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Re:The non-linear workdays changing the shape of productivity by barry-cotter on Thursday October 06, 2022 @10:44PM (#33116853)
Nah, depends on the ability to coordinate. Communist governments can suppress wages even with enormous productivity gains, like post 1949 Shanghai. Capitalists mostly can’t though. Even with non state puppet unions completely illegal as in the PRC or Vietnam competition for workers leads to rises in wages. Maintaining a cartel without being able to enforce contracts to that effect is hard with fewer than 10 conspirators. Once you have more than 100 people bidding for workers’ labour it’s impossible.

Unions aren’t necessary for increasing wages. We can tell from countries that they’re illegal.

Re:The non-linear workdays changing the shape of productivity by idiotsecant on Friday October 07, 2022 @02:27PM (#33125125)
Unions are necessary, as we see when we look at the US. As productivity has increased workers are receiving a smaller and smaller piece of the resulting wealth. Not coincidentally labor is less organized now than it has been in almost a century. If you have power you get resources, simple as that. Individual workers usually have almost no power - they may get a little bit of power temporarily when their skill is heavily in demand but that isn't enough to counteract the inherent power imbalance capital possesses.