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As unions decline, inequality rises

327 points by vivekmgeorge 4y ago

thepasswordis 4y ago
The exact attitude in this thread is why people don’t like unions. It’s this smug idea that the workers are simply too stupid to understand that they should join the special club. Not that they don’t don’t like jt, or have made an informed decision about it, it’s because they are dumb and not capable of advocating for themselves. I don’t want to be in your weird HOA club. Leave me alone and let me do my work and go get a job in HR so you can be a part of the PMC, which is obviously what you are after anyway.
- leach 4y ago
  It's quite annoying when people just assume that a union would be the best thing for you. They clearly have no idea and just read on the internet that a union would be good for workers so obviously they have to align with that view. The last thing I want is for freeloaders to essentially never get fired and for some parasitic entity to collect dues for "bargaining" that usually isn't even worth it by the time they finish negotiations. Especially in todays climate. Sure the threat of a union may mobilize a company to be more competitive and pay more, but the actual unions themselves just seem to never work out. Expecting an entity that doesn't do much to get you all these benefits is almost insane. When has any union actually got everything they promised? Never, at least not in America.
wendyshu 4y ago
"The Economic Policy Institute is a 501 non-profit American, left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C."
VeninVidiaVicii 4y ago
I think that’s the point. Workers want to be paid more if they feel like they are more deserving.
avereveard 4y ago
This article puts together two graphs and absolutely give no backing as to which one is the causation of the other beyond "see?" or if there's any backing model for their correlation than one could go and test. This is sensationalistic propaganda, not research.
- ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  You would honestly think that in 2022 someone would critically ask the author if they’re falling into a “correlation implies causation” fallacy.
  - avereveard 4y ago
    Considering I'm being downvoted on top of that, I might have overvalued this community as well.
ed25519FUUU 4y ago
Of course, correlation does not equal causation! But in some cities, the govt is required to do work only with labor unions. In that case, joining a union might help, because the government has taking away your competition!
js8 4y ago
To everybody who thinks this is just correlation and not causation - read the post properly. They mention: "Labor unions both sustained prosperity, and ensured that it was shared; union bargaining power has been shown to moderate the compensation of executives at unionized firms." And give a link to a study. This result has been seen across countries, and is the CAUSAL link you're looking for.
- Gimpei 4y ago
  I don’t have any real opinion about the direction of causality. If anything the idea of unions contributing to more wage equality makes sense to me. But, linking to a single study as “proof” of anything is a big no no. It is very easy to cherry pick studies so that you get the “true” outcome. The only way to make a halfway convincing argument is to look at every piece of evidence on the question and aggregate them. This is why we believe global warming is man made and severe despite a few studies that suggest otherwise. One other caveat I would add is that if you read the linked study, they’re only reporting correlations. There doesn’t appear to be a causal identification strategy there. Which isn’t to say it isn’t interesting and worthwhile. Only that one should take the results with an appropriate level of caution.
- next_xibalba 4y ago
  Let's just read the title: "As unions decline, inequality rises" That is very much a statement about correlation. Otherwise it would say, "Unions' Decline CAUSED Inequality". But, to anyone with a passing knowledge of statistics, that is clearly an impossible claim to make. This is one time series realization for one country. Let's go further. Is there any mention of causality in the article. And I do mean quantified causality. The answer is "no". Is there even any mention of correlation? Again, the answer is "no". Let's keep going. Let's evaluate the aims and intent of the article. Let's start with EPI, the publisher of this article. The Chair of EPI is "Elizabeth H. Shuler ... president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 58 unions and 12.5 million working people". Other board members include current and former union leadership from the United Steelworkers, the UAW, the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, Service Employees International Union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Communication Workers of America, and the American Federation of Teachers. All huge unions. In other words, this publication is not a work of science. It is not a credible academic publication. It is the motivated, self interested rhetoric of union leadership.
TexanFeller 4y ago
Do China and similar powers have pervasive unions? If the rest of the wold doesn't, unionizing in the US may be a very temporary victory as union demands encourage even more offshoring and automation. We compete globally now. Globalization may be the bigger source of inequality in the first place.
- danuker 4y ago
  Globalization moves money to people most in need of it (i.e. developing countries with cheap labor/resources).
k__ 4y ago
In Germany at least, I have the feeling the Unions don't do much. I know a bunch of nurses, and they still are paid badly.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Are you German? What if without unions, it would be worse?
susanasj 4y ago
I think this is a good article for tech workers to read to provide perspective on our place in the tech economy (particularly Americans): https://organizing.work/2020/12/there-is-something-missing-from-tech-worker-organizing/ https://organizing.work/2020/12/there-is-something-missing-f... particularly this part: > Early on in my own career in the industry, I felt guilty about making a “good” salary. Why did I deserve to make more money than a teacher or a nurse? Of course, I don’t — they deserve a lot more too. But if I was making less it would go straight into the pockets of investors, not other workers. Tech workers’ labor has made six of the world’s ten richest people, and today computing and the internet are an integral part of every industry. Although some workers are highly paid, the differential between investor profits and employee salary is as stark as in any other industry, because workers are not organized. it's true that tech workers frequently make good money and we should be grateful for that, but when our industry is producing oligarchs like Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, it means that they are profiting from the things that tech workers produce. It's how inequality is increased. It's no coincidence that the rise of the tech economy has coincided with American inequality rising sharply.
