[sqeaky]

Consider the airline union strikes a while back. They leveraged the threat of striking in fits and spurts. They would strike for a day here or a hour there. Extremely disruptive to the business. The airlines had upper managers covering for flight attendants and scabs on contract but the stress was too much after a while. Because it was unpredictable and there are real costs to training flight staff the airlines could just replace everyone or have a whole fleet of spare staff on standby.

Strikes don't need to be and shouldn't be simple affairs, they can and should be nuanced and creative because the capitalists certainly will try to be clever and creative at putting people back into abusive working conditions when it suits them.

Unions are about organization. Because organization creates options. Options are power. Money is one way to get options and therefore power, but not the only way.

[randomdata]

> They would strike for a day here or a hour there.

Still a luxury of the rich, of course. The poor can't afford to lose a day, or even an hour.

[consteval]

... but its not, because the union makes this easier than doing it yourself.

Okay, just do some simple reasoning.

Who has more bargaining power? An individual or a union? A union, of course. Therefore, who can end a strike sooner? A union, of course. Therefore, who can get paid sooner? Unionized workers, of course.

If you're POOR and in a position to REQUIRE CHANGE, a union will be necessarily better for you. I don't even understand how this can be up for debate because it seems so painfully obvious.

[randomdata]

> Who has more bargaining power? An individual or a union? A union, of course.

Depends. Whomever has the most money. Generally, a group of moderately wealthy people will have more combined money than a single very wealthy person, but statistical likelihood does not provide a guarantee. We can find all kinds of examples in history where exceptionally wealthy individuals have completely dominated over unions.

And even when unions, especially labour unions, do show some amount of strength, they often have to go crying to a rich government for additional power when they don't have enough money of their own.

But if the union members are poor (like, actually poor, not pretend poor like we keep seeing in other comments)...

> If you're POOR and in a position to REQUIRE CHANGE, a union will be necessarily better for you.

Require is an interesting word. What is actually "required"? From what I gather "require" merely means something akin to "would be really nice to have". In that vein, a poor person attaining wealth would be really nice to have. Few would argue with that.

So, why don't the poor unionize and use their power to the capture wealth they are so sorrily lacking? The answer is simple: They don't have the resources to actually do it. Unions are a rich man's sport.

[consteval]

> So, why don't the poor unionize and use their power to capture wealth they're lacking?

They... do. You just described a union and why a union would be good for poor workers.

> They don't have the resources

Right... which is why they unionize, to pool resources.

> Unions are a rich man's sport

You've said this, and never explained how. Rich man are, presumably, business owners. Not laborers. Why, and how, would a union be beneficial for business owners? Wouldn't it be bad for them?

[randomdata]

> They... do. You just described a union and why a union would be good for poor workers.

Okay, given that you say they have unionized, but are still poor, what are they waiting for? Why are they sitting on this mythical power that will magically appear without money that you speak of?

> Right... which is why they unionize, to pool resources.

What resources? They are poor. They don't have resources to pool. If they had such resources they wouldn't be poor.

> Rich man are, presumably, business owners.

Why would that be the presumption? The data shows that business owners tend to be quite poor themselves, if not even the poorest, statistically. Obviously there are counterexamples, but the average mom and pop trying to eke out a living at their restaurant down the street, that won't make the year before bankruptcy, are probably not rich. What makes you think that they are?

> Wouldn't it be bad for them?

Why wouldn't business owners also stand to gain bargaining power if they joined a union? It seems you're completely contradicting yourself now.

[consteval]

> mythical power

It's not mythical, it's logical. If you rely on me and ten other people to run your business, and I say I'll walk without a raise, then you say, "good luck". If all ten of your employees say they'll walk, you have a problem.

That's just bargaining power. It's a real thing that exists.

> what resouces?

The most valuable resource from a business perspective, labor. Without labor you don't have a company. You don't have a product. And you don't have customers. Again, a tiny drop of labor you can let go. All of it? Well, there's nothing left.

> business owners stand to gain bargaining power

Two problems. 1, businesses already have perfect bargaining power in labor relations. They can't get more because they have the most. Number 2, bargaining power against themselves? Again, why? That doesn't even make sense.

[sqeaky]

> What resources? They are poor. They don't have resources to pool. If they had such resources they wouldn't be poor.

This is binary thinking where a gradient is required.

Poor is a spectrum. Someone with a car and a house and a $20/hour job might be poor because they barely make ends meet but manage to save a few hundred a month, but they have more options than a renter who is otherwise financially identical because they can use their house or car as collateral to get a loan.

A group of people might be able to take out a loan an individual can't. A group of people might collect dues as a cost to be in that group and pay them back out to allow strikes.

A group of people can threaten a strike and that costs Zero dollars.

> The data shows that business owners tend to be quite poor themselves

This is bullshit. I now think you are a liar. We are clearly talking about business large enough for strikes to happen and that excludes whatever non-sense dataset you have cherry picked.

More people have more options. Options are power. Why are you arguing against this fundamental point?

[sqeaky]

I don't believe randomdata is arguing in good faith.