Union busting is as American as apple pie.
The first recorded recipe for apple pie was written in 1381 in England.
An import thriving in the US? That is about as American as it gets.
I also came here to say this. Also I hear “Dutch apple pie” a lot, but never “American apple pie”. “American Pie” though, that I hear occasionally 😉
How can we change this?
By unionization… The stronger the labour force is, the less they are able to get pushed around like this.
Well yes. My question is how can we change union busting, because that’s what the article is about.
By unionizing.
To afford good lawyers in order to fight back, unions need money, which requires more members to pay union dues.
To keep politicians honest and to credibly threaten their electibility, unions need more members that can be politically mobilized.
It’s a feedback loop. The more people unionize, the more powerful unions become and the more powerful unions become, the more they can protect people who unionize.
If all the employees are in a union, you can’t get rid of all the unions without getting rid of all the employees.
Well we did it once back in the Appalachian mountains…
Zing!
Get everyone to do it. Division is the enemy.
Why should I care?
Because it affects your salary, your benefits, your holidays, and your rights.
That is such clear retaliation that I don’t know how Google hopes to get away with it.
Well the penalty is a slap on the wrist to a company of googles side.
The cost of doing business
No offense, but it seems like a really dumb idea to unionize in the middle of mass industry layoffs.
Maybe you would do it when things are going good, but if everyone around you is getting laid off and you unionize, it almost seems self-evident who’s going to get laid off next.
Is it illegal? Probably. Are they going to get away with it? Probably.
Everyone should remember that big tech companies aren’t your friend.
When working conditions are getting worse and people are being fired, that’s when you need a union more than ever.
At this point, I’m hoping for there to be a spree of unionization.
Maybe a millennium from now we’ll have better means of keeping corporations in check, but in our species’ current and primitive state, unionization might be one of our only options.
It didnt work though
These things are measured in decades.
Imagine where they’ll be 5 years later if they do nothing
In the fable of the and and the grasshopper the grasshopper needed food stored up more than ever when the winter came, but the time to be preparing for winter was the spring, summer, and fall when you plant, tend, and harvest. By the time winter comes it’s too late.
The best time for someone with a variable rate mortgage to refinance as fixed rate would have been 2020. You didn’t need a fixed rate back then because variable rate was in some cases less than 1%, but you need one now because mortgages are around 7%. If you refinance now it won’t help.
The time to unionize was when labor had power by being in demand. 2020 would have been a good time, but maybe even the mid 2010s.
There’s a Chinese proverb that goes like this: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
We can’t go back in time to plant the union tree. But we can do it TODAY. Doing it late is better than never doing it at all.
Planting a tree isn’t going to war (and unionizing is in a sense mobilizing for a war). Both you and the seed want the tree to grow. If you go to war and the time is not right, then you will be wiped out and history will be written by the victors.
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The Fable of the ant and the grasshopper I’m referring to comes from Aesop’s fables, a work collected around between 500 and 600 BCE.
It’s been told and retold in many different languages around the world, and in virtually every example of the Fable being told, the story is basically the same: the ant works through the summer, and the grasshopper dances. Eventually the winter comes, and the ant survives and the grasshopper dies of starvation. For over 2,000 years the moral of the story has been but there’s a work time for work and there’s a time for play, that you need to work hard in the summer or you will starve in the winter.
It’s wonderful that somebody reinterpreted the Fable for a modern kid’s movie, but that does not change the original meaning of the fable. Aesop was a slave born in Greek society, a society that utilized slavery. It’s not likely that greek society would have been super into a slave teaching their kids that one day the slaves would overcome their Athenian masters.
Aristophanes wrote many plays criticizing greek society a few hundred years after Aesop. The following was from his play “Ekklesiazousai”, which was a comedy about what would happen if women took over the government. It’s a sort of hilarious example of the difference between greek society and modern society for many reasons, especially this exchange:
Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; […] I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. […]
Blepyrus: But who will till the soil?
