Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[McTraveller]

Hey yeah I guess that’s a way to frame my thoughts - government should be protecting workers, and because it fails we get competing micro-governments in the form of unions. I’m not a fan of this because I don’t have a voice in those unions. Maybe that’s selfish…

I agree with the assessment of the difference between capitalists versus the rent-seeking-ists.

[bloop_bleep]

Why should you get a voice in how union workers protect their compensation?

[Laterigrade]

Capitalists try to find a niche where they can own capital and let people use it to create more value which they can skim off the top and call profits while the really successful pricks are the ones who figured out how to stake out a new territory they can rent to capitalists.

This is why everything went streaming/cloud based, capitalists hate capitalism, they'd all rather become techno-feudalists if they could, plus they know if they don't do it first then their compatriots are gonna beat them to it.

Cory Doctorow explains lots of this stuff: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/11/equal-opportunity-class-war/#inclusive-scabbing and yeah, he goes into other fascinating topics like that and more.

dang, it’s been so long since I read anything by Cory Doctorow, thanks for linking this

[McTraveller]

Why should you get a voice in how union workers protect their compensation?

Because one way or another, everyone pays for everything… and any government (or pseudo-government) decision is usually made between two parties but imposes a cost on a third party that isn’t part of the agreement.

Think about how many things you have to pay because of others’ decisions.

[Maximum™]

I am unable to see how NOT having unions around gives anybody more say/input/control over anything though?

I mean, except employers getting to do what they want without them around.

Like, strictly speaking you are free to lobby any union yourself, and yeah if you aren't a member it is unlikely it would do anything... but again how is that worse than lacking any ability to influence huge portions of the economy and the wellbeing of the workers involved in said economy?

We've seen since Reagan that if you weaken unions, reduce taxes, stop enforcing antitrust laws, repeal regulations, bail out scammers if they're massive enough, and so forth... at no point does any sort of englightened self-interest kick in to produce noble and beneficial actions by businesses.

So it kinda sounds like you're saying it'll probably be fine if we just keep going down this same late stage capitalist road to ever shittier conditions for all but the wealthiest fraction of the population, but you don't seem like a rabid right wing nutcase so that doesn't make sense unless you're the sort of person who--as Doctorow pointed out--if asked whether property rights or human rights are more important responds "property rights are human rights" which places you firmly on the side of right winger "fuck you, I got mine, but even if I don't, we can't risk letting those I see as inferior to me get theirs!"

[Random_Dragon]

Some people have reeeaaally just mainlined the corporate simp koolaid.

[McTraveller]

I feel like I'm being misunderstood here. I do not think that the treatment of laborers is good in today's world. I'm not defending ideas like "I have mine, why don't you have yours?"

My view is that taking from others without giving something in exchange is never a long-term positive for society. Vilifying members of a group just because they are in a group is never a long-term positive.

I don't vilify union members or union leadership, nor do I vilify CEOs. I just question the long-term benefit of the approaches of both groups.  I think both are on a path for destruction, not long-term sustainable peace.

[Schmaven]

Unions could do a lot better in some areas.  Allowing for performanced based wage increases would be great.  Or if they make long term wage contracts, tieing it to inflation would be nice, rather than getting everyone stuck with 3 years of pay cuts to look forward to.  It also seems like they would do better if they approached negotiations from a place of teamwork, rather than outright hostility.  Let's say I start doing carpentry work on my own, but get too much work to do on my own, so I hire people to help.  Now I have to spend more time finding work to keep everyone employed.  Also, making sure there is enough extra money for parts, tools, insurance, and work vehicles.  Suddenly I'm the enemy because I have employees?

[Frumple]

Let's say I start doing carpentry work on my own, but get too much work to do on my own, so I hire people to help.  Now I have to spend more time finding work to keep everyone employed.  Also, making sure there is enough extra money for parts, tools, insurance, and work vehicles.  Suddenly I'm the enemy because I have employees?

Nah, you're the enemy because you're probably making some major markup over what you're paying them for their labor, heh, far in excess of what effort you're putting into handling logistics (assuming you're actually handling those logistics, anyway, and not just arranging jobs and soaking cash and letting everyone else involved deal with the rest). Good odds there's also some level of abuse thrown in there, too, because there often is and the system we're working in heavily encourages it.

