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[Lagslayer]

The absolute inequity of power between business and someone hoping to survive by getting a job is so great that someone has to step in and equalize that vast gulf. We wouldn't need minimum wage laws if America didn't abandon unions.

If a union has to force the employees to support it, is it even ethical? That's like saying "You are too stupid to defend and organize yourselves, so we are going to put leaders in place to force you to organize.", and I feel that sort of destroys the whole point. What do you find inherently wrong with employees not wanting to join the union, but still wanting to work in the factory or whatever? Because as far as I'm aware, some states have laws that force people to join the union, while the others do not force you, but you are never barred from joining it of your own accord.

The union IS the workers organizing to defend themselves.

Let's say that 51% of the workers have to approve a union charter for the shop to become a union-shop. What about those other 49% of the employees that don't want to be in the union? With the way things are set up, the company would be forced to fire all of those employees or none of them at all. Those 49% that might be willing to work for less than the union is demanding they get may be forced into unemployment because of the union's actions.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Let's say that 51% of the workers have to approve a union charter for the shop to become a union-shop. What about those other 49% of the employees that don't want to be in the union? With the way things are set up, the company would be forced to fire all of those employees or none of them at all. Those 49% that might be willing to work for less than the union is demanding they get may be forced into unemployment because of the union's actions.

Generally, in these situations the union sets up a deal where the employer takes a fee from the non-union workers to cover the cost of the collective bargaining, and then puts all employees under the union's terms regardless of their membership. The rationale is that this is fair because the union members have to pay union dues for the same purpose, so nobody is losing more or less based on union membership.

Of course, this effectively means you're in the union even if you aren't in the union.

[lordcooper]

Things are so much easier in the UK.  If you want to join, you join.  If you're an idiot, you don't.  Simples.

[Nadaka]

The idea that you have to join a union in order to work in a union shop is by no means universal. That is merely one of demands a union may negotiate with an employer in order to defend their members from being fired for joining a union.

[Neonivek]

Things are so much easier in the UK.  If you want to join, you join.  If you're an idiot, you don't.  Simples.

Doesn't the UK have really violent worker strikes?

Ok... admittingly it has nothing to do with the unions itself but specifically other factors (Namely, you do NOT want extended strikes in the UK)

[lordcooper]

Not really*, unless you're going back to the dark days when we were ruled by the she-devil, or counting police kettling and stuff during protests.

*To the best of my knowledge, although I can't say I've been involved in every strike ever.

[Reelya]

The absolute inequity of power between business and someone hoping to survive by getting a job is so great that someone has to step in and equalize that vast gulf. We wouldn't need minimum wage laws if America didn't abandon unions.

If a union has to force the employees to support it, is it even ethical? That's like saying "You are too stupid to defend and organize yourselves, so we are going to put leaders in place to force you to organize.", and I feel that sort of destroys the whole point. What do you find inherently wrong with employees not wanting to join the union, but still wanting to work in the factory or whatever? Because as far as I'm aware, some states have laws that force people to join the union, while the others do not force you, but you are never barred from joining it of your own accord.

Union delegates are elected from the existing workers, by democratic vote of the workers they represent. They're not "outsiders" forced upon the poor, suffering workers. In fact, it's a far sight more democratic than representative democracy (where there are parties who decide the leadership, and they come from a different social class than the constituents).

And union membership is 100% voluntary, by federal law.

I've never heard of any state where union membership is mandatory by law. my own research suggests "closed shop" workplaces were outlawed in 1947, so what you said is in now way shape or form, close to the truth, anywhere in the United States:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/12/11/right-to-work-laws-explained-debunked-demystified/

Let’s begin by noting that many Americans continue to believe that unionism  is based around the concept of the ‘closed shop’ —an agreement between an employer and the union representing the employer’s workers requiring that the employer hire only labor union members or, if nonmembers are employed, they must become a member of the union within a stated period of time or lose their job.

Not true.

The Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, which amended the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, did away with the “closed shop” era in America during which an employee—who either resisted joining the union or lost his union membership as a result of failing to pay dues or some other violation—was required to be dismissed by the employer as a result of the worker losing, or never accomplishing, union member status.

But there was much more to this law.