- themitigating 4y ago
  As opposed to John Deere or Exxon?
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
  One of the memes that you frequently see in the upper middle class left-leaning tech worker circles is that anything less than a worker co-op is ultimately an organizational structure that is inequitable and exploitative to its labor force, leading to negative externalities for society at large. I'm 100% ignorant of the history of labor and of all philosophical dialectic around it, but I would love to form an opinion on this. Would someone mind steel manning both sides of that argument? E.g. I have questions like, if I'm the founder of a company and I sell it 10 years later and make most of the upside, did I exploit my employees because they didn't make as much as I did in the end?
  - scarmig 4y ago
    Argument for the meme: Labor unions don't challenge the core structure of capitalism; even when they're working, they mostly serve to give a slightly bigger piece of the pie to workers. And in practice, they are hijacked by a certain bureaucratic caste that mostly optimizes for stability and self perpetuation. They become integrated with state sponsorship, which will never allow for substantive change. For instance, in the USA the general strike was a powerful tool in the arsenal of workers' power and drove substantial wage gains, but disrupted capital too much and as such is banned by the NLRB. Since unions' scope is limited to accounting, law, and mediation, they become mostly administrative organizations staffed increasingly by members of the professional services class. These people can never provide leadership that primarily serves the working class, as their economic interests diverge and they can't do anything that would threaten their social good standing. Argument against: An economy dominated by worker co-ops is just wishful thinking. We have no idea how to get from point A to B, and no idea if it would even work. The limited evidence we have for that kind of economic structure comes from post WW2 Yugoslavia and suggests it wouldn't ("they just didn't do it right!" invites the question of how we do do it right). Conventional unions do shift some of the capital pie to workers, and we shouldn't let a very hypothetical best be the enemy of the concrete good. And even if worker co-ops are the ideal, any path that gets us there requires more worker power, so stronger unions would be a good first step to getting us to that point.
WalterBright 4y ago
As the government share of gdp rises, so does inequality. Increasing tax rates, and increasingly progressive tax rates, provide an increasing barrier to moving up.
renewiltord 4y ago
Every time I read something on HN about immigrants I know what a tech union would look like. Like the AFL CIO of old, it will be anti-immigrant. That specifically does not work for me. Confoederationes commercii delendae sunt
option 4y ago
we should stop worrying about inequality and instead fixate on these two metrics: (1) how well off are the poorest and those unable to work and (2) how well off is the middle class
hintymad 4y ago
I think unions in private companies have value. The unions at least know they can’t demand too much or their companies will be out of business. On the other hand, I don’t get unions in public institutions: the government is unlikely to go out of business, so what is possibly the check and balance of the unions?
jmyeet 4y ago
This is spot on. The evisceration of unions is the legacy of the Reagan/Thatcher years (ie the 1980s). Real wages have been stagnant for 40+ years [1]. Much of modern American culture can be summed up with this quote [2]: > “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The Cold War and the hugely successful propaganda against communism spilled over to utterly decimate the labor movement in the US. You will however immediately lose most Americans as soon as you use the word "socialism". Let me summarize the usual rebuttals: 1. Socialism isn't communisum. The first is more about equality of opportunity. The second is more equality of outcome; 2. Socialism is not a poverty cult. Society is insanely wealthy. It's simply about sharing the wealth such that like 8 people don't own 50% of the economy; 3. Debt is built into your existence. Student debt, medical debt, housing debt, etc. This is by design to rob you of autonomy and keep you as compliant workers. Often this is referred to as "neofeudalism" or "neoserfdom". 5. There is no value without labor; 6. "The workers owning the means of production" simply means labor sharing in the value they create. And no, an Amazon warehouse worker getting paid minimum hour and being penalized for taking bathroom breaks is not "sharing"; 7. Too many people have unrealistic views about their ability to negotiate and their overall ability, which is why you'll see so many comments like "I don't want to be kept down by low performers". 8. The financialization of housing turns people into NIMBYs who want to see their home values go up even though cost of housing is the leading factor in homelessness and has historically been used as a tool for segregation after explicit segregation was outlawed; 9. Creating monopolies such that companies can charge $1000/month and otherwise bankrupt you for needing lifesaving healthcare is state violence; 10. The police as an institution that exists today is a tool for protecting capital and those who own it; and 11. You are not Elon Musk. You will never be Elon Musk. Elon Musk doesn't know who you are. Elon Musk would melt you down for rocket fuel if it increased profits. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-said-that-socialism-never-took-root-in https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-...
amelius 4y ago
Can we start a union for developers that sell in the App Store?
jelliclesfarm 4y ago
Inequality rises due to overpopulation. It’s a numbers game.
steve76 4y ago
Buttons840 4y ago
As unions grow they begin to resemble that which they were meant to counter-balance. I've wondered, if a subgroup of union members are unhappy, can they organize? Can they form a union within the union? For example, if my workplace has an exclusive contract with one union, and me and my coworkers (who are all union members) don't believe the union is representing us, can we organize to take collective action against both the union and our actual employer? I known little about unions, so feel free to explain the basics if you need.
