Google contractors in Pittsburgh vote to unionize

Re:Google contractors in Pittsburgh vote to unionize by derekp7 on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @04:50PM (#21064478)

Depends on the nature of the work and variability of worker skills, along with the union structure. For work where the skills of the workers are mostly consistent, or where skills can be easily grouped into buckets based on training and seniority, unions work out really good for the employees.

For highly variable skill work, and where skill levels are difficult to track (at least in a non-gameable way), you can have lower skilled (or lower performing) employees that drag down higher performers, due to union rules requiring things like seniority-based pay brackets. So people that are really good at convincing their management that they are really good, and work in industries where there is high competition for their specialty, those are the ones that tend to be more anti-union for their line of work.

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Re:Google contractors in Pittsburgh vote to unionize by s17n on Wednesday September 25, 2019 @12:56AM (#21067729)

Athletes and actors are unionized.

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Re:Google contractors in Pittsburgh vote to unionize by makotech222 on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @05:17PM (#21064728)

This is misinformation. Unions are democratically led. They can have whatever rules they want regarding skill and pay. The point is that they reach a consensus and then negotiate as a single unit against their employer.

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Re:Google contractors in Pittsburgh vote to unionize by 1123581321 on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @07:45PM (#21065974)

The commenter was describing what actually happens in unions. It’s technically correct to say unions are democratically led thus possible to change for the better, but it is incorrect to imply they are democratic so are likely to change. And so to point to union voting rules as a way to assuage concerns about common union practices is misleading.

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