The Taft-Hartley Act additionally required that employment agreements collectively bargained for to benefit union members would also be required to inure to the complete benefit of non-member employees, even though these employees elect not to join the union.

[Reelya]

The absolute inequity of power between business and someone hoping to survive by getting a job is so great that someone has to step in and equalize that vast gulf. We wouldn't need minimum wage laws if America didn't abandon unions.

If a union has to force the employees to support it, is it even ethical? That's like saying "You are too stupid to defend and organize yourselves, so we are going to put leaders in place to force you to organize.", and I feel that sort of destroys the whole point. What do you find inherently wrong with employees not wanting to join the union, but still wanting to work in the factory or whatever? Because as far as I'm aware, some states have laws that force people to join the union, while the others do not force you, but you are never barred from joining it of your own accord.

The union IS the workers organizing to defend themselves.

Let's say that 51% of the workers have to approve a union charter for the shop to become a union-shop. What about those other 49% of the employees that don't want to be in the union? With the way things are set up, the company would be forced to fire all of those employees or none of them at all. Those 49% that might be willing to work for less than the union is demanding they get may be forced into unemployment because of the union's actions.

Who? Where? there is no existing law that says this. there is no such thing as a "union shop" in the USA. Let's just get that clear because it's a very specific claim you're making.

The Taft-Hartley act 1947 makes it clear that unions must defend non-union members from being sacked, just as much as they defend non-union members (the non-union employee can sue the union for discrimination under the act), so it would be no more problem for the employer to sack the union members who are demanding higher wages in your situation. Therefore, the union members would be terminated, not the non-union members, if the company could afford to do so. The union members can go on strike or quit, that's their form of protest. If 49% of the company isn't going on strike, then the union isn't going to be able to force the company to raise wages. They can always hire other people. No wage increase is binding until the company signs the paper, so the union can't magically jack up wages or anything.

The Taft-Hartley Act made it clear that nobody could be forced to join a union, with the caveat that any Union is required to represent the rights non-union workers equally to union workers, even if the union only has 5% membership, or whatever. e.g. non-union members also receive union-bargained pay increases, and the union is required to provide legal aid to sacked workers even non-union workers. Because this would create an imbalance (union members pay dues, but non-union members receive the same benefits in return), the republican congress in 1947 included in the bill the provision that all workers must pay the same fees for services renders.

now, there are "right to work" laws being passed. the only thing they do is make it so non-union members don't have to pay the fees. but the critical point is that legally, the union still has to represent the non-union workers. If you want complete fairness, abolish the fees, but also abolish the law about union members having to pay for protection of non-union workers. Then, union members could negotiate for higher wages for themselves, without those wage increases passing onto non-union members. Fair's fair, after all.

[GreatJustice]

The obvious point, though, is that the union is only obligated to increase the worker's wages and "working conditions", not actually improve their jobs. So they swoop in offering significant wage increases, deliver on them, and then cut the hours of certain workers (part time or non-union) to the point where they probably quit on their own. No one has been laid off and pay increases have been provided, they just happened to come out of the hours of those unfortunate part timers. It's also bothersome for the business when it can't offer half decent terms to hire unskilled workers because "Only a Union Man may lift this box!"

Right to Work kind of misses the problem. Really, they may as well repeal the Wagner Act altogether, and Taft-Hartley while they're at it.

[parlor_tricks]

Epic thread derails here.

A lot of the AI debate here is misguided.

1) The discussion on AI here is similar to how people imagined we would be flying on jet packs to work in the year 2000.

2) Hard AI, is about as achievable as warp gates or faster than light travel currently. We had/have to figure out how to make something understand the concept of time for example, and time doesn't mean a clock counter keeps going up.

Any and all discussions which assume that AI will take over, have conversations, act in even remotely anthromorphic ways, come from a position of speculatory hope. In all my readings, AI researches instead hope to be able to create even one of the subsets of our ability to think.

We've just been cracked enough processing and coding power to model a single neuron in the past 365 days. A full brain is some decades away. And that would get us only to sub human intelligence.


What people do need to consider is the situation in the XKCD comic. Skynet is already here, its composed of men using more intelligent tools like drones, or systems designed to augment our ability to see the world.

