
Volkswagen's US workers vote against joining union - afterburner
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26203784
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EvanMiller
This has been a knock-down drag-out fight and a lot of fun to watch. VW hates
the UAW, but they can't say as much because being seen as anti-union would
hurt their image back in Germany. Thanks to NRLB rules, VW can't make any
statements about rewarding the workers for not unionizing, but that hasn't
stopped Senator Corker from saying he heard it on good authority that VW would
bring production of a second car to the Chattanooga plant if the workers
rejected the UAW. That was a dirty/brilliant move on Corker's part, which both
advanced his anti-union agenda and set the expectation that VW will add a
second production line to its factory, which VW has been considering since the
Passat hasn't been selling as well as they initially planned.

Framing the unionization effort as a "works council" was ingenious marketing
on UAW's part, but apparently wasn't enough to persuade the Tennessee good old
boys to take the Rust Belt gambit. If you've ever heard stories about how GM &
Co. run their factories you'll be amazed anything gets built at all.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I want to ask you. Do you know anything about Detroit? Everything I read from
people who've left there blame the unions for driving out the industry through
ever increasing pay raises to the point where industry can't afford to stay.
You seem to be more knowledgeable about the unions so I figured I'd ask you.

~~~
leobelle
I think there's definitely a localization problem with Unions. If Unions were
everywhere and manufacturers had nowhere to run to, we'd probably have a
really healthy middle class.

~~~
logicchains
Translation: everyone who wasn't an auto worker would be slightly poorer.

American auto unions fundamentally undermined any incentive auto manufacturers
had to innovate. If a man with dynamite digs more holes than one with a
shovel, is that man's increased productivity the result of his own effort? No.
Auto unions claim pay raises proportional to increases in output per worker
(productivity), regardless of the sources of these increases. This means
manufacturers have no incentive to invest in better facilities or to innovate,
as any profit from this innovation would be eaten up as wages.

~~~
lsc
>Translation: everyone who wasn't an auto worker would be slightly poorer.

I think the theory is that if all workers were unionized, they would be able
to negotiate for a larger share of the profits that are currently taken by the
owners of capital.

>Auto unions claim pay raises proportional to increases in output per worker
(productivity), regardless of the sources of these increases.

You are assuming a world where the union has absolute power; The role of a
union in a market system is to negotiate with the owners of capitol.

Agree or not, (and my personal beliefs are closer to yours than to the comment
you are responding to.) it's important to at least understand what your
opponent is trying to say.

~~~
logicchains
>I think the theory is that if all workers were unionized, they would be able
to negotiate for a larger share of the profits that are currently taken by the
owners of capital.

How would them negotiating for a larger share of the profits be a good thing
when they were already taking enough of a share of the profits to drive auto
companies into bankruptcy?

>You are assuming a world where the union has absolute power; The role of a
union in a market system is to negotiate with the owners of capitol.

If you have laws where only union members are allowed to work in auto
factories, or that non-union members aren't allowed to work there, then the
unions do have absolute power within those industries.

>It's important to at least understand what your opponent is trying to say.

I understand what they're trying to say. I'm just responding that paying auto
workers more would not result in a net benefit to the middle class. If as the
parent's scenario implies there is nowhere else for manufacturers to find
labor (which implies no outsourcing), then for every increase in automobile
prices that's brought about by increases in auto workers' wages, that means
less resources available for car buyers to spend on other things.

Unions in the American style cannot make the pie bigger, they can only divide
it differently. More pie to unionised workers hence means less pie for
everyone else (including the other workers who now can't find work as auto
makers can afford fewer employees as they have to pay them more).

~~~
lsc
>I'm just responding that paying auto workers more would not result in a net
benefit to the middle class. If as the parent's scenario implies there is
nowhere else for manufacturers to find labor (which implies no outsourcing),
then for every increase in automobile prices that's brought about by increases
in auto workers' wages, that means less resources available for car buyers to
spend on other things.

There is another party to the transaction, the owners of capital. Generally
speaking, pro-union people argue that capital is in too strong of a
negotiating position, and the workers need to unionize to negotiate against
the owners of capital. If capital takes less profit, in theory, you can have
lower prices and higher wages.

Yes, in the real world, it's messier than that. But, in all real-world
business deals, yes, there is surplus value, but who gets that surplus value?

But the bit you are missing here, I think, is that the owners of the capital
are a third party, and the more profit they take, the less surplus value is
left for consumers or workers. (I'm not saying that eliminating profit would
be a good thing, or even that minimizing profit is a good goal. I'm just
saying, there are three parties to that negotiation. Three parties negotiating
over that surplus value.)

you said:

>Unions in the American style cannot make the pie bigger, they can only divide
it differently.

Which is exactly the point. Joining a union is very much the equivalent of
hiring a lawyer (or other professional negotiator) to negotiate a business
deal for me.

So yes, there is a conflict of interest. but there is /always/ a conflict of
interest when trying to decide who gets the surplus value.

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credo
It is interesting (though not surprising) that Republicans threatened
retaliation against Volkswagen if their workers unionized. (Volkswagen seemed
to encourage their workers to form a union)

In any case, this is a big win for the conservative movement/establishment in
the US. If the workers had voted to unionize and if the (Republican led)
government had penalized Volkwagen (as they threatened), it would have been
interesting to see whether Volkswagen might moved to a less union-unfriendly
state.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/business/automaker-
gives-i...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/business/automaker-gives-its-
blessings-and-gop-its-warnings.html) has some additional details.