Praxagora: The slaves.
In Orwell’s 1984, the main character’s job was in the ministry of truth, ironically changing history to better suit the party. In this sense, replacing a 2500 year old fable with a 25 year old movie sounds more like that 1984 than simply citing the original fable.
We just bought a house and went with a 5 year ARM instead of 30 year fixed to get a 5.5% rate. Sure hoping that rates go down a little in the next 5 years so we can refinance and lock in at a decent fixed rate. Rolling the dice… : (
My condolences. It’s a very tough time to be stuck with a mortgage.
Layoff protection was listed in the article as one of their reasons for unionizing. Being able to better negotiate severance, the right to be rehired, etc. The auto industry has layoffs, but unionized workers get recalled when jobs pick back up.
Yeah, and a lot of people want to refinance their variable rate mortgage at 3% fixed.
It’s too late for that.
Sun Tzu says that the wise general wants to attack where the enemy is weak and avoid where the enemy is strong. Waiting until the layoffs to get protection against layoffs and not expecting to just get laid off is the epitome of attacking the enemy where it is strong, and not unionizing when the company is on a hiring spree is the epitome of not attacking the enemy when it is weak.
Why shouldn’t companies retaliate? Anchorsteam workers unionized and it went bankrupt
European companies somehow survive just fine with people being in unions. There are many strong protections in place, which is why we have 6 weeks vacations, maternal leave and so on.
Don’t many European countries have like 20% youth unemployment?
Nope.
You’re consuming too much American anti-labor propaganda.
I remember a propaganda a few years back that European countries with decent unemployment compensation made people leave their jobs to stay at home spending their welfare on cupcakes. But these American fake news don’t even try to hide their how American they are, because cupcakes aren’t a thing in many European countries.
I checked before posting, and yes, many European nations do have youth unemployment in the 20% range.
Which makes sense. Companies still need people, but if it’s more expensive to get low-end workers you just won’t hire entry level workers unless they’ve proven themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
@[email protected] was talking about European companies doing fine despite strong unions in Europe and there being a lack of companies toppling over due to the strong unions.
They actually undersold it, because in many Western-European countries everyone benefits from union negotiations, even people that aren’t members of a union because the collective bargaining agreements unions manage to negotiate will affect everyone working in the relevant industry by virtue of laws deferring to those collective bargaining agreements.
You in turn decided to reframe the discussion at hand from companies doing well to unemployment numbers and not just general unemployment numbers, but youth unemployment numbers because you felt it would serve your argument best.
But if you look at the trends for unemployment then the story isn’t as bleak as you’d make it out to be. For starters general unemployment averages under 6% with only two countries being above 10% (and below 15%).
Average youth unemployment sits at 13.9% with a hand full over 20%.However, both general and youth unemployment are on a steady downwards trend since 2013.
One exception to this trend for general unemployment is during the pandemic, where it shows a bump and for youth unemployment there’s an additional minor bump in 2022, which suggests a correlation with the influx of refugees from Ukraine. This is the European source on these statistics.There will always be a higher unemployment rate in the EU compared to the US, especially when it comes to youth unemployment.
This lies mainly in the fact that most European countries have a civil registry system that automatically keeps track of certain data, unemployment being one of them, whereas in the US this data is collected by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by conducting a survey of roughly 60,000 households.
Another factor is a difference in definitions. A good example is the one from the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics:Garrett is 16 years old, and he has no job from which he receives any pay or profit. However, Garrett does help with the regular chores around his parents’ farm and spends about 20 hours each week doing so.
Lisa spends most of her time taking care of her home and children, but she helps in her husband’s computer software business all day Friday and Saturday.
Both Garrett and Lisa are considered employed.
Neither of them would be considered employed in most European countries. There are other such discrepancies, for example the US doesn’t include people under 16, whereas Europe looks at 15-24 for youth unemployment.
And then there’s the cultural difference between the two markets about when people are expected to start working and subsequently the jobs that will be available.