candyman 4y ago
Seems like less regulation and less government leads to greater efficiency. The rich get richer often because of government loopholes. Carried interest is a simple one but in the 77,000+ pages of the tax code the rich have the resources to use lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes. Anyone getting a W2 has very limited wiggle room on avoiding the tax bite.
rejectfinite 4y ago
Lots of American cope in this thread. Read this. This is a Swedish general office worker union. Yes even IT https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen
navane 4y ago
Not saying unions don't equalize, but 1940-1945 had something else going on besides being peak union.
timka 4y ago
Fair means inequal.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
What is the impact of inequality in a job seekers market? The perception I have is that employers are seeing difficulty in hiring. Would not inequality and diversity increase in such markets, as employers lower barriers and reduce leverage?
Zeyka 4y ago
I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions, maybe they just see themselves as embarrassed millionaires that would want to crush their workers to squeeze money out of them? It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone, say Jerry, 60 year old factory worker from idaho, can be against unions...
- defphysics 4y ago
  > see themselves as embarrassed millionaires I see this "embarrassed millionaires" line a lot. It seems unbelievably cynical. Do you really think a meaningful fraction of workers are thinking "I'll oppose unions because even though I'm hurting workers, it'll be good for me when I'm rich"?
  - danaris 4y ago
    It's rarely a specific and conscious line of thought during the decision-making process. The more common case is making the working class feel like they're "just like" the wealthy—playing on the narrative that "anyone can get rich in America"—and then selling them on policies that actively work against their own interests, and for the interests of the wealthy. This step often looks like talking about things that would primarily affect the very wealthy as if they would hurt everyone. Things like "taxation is theft", "increasing taxes punishes success", "government small enough to drown in a bathtub", etc.
- lisper 4y ago
  Two big factors: 1. American capitalists have waged a very effective propaganda campaign against unions and 2. American unions have had a history of corruption. (Or maybe I just think that because I've been taken in by the propaganda campaign.)
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    as an American, my casual observation is that "real, political Leftists in Unions of America" were pushed out by any means (media,legal pressure,illegal intimidation and harassment), leaving the far-Right shady people to run them (literally Mafia in many locations, and with the Teamsters). This is a political trade-off paralleling other anti-Communist countries. USA Americans do not have a real impression of the horrific power struggles that can occur within a labor & tax system, and as these comments show, also do not have a real impression of a working, daily Union doing it's job without drama.
factfindingisfn 4y ago
Ha! This is a best loosely coupled. EPI discloses labor unions fund them. Labor Unions did nothing for families in the 60s,70s,80s, and 90s when all manufacturer jobs were driven out of the US due to bad labor negotiations. Joining a union is about as helpful for your job as joining a country club except you don’t get any real perks.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Laying all of the US's industrial decline at the feet of unions is a bit much. I think a lot of the management-hostile, zero-sum thinking that drove bad union behavior was a clear response to previous management behavior filled with both exploitation that drove the rise of unions and hostility when they couldn't get away with as much. An instructive example here is the story of the NUMMI plant in the 1980s, which clearly shows the awfulness of GM's internal culture, the cluelessness of management in the face of existential threat, and how much things can be different, even with the exact same union workers: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 If we want unions that have a collaborative, win-win approach with management, I think we first need management that has that spirit toward the workers. But looking at how US companies are reacting to the recent uptick in unionization, I'm not very hopeful.
pmoriarty 4y ago
Many people don't want equality... especially those who see themselves as superior.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  I want society to get richer. I want poor people (in all nations including China, India, and Vietnam) to earn more money. This is not the same thing as wanting equality. In that sense, no I do not support economic equality. Jeff Bezos owning 10% of Amazon worth $X billion does not effect my life in any way. If he owned 50% or 0.001%, instead my life would still be the same. I'm not sure why I need to be upset about that.
  - eggsmediumrare 4y ago
    The actual number is not upsetting, it's that 1) he achieved that number by exploiting workers (pee in a bottle, stay in the warehouse during a tornado, et cetera) and 2) not paying taxes.
  - kingboss 4y ago
    It does affect you though. Cause Bezos then lobbies that unions are evil and does everything under the sun to keep wages low. Including yours.
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      Amazon led the way to $15 Bezos could do that with $100 million. Lobbying is not expensive.
- atsuzaki 4y ago
  You can see it in the comments of this thread, even.
  - bombolo 4y ago
    Yep, like the people who say they are better than their coworkers and say unions would make them compensated less… USA propaganda succeeded… they don't even realise the enemy is their CEO.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
This analysis ignores the effects of WWII. At the end of WWII, the USA was the only industrial economy in the world, not significantly damaged by the fighting. If you see, the spike of worker union participation is right after the end of WWII. Basically, for a couple of decades the USA had a monopoly on advanced manufacturing. Then as Europe and Japan caught up, there was more of a push towards efficiency as US companies faced more competition
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Sweeden too cope cope cope cope cope cope https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_Sweden#Second_industrial_revolution_(1890%E2%80%931950) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_Sweden#Secon...
