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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31398 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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I’d say they owe their continued existence to the fact that they are rationally, game-theoretically correct. Your employer does not need you. It needs people like you. Why shouldn’t you bargain as a group?

Yes, they levy a tax, and we could do things cheaper without them. “Cheapness” isn’t the only goal worth pursuing. Something resembling “fairness” has its own place in the American mythology, and unions were lionized because they flattered that goal. The further they get from that motte, the less support they’ll see from left and right.

Why shouldn’t you bargain as a group?

This is really only possible through federal legislation that enables it. That’s who they owe their existence to. Other countries don’t have this problem: why? Their governments don’t allow it

That…isn’t actually a reason.

That it’s illegal is a great reason not to do something!

I'm seeing a lot of kinda lukewarm pro-union takes here there don't really capture the current situation.

This isn't a normal union.

It's a mostly hereditary union that is segregated along racial lines. The members get paid gobs of money, with a median wage north of $150k per year. Foremen can pull down up to $500k a year. The union boss makes $1 million a year (plus whatever illegal takes he draws), drives a Bentley and recently sold his 77 foot yacht. He is closely connected to the Genovese mob family and a witness was killed to protect him from RICO charges in 2005.

This one really isn't big business vs. hardworking blue collar types. It's more like feudal lords vs. petty barons. The oppressed peasantry are not represented on either side of the table. There is no fairness here.

A hereditary union (not officially) segregated along racial lines. Sounds right up the alley of some of the folks here, interestingly.

In what ways could these unions be considered EHC? I mean they've clearly managed to get one over on all of us. That takes skill.

“Lukewarm” is about what I’d expect for principled defenses of uncomfortable optics.

I kind of waffled between my two paragraphs. I’m strongly in favor of collective bargaining as a concept, since firms are categorically different than individuals, so I objected to OP’s characterization. And I really do think the popularity of unions stems from a genuine desire for “fairness,” so cases like this will damage them. On the other hand, I’d be alright with more limitations; I just don’t have a good idea of what those look like.

(Also, I’ve been trying more aggressive editing for conciseness. It’s going okay.)

this union needs to go. Unions in general have their place, and a port is one of those places.

I'd have a lot more sympathy for unions if they just demanded higher wages/safer working conditions, even extreme increases, instead of fighting against automation and other measures that increase productivity.

I mean automation directly means less jobs and that people will be fired. Why wouldn't they fight against it?

The union's job isn't to increase productivity, it's to protect the workers.

I argue against a lot of things that are in the actor's best interests. Theft is the most obvious example: it gets you stuff, why wouldn't you do it?

Their fight against automation is anti-social, so opposing the unions is justified IMO.

Yeah, I'm on board with this. Someone saying, "I want more money for my job" is rational and often sympathetic. Someone saying, "I could be replaced by a robot, but I'll break your stupid fucking robot so you'd better just pay me" is a criminal and should be destroyed. The government explicitly favors the criminal thugs that would prevent businesses from improving efficiency, which makes the matter that much uglier.

What about "I could be replaced by an immigrant"?

I am not broadly sympathetic to the "took errrr jerbs" line of anti-immigration arguments. Maybe there's something there, maybe there's not, but whether it's immigrants or just other domestic laborers, I'm not impressed with rent-seeking in the form of artificially limiting labor supplies.

Are they threatening to kill the immigrant, which is analogous to breaking the robot?

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That criminal thug you described is going to be all of us in about five years.

They dealt with the Luddites eventually. By having soldiers and mercenaries shoot them and then hanging the survivors.

"rent seeking bullshit jobs until the sun swallows the earth" is maybe not the worst fate for humanity but it's gotta be up there.

Wonder if there's a business opportunity in plausibly-deniably selling equipment for that purpose.

I don't think the typical inefficiencies introduced by unions are literal violence. The issue is more that, when negotiations happen, the union bureaucracy inserts things that are more aligned with its continued and expanded power, and employers accept those things because they're cheaper in the short term than simply paying workers more or sharing some of the gains of automation with them. If it causes issues for the company/government a decade or more down the line, what does it matter? The individuals involved in the negotiation will be comfortably retired anyways.

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