AI will probably never end up being needed because we will find an intermediary hack which will work for centuries - enhanced Homo Sapien functionality.

[Lagslayer]

Youn have not derailed the thread, you have simply moved onto the second set of tracks we have constructed. This thread has 2 rails.

[SalmonGod]

Rails?  Where we're going we don't need... rails...

[Pnx]

A lot of the AI debate here is misguided.

1) The discussion on AI here is similar to how people imagined we would be flying on jet packs to work in the year 2000.

2) Hard AI, is about as achievable as warp gates or faster than light travel currently. We had/have to figure out how to make something understand the concept of time for example, and time doesn't mean a clock counter keeps going up.

Any and all discussions which assume that AI will take over, have conversations, act in even remotely anthromorphic ways, come from a position of speculatory hope. In all my readings, AI researches instead hope to be able to create even one of the subsets of our ability to think.

We've just been cracked enough processing and coding power to model a single neuron in the past 365 days. A full brain is some decades away. And that would get us only to sub human intelligence.

1) This is true to some extent, we are speculating about a technology that hasn't been fully explored yet, we don't know what technologies will arise in the future, or how all this will pan out.

2) A) Comparing it to faster than light travel is a bit ridiculous, that's something we have absolutely no clue how it could ever be done, this is something already on our way to doing.
B) I have absolutely no clue what you're saying about understanding time, do you mean it has to have the ability to perceive time? You do know that the human brain can't actually keep track of time without external clues right?

3) Being able to talk and "act in even remotely anthromorphic way" is sort of really necessary if you want it to do anything pragmatic apart from just sit in a simulation pretending to be a turtle or something.

4) As for the neuron stuff, firstly we're already pretty close to simulating a rat brain, and the people behind it say they think they can do a human one in ten years (I think that's probably a little too optimistic, but whatever, it's closer than you seem to think).
Secondly it's not necessary to simulate a neuron to achieve intelligence, at least not fully. Simulating a human brain on a supercomputer like this is honestly kind of a hack solution, we can do something much, much more streamlined than this by abstracting the processes of neurons more, or making use of microprocessors to do a lot of heafty parallel processing. Or heck take steps away from basing our work off standard processors, a neuron is essentially just a rather complex logic gate, change the way we work with processors and I'd bet we could do something much better.


I'd also like to point out that while a lot of people have been saying that AI's aren't going to be a thing and that enhancing human capabilities will be the wave of the future, nobody seems to be coming forward with ways to actually do this, which sort of suggests that we're a lot closer to creating a super-intelligence based off of electrical computing than we are based off of anything biological.

[10ebbor10]

1) Actually, research in AI systems is progressing. Though I doubt we'd get an artificial human one, as there's little motivation for such an expensive endavour
2)
   -A) Well, apparently the Alcubiere drive is possible, so ...
   -B) The human brain does have an internal biological clock. And making it understand time can be hard or not depending on AI design.*



*For example, a direct complete simulation of the human brain would do this and much more.

[Pnx]

1) Actually, research in AI systems is progressing. Though I doubt we'd get an artificial human one, as there's little motivation for such an expensive endavour
2)
   -A) Well, apparently the Alcubiere drive is possible, so ...
   -B) The human brain does have an internal biological clock. And making it understand time can be hard or not depending on AI design.*



*For example, a direct complete simulation of the human brain would do this and much more.

1) Well the thing is that with a lot of AI systems they've been using they're... well not so much dead ends as methods that are likely to be very heavily outpaced by other methods. Cleverbot for example could in theory become nigh indistinguishable from an actual person, but it would take a ludicrous amount of processing power to pull off.

2)
   -A) Only using exotic matter, which at this point is entirely theoretical.
   -B) The human biological clock is based off of things like how much sunlight you're getting, how hungry you are, how tired you are... without all of this metabolic stuff you're pretty much completely incapable of accurately telling time. How many times have you had ten minutes feel like an hour or an hour feel like ten minutes, or looked at the clock and thought to yourself "there's no way it's five already". The human perception of time is determined very heavily by what the brain is actually doing. Hence why periods of great brain activity tend to lead towards a perception of time going faster, and periods of lower activity (when you're doing stuff you're familiar with, not taking in anything new) lead to the perception of time going slower.