kaputmi 4y ago
I have mixed feelings about unions. On one hand – should workers be able to associate freely and bargain collectively against employers? Yes! But, should some groups of workers be able to impose on everyone that they must join their association in order to be a worker at X company, or an actor, or something? No, I don't see why.
- dnissley 4y ago
  Exactly! If conditions are so bad in a company that 99% of it's workers immediately sign on to a union then that means something very different than when you can only get 51% of workers to eventually sign on. Collective bargaining is a escape valve against shit employers for employees that don't have a lot of options. A standing union with mandated membership and support from laws and regulations very easily becomes something far more twisted.
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > But, should some groups of workers be able to impose on everyone that they must join their association in order to be a worker at X company, or an actor, or something? No, I don't see why. We then get into: > In the social sciences, the free-rider problem is a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from resources, public goods (such as public roads or public library), or services of a communal nature do not pay for them[1] or under-pay. Free riders are a problem because while not paying for the good (either directly through fees or tolls or indirectly through taxes), they may continue to access or consume it. Thus, the good may be under-produced, overused or degraded.[2] Additionally, it has been shown that despite evidence that people tend to be cooperative by nature, the presence of free-riders cause this prosocial behaviour to deteriorate, perpetuating the free-rider problem.[3] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem
- danuker 4y ago
  A company should be able to set different salaries for unionized vs. non-unionized workers.
- ljw1001 4y ago
  Only management should be able to impose their will on employees and should be able to do so without competition. On the job, and during their “free-time”. More seriously, imagine where not everyone is required to be in the union and think about how easy it then becomes for management to manipulate the environment to the detriment of union employees until the union is wiped out.
stri8ed 4y ago
As does global warming, and pandemics. Why assume their is a causal relationship?
mannyv 4y ago
What does inequality mean in this context? The USSR, North Korea, and Cuba all have/had lower levels of inequality than the west...by making everyone poor. That is the easy way to reduce inequality/ What the left fails to realize is that absolute inequality doesn't matter. The real questions is the vast majority feel better off? In China, hundreds of millions are wealthier than they were two generations ago. They have increased absolute inequaliry and increased equality at the same time. In fact, inequality as a concept is a ridiculous measure. What does equality in that context even mean? That everyone should make the same amount, no matter the ability or position? 90% of humanity would vehemently disagree with that. In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation.
- bombolo 4y ago
  So you are saying there is nothing wrong with a country where a few own everything and everyone else doesn't even have access to healthcare? > In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation. Yes, rich people, lol. People who GET access to things like housing and healthcare remain.
  - kneebonian 4y ago
    I feel like you are mischarecterizing OPs argument. His argument is that rather than focus on inequality we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall.
    - JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
      > > we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall The most important quality of life metric is mental health. There is no way around the fact that mental health is heavily impacted by the fact that citizens feel worthless when they assess their social status vis-a-vis the top 1% And no amount of stuff will solve this problem because social status is a zero-sum game. It's one of those problems that simply cannot be solved.
      - 4y ago
dzink 4y ago
World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this. There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic. I’d argue the unions were a bi-product of a historically rare moment in time vs cause of equality. The market bust and global world war increased taxation, demand for workers, and value of each worker in the early 40s. Much more importantly, for a few decades after WWII all other global world powers were rebuilding after being leveled by the war. The US instead remained as the last productive developed nation standing for decades and enjoyed likely huge margins as a result of both lack of competition and demand for supplies by the rest of the developed world. Those margins and the unscathed living conditions, also turned the US into a magnet for technical and scientific talent from everywhere else. The more competition recovered in Japan and elsewhere, the less bargaining power and surplus could be captured by Unions. The Union-driven higher costs of manufacturing also drove outsourcing, off-shoring, and did not lead to higher quality output, (if Unions were producing higher quality that would have kept Japanese-manufactured cars from dominating US car sales shortly after). Even further, exorbitant labor costs make it worthwhile for manufacturers to do capital investments in automation, and we are seeing the output of that. The rise in middle class should probably be attributed to investments - in equities, bonds, house purchases. Growing up in Eastern Europe, where only housing investment was an option, and unions were abundant, the middle class that sprouted came from those who invested in property and business. Labor union power and wealth was too politically and corruption influenced to be a sustainable source of growth for the country.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic No, there isn't. The causation is self-evident, and also unsurprising since it's the whole point of unions.
  - MoreSEMI 4y ago
    I think stating that something is self-evident is not a helpful argument. First, it seemingly isn’t or else parent would not have posted as such. And secondly, something being self evident is only used when you want to describe an axiom because you cannot prove otherwise.
jostmey 4y ago
Politics aside, there might not be a causative link between unions and inequality—just a correlation. Supporting unions may or may not reduce inequality

