That said, the heat this year in Texas was brutal (speaking from personal experience) and I don't know how people who work outside do it and how they'll continue to do it as global warming progresses.

To re-emphasize, these factors don’t excuse management’s actions.

[0]: https://apwu.org/press-release/angry-about-late-erratic-miss...

Or much much worse, just completely ignore all bargaining that the Union attempts. This puts the Union in an odd position in that, people don't usually want to strike, but negotiation doesn't happen.

He told me that laborers are dropping dead on the job. It's not uncommon at all.

Yeah, that is the problem. It shouldn't be common

Some of that was possibly jealousy. But another factor is that unions for public-sector employees have always been more controversial in the United States than unionization in general.

For good reason. Unions pool workers' interests against the opposing interests of the employer; which means for public unions, they go against the interests of the public at large. There are countless examples of this.

Naturally, in a country with a deep history of skepticism of centralized government authority, people don't view public-sector unions very favorably.

This feels contradictory to the sentiment in the preceding statement at first glance. If the people are generally skeptical of centralized government authority, why would they also be skeptical of unions who push back against that centralized authority, as opposed to seeing themselves as on the same side?

Or against the politicians / political class. And given the amount of gerrymandering that goes on in the US, whether the elected politicians actually accurately represent the public at large is debatable.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

See also "Teachers are now five times more likely to have a side gig than the average full-time worker":

* https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/4/17164718/te...

* https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/07/01/about-one...

Perhaps some public sector employees need unions because they're getting steam-rolled. (Of course some unions (e.g., police) may be too powerful.)

Recently there does appear to be more noise around employee/worker benefits (including wages), hence things like the striking screen actors and auto workers (and attempted strike from railroad workers, who have shockingly terrible benefits), and renewed interest in unions.

The health of a country ought not be measured solely by its GDP and financial markets.

The only difference is a pension plan board/fund manager is an additional middleman that can be stupid/corrupted, hence more agency risk for the benefit recipient.

Taxpayer funded pension plans offset that agency risk with the power of being able to increase taxes, assuming their tax base is sufficient.

Increasing the size of the investing class and putting names and yearly balance statements on accounts (so voters will call bloody murder if the legislature raids the funds like they currently do with Social Security) both seem extremely useful to me.

Though, increased transparency would likely force reductions in benefits for current retirees, with current workers being the beneficiaries. Also flooding so much money into the major indexes would likely bring down investment returns, but likely resulting in a slight narrowing of income inequality.

It may look that way, but it is much more likely an emergent cultural phenomenon.

I think it boils down to leaders being self-centered. Being the boss isolates you. Isolation leads to self-centerdness. Being self-centered is isolating. It's a vicious circle.

It's cruel to embue one person with sole decision making power because it's leads to psychosis.