~~~
gcb0
VW did not encourage it. they only not threatened who did, in accordance to
most work laws worldwide and most ethic values... which is rare in the US

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rdl
It's interesting reading about the labor unions in Germany. There, they
actually seem like a useful abstraction for employers, at least in some
industries. Not necessarily adversarial, and little of the crazy
featherbedding.

I guess it depends on whether an industry is growing in employment and
importance (where any union-based programs to recruit/train/regulate employees
can be helpful to everyone), vs. in declining industries (ie virtually every
unionized sector in the US, in total employment in most sectors or in retail
price (for services)).

~~~
gaius
Yes, you can contrast this with UK unions. German unions are smart enough to
find a win-win scenario and look to the long term, it's as if they see
themselves as stewards of future generations. Where as UK unions can't wait to
kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, they are rapacious in their greed. I
think some of this explains the reluctance of programmers to unionize; for
historical reasons a lot of software culture is US/UK based, these are
countries where unions have run amok with terrible consequences for their
communities, no-one wants to repeat those mistakes.

~~~
choult
I suspect the true reason there is no programmer's union is because we don't
need one yet - the supply/demand balance is massively weighted in our favor
and so we have no general need for the kind of protection and collective
bargaining that other, more labor-saturated professions do.

~~~
gaius
Yes and no. In certain sectors yes, but other sectors have suffered from
outsourcing etc. And the whole industry is plagued by ageism. I'm not arguing
for a system of seniority (another big turn-off about unions) but something
does need to be done about that.

That's the funny thing about IT, if you do your job well no-one knows you're
there. So it makes you an easy target for cost cutting. Some executive signs
an outsourcing deal and looks like a business genius for saving so much money.
Then the wheels come off, but by that time he's already gotten his
bonus/promotion/new job.

~~~
trhway
didn't unions made outsourcing [say in auto industry] even more appealing by
increasing the cost of local unionized labor?

Looking at the auto industry, i think programmers just don't want that
happening to them, including the "benefit" of having one more layer of
clueless bosses and additional set of processes ("work rules") - the existing
managers are clueless enough and existing processes definitely a drag to add
more of them.

I'm not against all unions. I'm against unions how they exist in the US - auto
industry, BART workers', police, teachers - police one actually works really
well for its members, though it is more like an exception because of its power
as a racket organization ...

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vishaldpatel
Whats wrong with VW just having a work-council that's made up of workers from
within the factory, without UAW?

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jussij
What they said on the PBS News Hour is that would be against the law.

Basically the law states that company unions are illegal and the work-council
without an external affiliated union would be a company union.

~~~
rtpg
This bothered me to, so I tried looking up why this would be true:

From wikipedia:

>Section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA makes it illegal for an employer "to dominate or
interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or
contribute financial or other support to it."

I guess the objective is to avoid "puppet" unions, though if the "formation"
part was stricken from this, I feel like the problem would be solved (VW could
form the union but have it be independent).

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altero
I refused to join union many times. They would charge me $80 each month and
provide nothing back. As contractor untermench I would only sponsor permanent
employees.

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nodata
$80 a MONTH? Are you crazy? You need some competition there.

~~~
altero
This was Ireland, not US.

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nodata
You paid that much in Ireland? How??

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altero
I refused to join, I was on temp contract so no value for me. This was semi
private scientific institution. Money were usually used to send HR/union
people to bullshit trainings on nice location.

BTW there were 2 managers for every science bee.

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joesmo
Amazing how stupid people can be even when it comes to their self interest.
Seems like the GOP depends on this fact for much of their success with the
poor and working class.

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greatsuccess
If US VW workers made the money they do in Europe, they would be begging to
join the union.

~~~
gcb0
you confuse cause and effect.