327 points by vivekmgeorge 4y ago

The exact attitude in this thread is why people don’t like unions. It’s this smug idea that the workers are simply too stupid to understand that they should join the special club. Not that they don’t don’t like jt, or have made an informed decision about it, it’s because they are dumb and not capable of advocating for themselves. I don’t want to be in your weird HOA club. Leave me alone and let me do my work and go get a job in HR so you can be a part of the PMC, which is obviously what you are after anyway.

leach 4y ago
It's quite annoying when people just assume that a union would be the best thing for you. They clearly have no idea and just read on the internet that a union would be good for workers so obviously they have to align with that view. The last thing I want is for freeloaders to essentially never get fired and for some parasitic entity to collect dues for "bargaining" that usually isn't even worth it by the time they finish negotiations. Especially in todays climate. Sure the threat of a union may mobilize a company to be more competitive and pay more, but the actual unions themselves just seem to never work out. Expecting an entity that doesn't do much to get you all these benefits is almost insane. When has any union actually got everything they promised? Never, at least not in America.

wendyshu 4y ago

"The Economic Policy Institute is a 501 non-profit American, left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C."

VeninVidiaVicii 4y ago

I think that’s the point. Workers want to be paid more if they feel like they are more deserving.

avereveard 4y ago

This article puts together two graphs and absolutely give no backing as to which one is the causation of the other beyond "see?" or if there's any backing model for their correlation than one could go and test. This is sensationalistic propaganda, not research.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago
You would honestly think that in 2022 someone would critically ask the author if they’re falling into a “correlation implies causation” fallacy.
- avereveard 4y ago
  Considering I'm being downvoted on top of that, I might have overvalued this community as well.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago

Of course, correlation does not equal causation! But in some cities, the govt is required to do work only with labor unions. In that case, joining a union might help, because the government has taking away your competition!

js8 4y ago

To everybody who thinks this is just correlation and not causation - read the post properly. They mention: "Labor unions both sustained prosperity, and ensured that it was shared; union bargaining power has been shown to moderate the compensation of executives at unionized firms." And give a link to a study. This result has been seen across countries, and is the CAUSAL link you're looking for.

Gimpei 4y ago
I don’t have any real opinion about the direction of causality. If anything the idea of unions contributing to more wage equality makes sense to me. But, linking to a single study as “proof” of anything is a big no no. It is very easy to cherry pick studies so that you get the “true” outcome. The only way to make a halfway convincing argument is to look at every piece of evidence on the question and aggregate them. This is why we believe global warming is man made and severe despite a few studies that suggest otherwise. One other caveat I would add is that if you read the linked study, they’re only reporting correlations. There doesn’t appear to be a causal identification strategy there. Which isn’t to say it isn’t interesting and worthwhile. Only that one should take the results with an appropriate level of caution.
next_xibalba 4y ago
Let's just read the title: "As unions decline, inequality rises" That is very much a statement about correlation. Otherwise it would say, "Unions' Decline CAUSED Inequality". But, to anyone with a passing knowledge of statistics, that is clearly an impossible claim to make. This is one time series realization for one country. Let's go further. Is there any mention of causality in the article. And I do mean quantified causality. The answer is "no". Is there even any mention of correlation? Again, the answer is "no". Let's keep going. Let's evaluate the aims and intent of the article. Let's start with EPI, the publisher of this article. The Chair of EPI is "Elizabeth H. Shuler ... president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 58 unions and 12.5 million working people". Other board members include current and former union leadership from the United Steelworkers, the UAW, the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, Service Employees International Union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Communication Workers of America, and the American Federation of Teachers. All huge unions. In other words, this publication is not a work of science. It is not a credible academic publication. It is the motivated, self interested rhetoric of union leadership.

TexanFeller 4y ago

Do China and similar powers have pervasive unions? If the rest of the wold doesn't, unionizing in the US may be a very temporary victory as union demands encourage even more offshoring and automation. We compete globally now. Globalization may be the bigger source of inequality in the first place.

danuker 4y ago
Globalization moves money to people most in need of it (i.e. developing countries with cheap labor/resources).

k__ 4y ago

In Germany at least, I have the feeling the Unions don't do much. I know a bunch of nurses, and they still are paid badly.

rejectfinite 4y ago
Are you German? What if without unions, it would be worse?

susanasj 4y ago

I think this is a good article for tech workers to read to provide perspective on our place in the tech economy (particularly Americans): https://organizing.work/2020/12/there-is-something-missing-from-tech-worker-organizing/ https://organizing.work/2020/12/there-is-something-missing-f... particularly this part: > Early on in my own career in the industry, I felt guilty about making a “good” salary. Why did I deserve to make more money than a teacher or a nurse? Of course, I don’t — they deserve a lot more too. But if I was making less it would go straight into the pockets of investors, not other workers. Tech workers’ labor has made six of the world’s ten richest people, and today computing and the internet are an integral part of every industry. Although some workers are highly paid, the differential between investor profits and employee salary is as stark as in any other industry, because workers are not organized. it's true that tech workers frequently make good money and we should be grateful for that, but when our industry is producing oligarchs like Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, it means that they are profiting from the things that tech workers produce. It's how inequality is increased. It's no coincidence that the rise of the tech economy has coincided with American inequality rising sharply.

