions on a particular topic are "mostly aligned" at best. This is not a single opinion or want. This is why any collective action of this sort can be "mostly satisfactory" for the participants at best, and often quite disliked by some minor fraction of them.

[stale2002]

> did exactly what they wanted and none of what they didn't want?

Unfortunately, many workers want to do horrible things, such as to make it illegal for someone to work in engineering of they don't have a CS degree, or if they came out of a bootcamp, or the like.

Workers voting to put up barriers to entry, and keep out the competition, is both rational, democratic, common in unions, and also a completely horrible thing to do.

[qtplatypus]

Because it results in a parasite effect. The union uses its power to negotiate a pay rise for its members. The business then gives the pay rise to all the employees. Each employee thinks “Well I would have got the benefit if I was a union member or not, so I’ll stop paying my union fees”