Or in other words, no, at least not until you start treating them like an enemy, and then yes! Unfortunately, the nature of incentives involved means, barring something else stopping you, you're very, very likely to start doing that sooner or later.

Smaller scale operations are... I'unno if less abusive is quiet the right term, because they're absolutely chock full of abuse, but at least it's less likely the head honcho(s) are completely divorced from ground level operations and steadily accruing the literal brainrot that we've found can accompany high wealth/authority positions? It's something. Generally less of a problem than the blighters that are the primary drivers of anti-union sentiment, at the absolute least.

[Il Palazzo]

That's either a lot of worst-case assumptions about the nature of that hypothetical employment relationship and Schmaven's character, or you take some hardline purist stance that any profit made of somebody elses' labour is the worst (in which case why even hire anybody, ever).

[hector13]

Well, in order to make a profit off someone else’s labour, you need to pay them less than their labour is worth. It’s varying degrees of horrible depending on how bad you want to be in that regard.

[Il Palazzo]

Don't they pay you with a part of their labour for whatever it is you're doing that they don't want to or can't do themselves?

[Frumple]

That's either a lot of worst-case assumptions about the nature of that hypothetical employment relationship and Schmaven's character, or you take some hardline purist stance that any profit made of somebody elses' labour is the worst (in which case why even hire anybody, ever).

I mean, can you think of any business that doesn't start having problems in regards to employee treatment either rapidly, or within a change of hands or two? Because from everything I've seen it's incredibly bloody rare that doesn't happen, and every sign we have suggests it's a fundamental aspect of how our economy's structured.

I'm not making any assumptions about schmaven's character, just pointing to the behavior employer/employee interactions have a really, really bad habit of encouraging.

Don't they pay you with a part of their labour for whatever it is you're doing that they don't want to or can't do themselves?

Ostensibly, but it's common for the relative value of the employer's labor to be... inflated. Often substantially. It's not impossible to thread that line and avoid doing that, but there's very literally negative incentive to do so in the US economy.

[McTraveller]

Well, in order to make a profit off someone else’s labour, you need to pay them less than their labour is worth. It’s varying degrees of horrible depending on how bad you want to be in that regard.

That's... an interesting and questionable philosophy.

Consider a situation where the baseline is 1 year worth of food for 1 year worth of labor.  Now say that someone other than the farmer creates a plow and now the laborer can get 2 years of food for 1 year worth of labor. Who gets the "profit" here? How do you attribute the value of the labor to the plow-maker versus the the plow-user?  That is - what percentage of that extra years worth of food, goes to the plow maker versus the plow user?  Do you split it 50/50? Do you give it all to the plow-maker, since the plow enabled all the marginal increase in output?  Do you give it all to the plow-user, since it was that labor that actually generated the food?  Is it something in between?

What if it wasn't a plow-maker, but a merchant who took some of the food and carried it around the countryside? What if the merchant had to buy the food with 1 cart of lumber?  When they distribute and the food, for lumber, they end up with 2 carts of wood. The merchant had a net gain of one cart of wood... was that "stealing" from the original farmer, paying them less than their labor was worth? Or was that just getting paid for the added value associated with distributing the produce?

Does the merchant have any obligation to the farmer to give them more lumber? Should the merchant have such an obligation?

[Il Palazzo]

I mean, can you think of any business that doesn't start having problems in regards to employee treatment either rapidly, or within a change of hands or two? Because from everything I've seen it's incredibly bloody rare that doesn't happen, and every sign we have suggests it's a fundamental aspect of how our economy's structured.

I can't think of any in the same way that I can't think of a coin toss that doesn't eventually land heads. You structured the question in a way that makes it impossible to answer in the affirmative.
Of the employment cultures I've actually experienced - or applied for - some were kinda shit, some were neutral, a few were excellent. It's like with any relation between humans - not all are sunshine and rainbows.
I get the incentives, btw. I get fighting for not being treated like shit when you are treated like shit. I just don't get wanting to throw every employer under the bus, together with the institution itself and the kitchen sink.