themitigating 4y ago
As opposed to John Deere or Exxon?
8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
One of the memes that you frequently see in the upper middle class left-leaning tech worker circles is that anything less than a worker co-op is ultimately an organizational structure that is inequitable and exploitative to its labor force, leading to negative externalities for society at large. I'm 100% ignorant of the history of labor and of all philosophical dialectic around it, but I would love to form an opinion on this. Would someone mind steel manning both sides of that argument? E.g. I have questions like, if I'm the founder of a company and I sell it 10 years later and make most of the upside, did I exploit my employees because they didn't make as much as I did in the end?
- scarmig 4y ago
  Argument for the meme: Labor unions don't challenge the core structure of capitalism; even when they're working, they mostly serve to give a slightly bigger piece of the pie to workers. And in practice, they are hijacked by a certain bureaucratic caste that mostly optimizes for stability and self perpetuation. They become integrated with state sponsorship, which will never allow for substantive change. For instance, in the USA the general strike was a powerful tool in the arsenal of workers' power and drove substantial wage gains, but disrupted capital too much and as such is banned by the NLRB. Since unions' scope is limited to accounting, law, and mediation, they become mostly administrative organizations staffed increasingly by members of the professional services class. These people can never provide leadership that primarily serves the working class, as their economic interests diverge and they can't do anything that would threaten their social good standing. Argument against: An economy dominated by worker co-ops is just wishful thinking. We have no idea how to get from point A to B, and no idea if it would even work. The limited evidence we have for that kind of economic structure comes from post WW2 Yugoslavia and suggests it wouldn't ("they just didn't do it right!" invites the question of how we do do it right). Conventional unions do shift some of the capital pie to workers, and we shouldn't let a very hypothetical best be the enemy of the concrete good. And even if worker co-ops are the ideal, any path that gets us there requires more worker power, so stronger unions would be a good first step to getting us to that point.

WalterBright 4y ago

As the government share of gdp rises, so does inequality. Increasing tax rates, and increasingly progressive tax rates, provide an increasing barrier to moving up.

renewiltord 4y ago

Every time I read something on HN about immigrants I know what a tech union would look like. Like the AFL CIO of old, it will be anti-immigrant. That specifically does not work for me. Confoederationes commercii delendae sunt

option 4y ago

we should stop worrying about inequality and instead fixate on these two metrics: (1) how well off are the poorest and those unable to work and (2) how well off is the middle class

hintymad 4y ago

I think unions in private companies have value. The unions at least know they can’t demand too much or their companies will be out of business. On the other hand, I don’t get unions in public institutions: the government is unlikely to go out of business, so what is possibly the check and balance of the unions?

jmyeet 4y ago

This is spot on. The evisceration of unions is the legacy of the Reagan/Thatcher years (ie the 1980s). Real wages have been stagnant for 40+ years [1]. Much of modern American culture can be summed up with this quote [2]: > “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The Cold War and the hugely successful propaganda against communism spilled over to utterly decimate the labor movement in the US. You will however immediately lose most Americans as soon as you use the word "socialism". Let me summarize the usual rebuttals: 1. Socialism isn't communisum. The first is more about equality of opportunity. The second is more equality of outcome; 2. Socialism is not a poverty cult. Society is insanely wealthy. It's simply about sharing the wealth such that like 8 people don't own 50% of the economy; 3. Debt is built into your existence. Student debt, medical debt, housing debt, etc. This is by design to rob you of autonomy and keep you as compliant workers. Often this is referred to as "neofeudalism" or "neoserfdom". 5. There is no value without labor; 6. "The workers owning the means of production" simply means labor sharing in the value they create. And no, an Amazon warehouse worker getting paid minimum hour and being penalized for taking bathroom breaks is not "sharing"; 7. Too many people have unrealistic views about their ability to negotiate and their overall ability, which is why you'll see so many comments like "I don't want to be kept down by low performers". 8. The financialization of housing turns people into NIMBYs who want to see their home values go up even though cost of housing is the leading factor in homelessness and has historically been used as a tool for segregation after explicit segregation was outlawed; 9. Creating monopolies such that companies can charge $1000/month and otherwise bankrupt you for needing lifesaving healthcare is state violence; 10. The police as an institution that exists today is a tool for protecting capital and those who own it; and 11. You are not Elon Musk. You will never be Elon Musk. Elon Musk doesn't know who you are. Elon Musk would melt you down for rocket fuel if it increased profits. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-said-that-socialism-never-took-root-in https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-...

amelius 4y ago

Can we start a union for developers that sell in the App Store?

jelliclesfarm 4y ago

Inequality rises due to overpopulation. It’s a numbers game.

steve76 4y ago

Buttons840 4y ago

As unions grow they begin to resemble that which they were meant to counter-balance. I've wondered, if a subgroup of union members are unhappy, can they organize? Can they form a union within the union? For example, if my workplace has an exclusive contract with one union, and me and my coworkers (who are all union members) don't believe the union is representing us, can we organize to take collective action against both the union and our actual employer? I known little about unions, so feel free to explain the basics if you need.

