I disagree. Unions can lead to the death of entire industries - I have seen it with my own eyes. Inefficiencies created by unions lead to jobs going to places where such unions do not exist. Personally, I do believe the workers need to be protected, but if you protect workers then you also need to protect industries, and this opens a gigantic can of worms as it runs counter to globalization and free trade.
What industry?
Maybe we need to open a gigantic can of worms that “runs counter to globalization” if we’re talking about sending those jobs to countries with unethical working conditions.
There are many examples in the manufacturing industry, though unions aren't the only factor.
> Maybe we need to open a gigantic can of worms that “runs counter to globalization” if we’re talking about sending those jobs to countries with unethical working conditions.
I couldn't agree more, the problem is there are powerful interests that will keep trying to sweep this issue under the rug.
Ok. So what industry / example specifically?
Free trade moves industries elsewhere.
But actually killing an industry: technology, war, social changes, demand and laws that outlaw things.
Not advocating either position here, just pointing this out.
Also something I forgot to yesterday: unions that prevents downsizing or restructuring efforts to tackle industry changes, ending by killing the companies in question. Or, when a falling factory is about to be bought, imposing such constraints that all deal fall trough.
I'm not sure I'd characterize this as anything reasonable. At what point does this warrant self defense by the people stuck?
If you don't pull your own weight, then I would love working with you.
Also, on what planet could Bezos be described as an oligarch? Not this one. Everyone on the left and the right hates him for various reasons. The previous president hated him. This president just told his workers to unionize. Senators are constantly portraying him as Satan incarnate.
He has no political power in Washington. They hate him.
Actually hating them probably means you have a lot of misplaced anger.
The US is the classic born on 3rd Base.
Don't get me wrong, France (and the EU) has its share of problems. But "better protections for their workers" is not one of them. EU countries decided to use a small portion of their enormous wealth building a safety net and decent worker protections. The US does this to a much lesser degree, preferring instead to center corporate profits and the wealthy.
I just did a similar analysis for a job in the US vs one in Canada. The actual salary in the US was much higher, but including healthcare expenses closed a lot of the gap. In some cases (e.g., chronic illness or young kids), the lower Canadian salary was a better "deal" overall.
Me I'm fully aware that I'm paying whats amounts to $900/month protection money in the form of health insurance. Protection money because really the co-payes I have to pay are close cost of actually providing medical goods and services.
Shantytowns have been growing across the US for almost 30 years.
Unions are just formalized reality, like fiscal economics, politics, etc
IMO, while we may not live to see it, I’m pretty sure out last 100-150 years of economic thought is, big picture style, on its way out.
It may take decades but once everyone is a gig worker, the political argument for universal healthcare will be undeniable.
IMO that’s more in-line with someone like Adam Smith, whose only condition for a market was free movement of workers between a market of opportunity.
This has somehow been mutated into a market of goods and services, probably out of laziness.
In fact, teachers are significantly more likely to be predators than even priests. [3] Thanks to unions who go to bat for them.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547...
[2] https://www.nj.com/education/2017/12/teachers_accused_of_sex...
[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-...
* The objective of trade unions is not to protect workers and improve their conditions (at least directly). It’s to protect themselves.
* In every organization, there exists people with diverse attributes: capabilities, attitudes towards work/life, etc. There are always people who don’t want to or can’t work; and guess what they do? They join unions to protect themselves. Over time union center became international house of suckers and weirdos, each worse than the other.
* In an effort to protect themselves, unions politicized the work environment. They put themselves everywhere in key committees, including a union committee having last word on hirings and firings. That made them unfirable. They exploited the coronavirus situation, to blame employers and opponents. A scientific project can become a playground for union politics. I believe in climate change, but not in politicizing it. They seize every opportunity to attack employers and those not aligned with them. The goal is to use any chance to perpetuate an image that they protect people.
* Union will plot against any excellence in organization. To minimize contrast, they work hard to fail good people and projects around, or portray them as worker-abusers (ie, the reason that they succeed is because they abuse people).
* Unions will fiercely defend status quo and do not allow any constructive reform. The area of specialty that they advertised for themselves was an ancient technology from 1980s (and even that they wouldn’t do it). Every time people suggested to reform the department activities, they refused the proposals. You may not believe it, but department told them, OK, you can keep doing your own activities, we don’t reform them, but other people can start projects in orthogonal directions not related to yours. They still refused (they didn’t want competition) and basically forced everyone to work on their ancient advertised area of activity.
* Union engaged in all sorts of abusive practices. It was disgusting to see a lot of them rarely showed up at work (which was strange considering that they put themselves in various committees). I asked a department manager (“responsable”) how come this or that guy shows up at work only few times a year. He said, if you are a known member of union you can do that, and this is an issue in France. They yell, and bully people, create a toxic environment for others, repel and fire those not blending in etc,
* Union members felt very entitled and justified their actions by making themselves believe a skewed view of the world. They felt that they are entitled to a life even with ZERO work, and world owes to them.
* Unions will be perpetually on strike. What makes you think they will be happy with a laid back 9-5 job with decent pay and great benefits? Even with no work, they still go on strikes. They take tax money from society with little contribution, and make your commute and life periodically miserable.
* Unions are especially problematic in public sector, where incentives are aligned with cronyism not meritocracy. A lot of people are hired who lack abilities to perform the work in question. They form large powerful unions.
Don’t get me wrong. There might be a place for “traditional” textbook unions. But I don’t know if it ever works in practice. My experience was negative and counterintuitive.
I've never heard of these people being lazy, not wanting to work etc.
In fact German engineering is the envy of the world!
VW, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche all German engineered and manufactured by heavily unionized workforces!
