[lvl155]

Love how they mention they’re built in the US by union workers…likely at 10x the cost of making them elsewhere. Modern day unions in the US is not what you think they are. They are the reason why we can’t have fast infrastructure upgrades. People in Japan/Korea/EU figured it out why can’t we have them here in the US?

[komali2]

Japan and the EU, and to a lesser extent, Korea, have actual social safety nets and their unions have the protection and support of the State.

In the USA the Union might be the only reason a certain profession has a healthcare plan at all. The relationship is so combative, unions basically have to adopt a "fuck you I'll get mine" attitude or they're passing things over the bargaining table for nothing in return.

Americans got the labor market they deserve: a transactional one.

[orwin]

To add a complementary point: Unions here are 'global', i.e while you have some sector-specific unions (police, farmers), most unions are 'piloted' by a central bureau, that can't actually force a strike or prevent one, but can add guidelines for strikes, present a plan, decide to organise sympathy strikes or not, decide on compensating striking workers on some specific strike to make it last longer: a postal strike limited to the single city I lived in pre-COVID lasted 6 weeks and you had white collar workers, sometimes in business suit, sometimes dressed like me (probably usually working in IT) doing the mail distribution. It only lasted 6 weeks because the central union decided to use their 'strike comp' budget on this topic that specific year.

And unions make you vote a lot. Once every year for my representative, plus almost every time a sympathy strike can be organised.

[theturtle]

Hornell, New York isn't exactly a commerce center and wages in rural western New York are rather depressed these days. The last fast thing that came out of that region was the Hungerford Rocket Car over in Elmira, and that was a hundred years ago.

[tecleandor]

Sorry, but EU workers commonly have unions.

Edit: To extend a little bit, just saying that unions aren't the main problem with not having better public infrastructures in the US. Also, unions models are different outside of the US. I don't have a lot of information about US unions, but I've felt like the model is a lot more individualistic and closed to the sector they're working for, and in Europe go hand in hand with global workers unions.

[lvl155]

Yeah that’s my point. You guys have good unions.