candyman 4y ago

Seems like less regulation and less government leads to greater efficiency. The rich get richer often because of government loopholes. Carried interest is a simple one but in the 77,000+ pages of the tax code the rich have the resources to use lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes. Anyone getting a W2 has very limited wiggle room on avoiding the tax bite.

rejectfinite 4y ago

Lots of American cope in this thread. Read this. This is a Swedish general office worker union. Yes even IT https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen

navane 4y ago

Not saying unions don't equalize, but 1940-1945 had something else going on besides being peak union.

timka 4y ago

Fair means inequal.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

What is the impact of inequality in a job seekers market? The perception I have is that employers are seeing difficulty in hiring. Would not inequality and diversity increase in such markets, as employers lower barriers and reduce leverage?

Zeyka 4y ago

I will never understand how some working class Americans can be against unions, maybe they just see themselves as embarrassed millionaires that would want to crush their workers to squeeze money out of them? It's probably my European brain, but I cannot understand how someone, say Jerry, 60 year old factory worker from idaho, can be against unions...

defphysics 4y ago
> see themselves as embarrassed millionaires I see this "embarrassed millionaires" line a lot. It seems unbelievably cynical. Do you really think a meaningful fraction of workers are thinking "I'll oppose unions because even though I'm hurting workers, it'll be good for me when I'm rich"?
- danaris 4y ago
  It's rarely a specific and conscious line of thought during the decision-making process. The more common case is making the working class feel like they're "just like" the wealthy—playing on the narrative that "anyone can get rich in America"—and then selling them on policies that actively work against their own interests, and for the interests of the wealthy. This step often looks like talking about things that would primarily affect the very wealthy as if they would hurt everyone. Things like "taxation is theft", "increasing taxes punishes success", "government small enough to drown in a bathtub", etc.
lisper 4y ago
Two big factors: 1. American capitalists have waged a very effective propaganda campaign against unions and 2. American unions have had a history of corruption. (Or maybe I just think that because I've been taken in by the propaganda campaign.)
- mistrial9 4y ago
  as an American, my casual observation is that "real, political Leftists in Unions of America" were pushed out by any means (media,legal pressure,illegal intimidation and harassment), leaving the far-Right shady people to run them (literally Mafia in many locations, and with the Teamsters). This is a political trade-off paralleling other anti-Communist countries. USA Americans do not have a real impression of the horrific power struggles that can occur within a labor & tax system, and as these comments show, also do not have a real impression of a working, daily Union doing it's job without drama.

factfindingisfn 4y ago

Ha! This is a best loosely coupled. EPI discloses labor unions fund them. Labor Unions did nothing for families in the 60s,70s,80s, and 90s when all manufacturer jobs were driven out of the US due to bad labor negotiations. Joining a union is about as helpful for your job as joining a country club except you don’t get any real perks.

wpietri 4y ago
Laying all of the US's industrial decline at the feet of unions is a bit much. I think a lot of the management-hostile, zero-sum thinking that drove bad union behavior was a clear response to previous management behavior filled with both exploitation that drove the rise of unions and hostility when they couldn't get away with as much. An instructive example here is the story of the NUMMI plant in the 1980s, which clearly shows the awfulness of GM's internal culture, the cluelessness of management in the face of existential threat, and how much things can be different, even with the exact same union workers: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 If we want unions that have a collaborative, win-win approach with management, I think we first need management that has that spirit toward the workers. But looking at how US companies are reacting to the recent uptick in unionization, I'm not very hopeful.

pmoriarty 4y ago

Many people don't want equality... especially those who see themselves as superior.

missedthecue 4y ago
I want society to get richer. I want poor people (in all nations including China, India, and Vietnam) to earn more money. This is not the same thing as wanting equality. In that sense, no I do not support economic equality. Jeff Bezos owning 10% of Amazon worth $X billion does not effect my life in any way. If he owned 50% or 0.001%, instead my life would still be the same. I'm not sure why I need to be upset about that.
- eggsmediumrare 4y ago
  The actual number is not upsetting, it's that 1) he achieved that number by exploiting workers (pee in a bottle, stay in the warehouse during a tornado, et cetera) and 2) not paying taxes.
- kingboss 4y ago
  It does affect you though. Cause Bezos then lobbies that unions are evil and does everything under the sun to keep wages low. Including yours.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Amazon led the way to $15 Bezos could do that with $100 million. Lobbying is not expensive.
atsuzaki 4y ago
You can see it in the comments of this thread, even.
- bombolo 4y ago
  Yep, like the people who say they are better than their coworkers and say unions would make them compensated less… USA propaganda succeeded… they don't even realise the enemy is their CEO.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

This analysis ignores the effects of WWII. At the end of WWII, the USA was the only industrial economy in the world, not significantly damaged by the fighting. If you see, the spike of worker union participation is right after the end of WWII. Basically, for a couple of decades the USA had a monopoly on advanced manufacturing. Then as Europe and Japan caught up, there was more of a push towards efficiency as US companies faced more competition

rejectfinite 4y ago
Sweeden too cope cope cope cope cope cope https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_Sweden#Second_industrial_revolution_(1890%E2%80%931950) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economic_history_of_Sweden#Secon...