Which makes sense. Companies still need people, but if it’s more expensive to get low-end workers you just won’t hire entry level workers unless they’ve proven themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Your hypothesis is quite lacking.
As stated, the trends have been going down for a decade now, if your hypothesis was true we’d see an upwards trend.
Additionally, these labor protections, including protections against being laid off, have been around for decades, your hypothesis doesn’t offer an explanation why, despite these protections, unemployment is going down.
Also, minimum wage, as is often paid for these kinds of jobs, is lower in most EU countries than in many US states, making it comparably cheaper to hire those kind of jobs in Europe than it is in the US, your hypothesis doesn’t explain why, despite this, the unemployment rate is higher in Europe than it is in the US.In short, your hypothesis nor the unemployment rate is relevant to what @[email protected] was positing, so lets refocus to the topic at hand: the lack of companies toppling over like domino bricks despite the copious amounts of employee protection facilitated by strong unions.
Perhaps afterwards, we can talk about the lack of landlords, corporate or otherwise, going bankrupt despite the strong tenant protections as well as the lack of companies selling merchandise to consumers pulling out of the market despite the strong consumer protections, and so and so forth.
And then, maybe, just maybe, we can afterwards all come to the conclusion that these QoL improvements are attainable without some kind of economic doom scenario.
Source?
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/youth-unemployment-rate?continent=europe
Not all, but quite a few in that 20% range.
You can probably find that info on Google. :)
People unionizing have never bankrupt any company.
Don’t buy this crap propaganda that treating workers with respect will break a company.
Because it’s illegal? Unless you’re a million/billionaire it’s foolish to not vigorously support labor over capital
Because a modern country would have laws to protect unions, so companies can’t over-exploit their employees without facing legal consequences.
That was due to mismanagement by Sapporo
Why should government grant businesses corporate charters and give them special privileges in the first place, if they’re mistreating the citizens who work there?
(See also: https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/)
They can find a better job if one exists, nobody puts a gun to your head to work there.
How does a contract union even work? Isn’t the whole point of contractors that it’s a less binding temporary position that can be terminated if needed?
Most contracts are through contract companies, who then employs (ala W2) the workers.
I could see all tech workers that work for these companies forming a union—that could make a real, honest change in the tech workforce overall.
Surprised this wasn’t talked about in the article or anywhere else in the comments. I feel like it doesn’t make sense for contractors to unionize during a contract job as that would change the terms of the contract.
Many contractors for Alphabet companies do functionally the same work as employees yet get paid a fraction with a fraction of the benefits. Several friends of mine who are contractors and employees have affirmed that the work contractors do is for the most part very similar and both agree that this is a fucked up situation for the contractors.
Think of it like gig economy drivers who are frequently exploited for ‘contract based work’ when the reality is that this is a full time job for many drivers in everything but pay.
Contracting isn’t always that cut and dry. Different industries and sectors of employment can use it for indefinite employment, and as such, many people can end up relying and hoping for longest possible work. I.e., USA Federal Contracting. Creating a union to protect workers and fight for financial fairness isn’t something that Contractors should be excluded from – it is still work after all. And in the case above-mentioned the actual workers do not negotiate with the contract issuer, but the middleman, a contract company – human capital.
That’s interesting, my company takes a different approach, if we don’t go contract to hire in a year, we choose a new person to fill the role.
I wasn’t mentioning it as a preclusion, more as a how the heck would they expect a tech union to work. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is an example of a union for contractors, but that’s more nice role as the positions are very difficult to fill for and the roles often can’t be reasonably replaced. Tech workers though, that pool is HUGE. If you had a tech union it would need to contain a significant portion of 8% (26,000,000) of the US population. It would seem they would lack the bargaining power as they’re easily replicable. Perhaps if you were unionizing inside a single company that provided contractors you could destroy their workforce by all walking at once, but google doesn’t need to fire these people, they can just terminate the contract with the company that provides them.