Sounds like your anecdotal bad experience with unions is not representative of reality.
And FWIW I can list you just as many terrible anecdotes about how awful business managers are...
And German car engineering is mostly known for being overly complicated, I say that as a German.
Close to zero progress in electrifying European produced cars. I would say unions are the cause for the delay resisting any change away from skills their members have, but obsoleted by electric cars with 1/10 the number of parts required.
Being German doesn't give your statement credibility - you don't have to be German to drive or understand a German car.
If you said "as a German automotive engineer" then it might carry some weight, but only if also provided specifics.
Sure, but for each of those there are 10-100 other smaller companies in automotive or other industries that don't have unions, and some German companies have stirred up quite a few scandals of not following the employment laws or abusing their workforce, which coincidentally was mostly immigrants.
Cherry picking the big, wealthy car brands to represent the manufacturing industry is like cherry picking FAANG for representing the software dev industry.
But pointing out there are wildly successful unions filled with hardworking people is "cherry picking"?
There are good and bad unions everywhere, but I think the closed-shop restrictions in the US that force you to join a particular union as a condition of employment exacerbates the worst qualities of them here.
Having read it, I now don't believe for one minute you "had a naive image in mind" before or "opened your eyes" after your experience.
This isn't an argument against unions, it is an argument against any kind of human organization. Its more damning to how Tesla is now then to Tesla with unionized workers. Following your logic you should be all for unions and if you took it further, anti-capitalist.
Also, power doesn't corrupt. It reveals.
Protecting themselves ? check. Politicized the work environment ? check. Abusive practices ? check. Skewed view of the world and cronyism ? check.
I think what you are seeing is just a reflection of who succeeds in French companies. Some chose unions, some management, some find other niches, but none of these seem attached to specific values to me.
Lawyers are famously hated around the world. But it's almost universally better to fight one if you have one on your side. Same with unions and companies. Having worked in two companies in the last few years in the same market, in the same area, one union and one not... The difference is night and day in favor of the unionized shop.
In a working market, pitching companies one against the others could have the same effect as unions, but I think there is enough implicit and explicit collusion and perverse incentives that we are far from that ideal.
The ceiling on bad behavior is set by management, because they can do all of those bad things people claim unions do, and more - right now. The union gives you recourse
Seem like a strawman, worker conditions are light years ahead where workers are organized.
You sound like someone arguing against companies or capitalism because tax evasion exists saying “maybe there’s a case for textbook capitalism but in reality it doesn’t work” when we have literal proof that not capitalism and unions work. Nothing is perfect and ofcause unions can be better and companies can as well. But the net effect of unions is positive, and they form naturally in every place where you don’t allow anti-union policies and anti union worker discrimination.
The basic problem is, if we have such powerful semi-paralegal entity (considering its scope and power), it protects people in need, but what mechanisms do we have in place to prevent it from evolving into an entity protecting itself (or to a mixed state), attracting those with perverse incentives in addition to those in need?
I agree with comments above. I wouldn’t say we should rush to dismiss unions. It probably depends on a lot of factors, eg, on country and how it’s set up. However, we need to recognize that this is an organization functioning like any other, eg, a bank, it has internal motives and can, and will, use its concentrated power to produce good and bad results. We probably need a balanced approach, and checks ...
As a mostly labourer union, CGT is a minority in universities, especially among teachers and researchers (less so in administrative and maintenance departments).
Sure there arn't as many mega rich, but then there arn't people hundreds of thousands of people being bankrupted by medical bills either.
They certainly haven’t. However, the yellow vests movement fizzled out a long time ago. And union-bashing certainly isn’t the way to go if you care about equality, however imperfect they are.
If you have good insurance, sure. If you're unemployed, one bad illness or injury means instant bankruptcy.
I didn't live in a high CoL area either. Everyone who isn't wealthy or socially connected to get a job that pays above average is priced out of visiting a doctor at all right now.
The most we'd pay in tax is £8k: https://listentotaxman.com/38000?
that covers all our health insurance as well. There is no copay, there are no "your condition isn't covered anymore". The only issue now is wait times, but thats because we're balls deep in a pandemic.
My first experience were of course were teachers. At least half of them hates children but love being the boss in the room. Most of them quit before because obtaining their seniority, and they tend to be the more conscientious ones. In 6th grade I had a teacher fired because she physically assaulted me multiple times by hitting me on the arms, during most of the scholar year. Did I say fired? No sorry, only unpaid leave for one week, and she was replaced by none other than... her son, because seniority I guess. In primary school our physical education teachers were obese.
The whole region (multiple cities in a rural area) where I grew up saw auto dealerships workers on strike / lock out for years. It began at the end of high school, at the end of university it was still going on 5~6 years later.
My first ever was in a grocery store, I was fired because "finally the union wants that job".
Stories I've heard from others abound: solder a lose component on a PCB? That's tech's job. Caught talking to a union member alone? Let's just say if having half the people you meet giving you death stares not enough, then be ready to defend yourself against all paranoid claims made against you. Army sub-contractors caught stealing gas masks and laptops by MPs?? Nah, "you have to build a file before firing them". People who did the coop programs (5 paid internships) in unionized organizations came back with quite a few horror stories of their own.
The worse is that we're forced to join and pay (at least software is pretty much free from unions), so much for liberty of association. Most votes are held with show of hands. They can be done secretly, but the vote to do that is also a show at hand, good luck being "that guy" who defies the executives' wishes for a strike when the war chess is full. And that's not even mentioning the various corruption scandals involving intimidation, threats of violence and organized crime.
I sure hope the horrors I saw won’t happen to Tesla.