kaputmi 4y ago

I have mixed feelings about unions. On one hand – should workers be able to associate freely and bargain collectively against employers? Yes! But, should some groups of workers be able to impose on everyone that they must join their association in order to be a worker at X company, or an actor, or something? No, I don't see why.

dnissley 4y ago
Exactly! If conditions are so bad in a company that 99% of it's workers immediately sign on to a union then that means something very different than when you can only get 51% of workers to eventually sign on. Collective bargaining is a escape valve against shit employers for employees that don't have a lot of options. A standing union with mandated membership and support from laws and regulations very easily becomes something far more twisted.
throw0101c 4y ago
> But, should some groups of workers be able to impose on everyone that they must join their association in order to be a worker at X company, or an actor, or something? No, I don't see why. We then get into: > In the social sciences, the free-rider problem is a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from resources, public goods (such as public roads or public library), or services of a communal nature do not pay for them[1] or under-pay. Free riders are a problem because while not paying for the good (either directly through fees or tolls or indirectly through taxes), they may continue to access or consume it. Thus, the good may be under-produced, overused or degraded.[2] Additionally, it has been shown that despite evidence that people tend to be cooperative by nature, the presence of free-riders cause this prosocial behaviour to deteriorate, perpetuating the free-rider problem.[3] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem
danuker 4y ago
A company should be able to set different salaries for unionized vs. non-unionized workers.
ljw1001 4y ago
Only management should be able to impose their will on employees and should be able to do so without competition. On the job, and during their “free-time”. More seriously, imagine where not everyone is required to be in the union and think about how easy it then becomes for management to manipulate the environment to the detriment of union employees until the union is wiped out.

stri8ed 4y ago

As does global warming, and pandemics. Why assume their is a causal relationship?

mannyv 4y ago

What does inequality mean in this context? The USSR, North Korea, and Cuba all have/had lower levels of inequality than the west...by making everyone poor. That is the easy way to reduce inequality/ What the left fails to realize is that absolute inequality doesn't matter. The real questions is the vast majority feel better off? In China, hundreds of millions are wealthier than they were two generations ago. They have increased absolute inequaliry and increased equality at the same time. In fact, inequality as a concept is a ridiculous measure. What does equality in that context even mean? That everyone should make the same amount, no matter the ability or position? 90% of humanity would vehemently disagree with that. In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation.

bombolo 4y ago
So you are saying there is nothing wrong with a country where a few own everything and everyone else doesn't even have access to healthcare? > In fact, people try to flee countries who implement that sort of resource allocation. Yes, rich people, lol. People who GET access to things like housing and healthcare remain.
- kneebonian 4y ago
  I feel like you are mischarecterizing OPs argument. His argument is that rather than focus on inequality we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall.
  - JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
    > > we should focus on increasing everyone's standard of living overall The most important quality of life metric is mental health. There is no way around the fact that mental health is heavily impacted by the fact that citizens feel worthless when they assess their social status vis-a-vis the top 1% And no amount of stuff will solve this problem because social status is a zero-sum game. It's one of those problems that simply cannot be solved.
    - 4y ago

dzink 4y ago

World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this. There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic. I’d argue the unions were a bi-product of a historically rare moment in time vs cause of equality. The market bust and global world war increased taxation, demand for workers, and value of each worker in the early 40s. Much more importantly, for a few decades after WWII all other global world powers were rebuilding after being leveled by the war. The US instead remained as the last productive developed nation standing for decades and enjoyed likely huge margins as a result of both lack of competition and demand for supplies by the rest of the developed world. Those margins and the unscathed living conditions, also turned the US into a magnet for technical and scientific talent from everywhere else. The more competition recovered in Japan and elsewhere, the less bargaining power and surplus could be captured by Unions. The Union-driven higher costs of manufacturing also drove outsourcing, off-shoring, and did not lead to higher quality output, (if Unions were producing higher quality that would have kept Japanese-manufactured cars from dominating US car sales shortly after). Even further, exorbitant labor costs make it worthwhile for manufacturers to do capital investments in automation, and we are seeing the output of that. The rise in middle class should probably be attributed to investments - in equities, bonds, house purchases. Growing up in Eastern Europe, where only housing investment was an option, and unions were abundant, the middle class that sprouted came from those who invested in property and business. Labor union power and wealth was too politically and corruption influenced to be a sustainable source of growth for the country.

goodpoint 4y ago
> There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic No, there isn't. The causation is self-evident, and also unsurprising since it's the whole point of unions.
- MoreSEMI 4y ago
  I think stating that something is self-evident is not a helpful argument. First, it seemingly isn’t or else parent would not have posted as such. And secondly, something being self evident is only used when you want to describe an axiom because you cannot prove otherwise.

jostmey 4y ago

Politics aside, there might not be a causative link between unions and inequality—just a correlation. Supporting unions may or may not reduce inequality