[gabyar]

My first job was at a tech company with a union. Boeing.

It was ridiculously bad. I've never worked with less talented people. One of my coworkers did nothing, at all, for 2 years. But with 17 years of experience, he couldn't be fired.

I carried the team, but they couldn't pay me what I was worth or promote me. I left as soon as I could.

[JohnFen]

I've worked at a few non-union shops that were the same way. I don't think the existence of a union is a large factor in that regard. I think the size of the company is.

[Atrine]

Was it the union that was the problem or was it that you were working for a Dinosaur that hadn't been required to operate in today's high-tech world? Experience has shown that AT&T and Disney are the same sort of thing when working in tech, yet they don't have unions. But what they do all have in common - they are old companies that formed well before the internet.

[hondo77]

Disney is a very big company. Maybe there are parts of it that our dinosaur-like but there are other parts that are doing the sharpening of the cutting edge. They'll fall behind every so often but then they catch back up and have been known to pass ahead.

[WalterBright]

When I was at Boeing, there was a story that a worker slugged his supervisor. The worker was fired, the union got him reinstated.

Boeing is a big company with a lot of inefficiency, but there clearly was inefficiency due to union rules. For one thing, layoffs went by seniority, not merit.

[BazookaMusic]

Maybe the issue was with company being a dinosaur instead of it having a union?

[arecurrence]

Been in a similar environment as an intern. Can concur was worst professional experience of my life. Very glad I experienced this early on to avoid whenever possible for the rest of my days.

Staff couldn't even be disciplined without going through the union rep and everything was based on seniority... with no other reason.

That business no longer exists... its competitors that were non-unionized are still thriving.

[monero-xmr]

People love simple answers to complex problems. Unions are such an example. The core idea behind a union makes sense - it's legalised extortion. Unions have codified in the law the ability for everyone in the union to hold the owner of property at ransom until they meet the union's demands. The only counterweight is the threat of bankruptcy, which ruins everything for everyone, but because the ideology of labor is very anti-business, they don't really care about that anyway.

Very few intelligent, educated people are part of unions, so they have no idea how they actually work. As I am against extortion, I am against unions.

[ink_13]

Based on this comment I am not convinced you know how unions work, either.

[JohnFen]

> The core idea behind a union makes sense - it's legalised extortion.

How is it extortion, legal or otherwise?

[WalterBright]

The extorty part is when the company is not allowed to hire other people to replace the striking workers.

Whereas the employee is free to go to work for some other company at any time.

The rules are not in balance.

[FireBeyond]

There are very few cases where the company is not allowed to hire other people. They may have a hard time, but it's generally allowed.

> Whereas the employee is free to go to work for some other company at any time.

And generally the employer is free to fire people at any time. And to forbid employees from working elsewhere.

I don't think your examples hold up to scrutiny.

[WalterBright]

They don't? Employers cannot fire striking employees. Or fire any that may look like retaliation for union activity.

> And to forbid employees from working elsewhere

That's simply not true.

[FireBeyond]

> They don't? Employers cannot fire striking employees. Or fire any that may look like retaliation for union activity.

Who said anything about that? Scab labor is an extremely common thing. How you come to the conclusion that "the company is not allowed to hire other people to replace the striking workers", I'm entirely unsure. For two very popular examples, both in the air travel industry, both pilot's strikes and ATC strikes have had "other people hired to replace striking workers", with varying degrees of notoriety (being at Boeing, I can't imagine you being entirely unaware of either).

> That's simply not true.

Many employment contracts have "no moonlighting" clauses. Only two states specifically forbid them: Washington, and Washington DC (and Washington's policy only affects lower-paid workers) (https://sbshrs.adpinfo.com/blog/7-faqs-about-moonlighting-po... and https://www.rocketlawyer.com/business-and-contracts/employer...)

[catlover76]

I think the notion of "we are all going to quit and/or refuse to work if employer doesn't do (or does do) x" is arguably pretty extortiony. One could also argue it's just makes the market hyper-efficient by signalling the reaction of the supply of labor to a change in the asking price very quickly and directly.

I genuinely don't know why employers do not hire non-union employees in such circumstances; I think most of us assume they "can't", but would like to hear from someone who actually knows.

[JohnFen]

It's no more extortiony than how employers treat their employees.

Collective bargaining is pretty much the only tool workers have to even begin to correct the power differential between employer and employee. Ideally, it allows employees and employers to negotiate on more equal terms than is otherwise possible.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Collective bargaining is pretty much the only tool workers have

No, it isn’t. There is the individual threat of quitting. And there are the courts.

[vunderba]

Ridiculously naive take. And both of these on an individual level are so diluted as to basically be meaningless.

1. An individual quitting at a company where they are one single cog doesn't impact the company in any measurable way.

2. The court system in the west gives an asymmetric level of power toward the corporation, an individual has neither the time, the money, or the ability to navigate an ongoing protracted lawsuit with a corp that dwarfs them in all three aspects.

[JohnFen]

Neither of those are effective for the vast majority of workers.

[bee_rider]

Unions are extortion in the same sense that a utility company or something like Amazon is extortion; I need to agree to some terms and conditions and pay up, or they’ll stop providing service.

Which is to say, most ongoing services in a capitalist country are provided under the “threat” that if you break the deal you agreed to, you’ll have to look elsewhere to get that service going forward.

[mistrial9]

you are associating a top-ten US Defense contractor with "being in a tech union"

[wahnfrieden]

You were at Boeing