If the contractors were employees, there would be a massive lawsuit incoming (may be anyway) as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects the rights of employees to organize and join unions, but it generally does not cover independent contractors.
California seems to have some at-will variances for unions but it’s still listed as employees. Should be interesting to see this play out.
If you had a tech union it would need to contain a significant portion of 8% (26,000,000) of the US population.
Sounds like it’s time to start organizing the people that can actually do the work, as little as 10% of those people unionizing will improve the situation of EVERYONE that does tech work.
The median salary for a software engineer in the US is something like $70,000 a year last I checked on the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A gigantic portion of those 26 million people “in tech” work boring help desk jobs or run the IT for small companies or whatever. It defies logic that FAANG etc would pay people with a few years’ experience a half a million dollars in total comp if they were so easily replaceable.
Plus, remember that there always are people willing to do it for less. Unless customers pitch in.
Unless customers pitch in
Unless UNIONS pitch in
Every major contract I’ve worked on has has a union presence.
How does a contract union even work?
It works because a company far too transparently pretends that “contractors” aren’t employees. I also helps to prove to be BS when the “company being contracted to” sets the rules of employment and decides who is a suitable “contractor” and who is not.
In my little experience, I assume, now that they’ve formed a union they can collectively bid on contracts as a shop and ask for a prevailing wage to complete it.
I would be surprised if Accenture wasn’t pretty upset by this as well. Not a great selling point for potential clients: go with our contractors and they just might join your employees union!
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These fucking companies. We need more unions. I wish I was in a union.
Why wish when you can start the process yourself?
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Don’t be evil, mhm
There’s a reason they got rid of that slogan.
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Yeah they ditched that slogan in… 2009? 2010?
I remember everyone was side-eyeing pretty hard when they did.
Ya, that’s a lawsuitin
I find it hard to believe that the workers didn’t see this coming…
They’re contractors. They’re not permanent employees. They can, generally, be let go at any time for any reason whatsoever - or no reason at all. It’s crap, but they’re some of the risks of being a contractor. The benefits of higher pay, choose your own hours, choose your own workplace, etc have to be weighed against said risks.
It’s a bit misleading. They’re not private contractors but employees of a different company instead. The union busting in the US is pretty extreme. I just hope these people can put their talents to work in a company that doesn’t have so many issues complying with the rule “don’t be evil”.
Yeah Google is well known for employing “contractors” which is just really a way for them to avoid any of the annoying regulations you have with actual employees, by having them be employed by a third party but really they’re just working for Google full time. Also looks better on the balance sheets.
There have actually been a few cases that have made it through the courts that apply “employee” status based on how the company treats the worker rather than how they’re paid.
Especially in cases where the worker is on long-term assignment somewhere like Google.
The infinite firing trick. Contractors.
Contracting isn’t always that cut and dry. Different industries and sectors of employment can use it for indefinite employment, and as such, many people can end up relying and hoping for longest possible work. I.e., USA Federal Contracting. Creating a union to protect workers and fight for financial fairness isn’t something that Contractors should be excluded from – it is still work after all. And in the case above-mentioned the actual workers do not negotiate with the contract issuer, but the middleman, a contract company – human capital.
I mean here in Argentina, we IT workers push against unions. When we have issues at work, be it salary or whatever, we just leave and jump ship into the next one Most work is remote and beyond junior positions, salaries are good. We don’t even have to worry about compliance with law because most work in IT has to be taxed.
Negotiations? We do that when the relationship between both parties begins. Firing? Sure go ahead and do it, we don’t give a shit.
I imagine IT workers in USA have even better salaries and benefits, so this measure makes no dent. Obvious even, given the size of the union, I mean 80 people come on.
I tell you, this isn’t the news item they are making it out to be
After all, Argentina isn’t known for its economic smarts.
Indeed, that’s why it has about 3500 unions. None work at all thanks to the leftist in charge of the country
You might be in need of distance glasses.
