Unions are insurance against capitalist hubris.

eru · on March 4, 2022

Competition is insurance against that, too.

Alas, unions can have their own principal-agent problems and bureaucracy and hubris.

bigbillheck · on March 4, 2022

Competition usually turns into collusion and consolidation.

Frondo · on March 4, 2022

Indeed, even in our beloved tech industry, the biggest employers have absolutely colluded to keep workers' wages down:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo...

And still people trust management...

eru · on March 5, 2022

You can distrust both management and unions.

pydry · on March 4, 2022

I find it weird that nobody is seeing this in tech.

The automovotive market used to have garage based startups a long time ago. It used to have fierce competition and workers could get pay raises without unions.

Then gradually everything fell under 3 big companies, workers fought the concentration of market power by unionizing (and lost) and for decades there was just the big 3.

It's not even a question of if or even who tech will consolidate under any more - it will be someone who is currwently a household name. It is when.

It's coming.

eru · on March 5, 2022

You are saying that unions don't actually help?

pydry · on March 5, 2022

No they clearly would.

bryanrasmussen · on March 4, 2022

alas, competition can have its own problems too.

In complicated situations it may be that you want more than one insurance against bad things happening.

eru · on March 4, 2022

I'm happy for people to join unions, if they want to.

I'd just be against being forced to join unions, or against giving unions any special legal privileges.

(Eg one such privilege would be not enforcing contract clauses about employees giving up their right to strike in exchange for some pre-agreed compensation.)

rmbyrro · on March 4, 2022

No, it's the same hubris: politics over personal human connection, concentration of power, collective mass over the individual, corruption on all levels.