
An Alternative Theory of Unions [2007] - sillysaurus2
http://paulgraham.com/unions.html
======
edent
Alternatively, perhaps Unions have declined after having suffered from decades
of negative publicity from capitalists.

Unions - bringing you weekends, the NHS, paid holidays, sick pay, protection
from unfair dismissal, safety standards to ensure you don't get injured and
die, and stopping discrimination and exploitation. What's not to like?

I'm a highly educated and well paid technology worker - and I'm in a Trade
Union - [http://www.prospect.org.uk/](http://www.prospect.org.uk/) They've
helped me when I was made redundant, have held my hand when dealing with
difficult work situations, and given me training when my employer wouldn't.

Here's the way I look at it - your employer has some very high priced lawyers
on the payroll. If they (or your boss) decide to screw you over, who would you
have on your side?

Union dues (in the UK, at least) are the cheapest and most effective form of
"insurance" you can have.

~~~
yummyfajitas
If my employer/boss decide to screw me over, what's the worst that can happen?

Suppose exactly the day after a paycheck they decide to stop paying me. 15
days later I don't get a check, and 7 days later I stop working due to the
paycheck issue not being fixed (maybe I gave them the benefit of the doubt,
it's a minor snafu). At the worst, I'm out 22 days of pay, assuming their high
priced lawyer lets them get away with this (highly unlikely).

I don't need insurance for low cost, low probability events.

~~~
vidarh
If you think the worst case scenario is that you don't get paid for a single
period, you have not thought things trough.

Here's another scenario for you: Your employer accuses you of gross negligence
to get out of dealing with a harassment claim you've made. Now you're out of a
job, in circumstances that makes you basically unemployable, unless you manage
to successfully defend yourself.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Yes, theoretically my employer could slander me. They could also just move
from slander straight to murder, I suppose. So I guess I was wrong about what
the worst case scenario was.

Incidentally, in the US the deck is stacked so far towards employees that even
if I was grossly negligent, the employer is unlikely to say anything other
than "he worked here from $START_DATE to $END_DATE."

~~~
robin2
That's why they don't need to slander you - writing a lukewarm reference does
the same job.

------
alejantrot
Um, no. Factory owners have a lot of power (lobbying, uniqueness, etc) when
compared to factory workers. We're talking about a newly industrialized world,
with a new working class. Their response was to form alliances with each other
because they share common interests.

There are many reasons why unions are failing now. Factory workers do not form
80% of the workforce (in the developed world) any more. People now work in
various different positions and lines of work, so they don't feel that they
have mutuals interests with many others.

Power brings corruption. When the unions gathered a lot of power, we started
seeing politicians emerging from the unions to take the power. And gradually
they started betraying the people that voted for them and took the unions down
with them.

Also, there is now a more egoistic mentality in most people. People tend to
believe that they're more worthy than the rest, which is all nice until you
realize that that is what most people think and only a few of them are
actually going to make it.

There are many other explanations and possible causes on why unions failed:
"The best they can do is fall back on the default explanation of people living
in fallen civilizations"

No, and we can also do better than a startup analogy that pretends that unions
and strikes were anomalies in production that factory owners threw money at.
There was a lot of blood spilled for the right to form unions, the 8hour work
day, etc. No, most factory owners a couple of centuries ago were not just
giving away money like a startup. They hired thugs, killers, had governors in
their pockets and used the police, etc.

------
vidarh
It might be worth trying to get a count at how many workers _died_ fighting
for the 8 hour working day over several _decdades_ before presuming that these
concessions were supposedly granted easily.

May 1st as the international day for workers demonstrations was a tradition
that in part started in commemoration of the Chicago Haymarket massacre, for
example.

US unions first started agitating for an 8 hour working day in 1836. Not even
the introduction of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 went all the way
there.

 _Hundred years_ of demonstrations and strikes, leading to the deaths of
dozens of labor organisers was insufficient.

To then try to propose the idea that it was easy for management to give in to
unions, is ridiculous on its face, and indicates a lack of knowledge of the
labor movement.

~~~
Pxtl
Speaking of deaths, people too often focus on benefits and not safety. Even in
post-war America, a _lot_ of good men died during that industrial boom. An old
co-worker of mine was a shift supervisor in a steel mill and he had horror-
stories, and this was in a union shop.

These jobs involve a scale of machinery that makes the human body look like a
slug in an elephant stampede. The physics of the situation are horribly
unforgiving. Without anyone pulling for safety standards, a heavy industrial
facility can be a literal and figurative meat-grinder.

------
varjag
When you run a seed fund, everything looks like a startup :)

With all respect to pg, the similarity isn't really convincing. The hottest
years of industrialization were _before_ unions finally took over; the era
that brought us communism and world wars.

Unions were part of the meta-stable order the world settled to then. Now, as
the industry is on decline in developed world (due to a multitude of political
and social factors), the unions also lose their potency.

------
danso
> _Difficult though it may be to imagine now, manufacturing was a growth
> industry in the mid twentieth century. This was an era when small firms
> making everything from cars to candy were getting consolidated into a new
> kind of corporation with national reach and huge economies of scale. You had
> to grow fast or die. Workers were for these companies what servers are for
> an Internet startup. A reliable supply was more important than low cost._

2007 was when the iPhone was introduced, before Foxconn was in the public
mindset....but China's massive growth in manufacturing was well known by
2007...So why isn't China flooded in high-paying union jobs? Or is it because
Chinese industrialists and laborers are savvy and forward thinking enough to
not every go through the union-building phase?

~~~
rsynnott
> So why isn't China flooded in high-paying union jobs?

The Chinese government has very strict restrictions on unions; they're
effectively illegal. This is normally considered political oppression, not
forward-thinkingness.

~~~
danso
Right, but business can profoundly influence government. Hong Kong, for
instance, was largely allowed to do business as usual after the British
handover. And Shanghai:

[http://rt.com/business/china-shanghai-free-
zone-527/](http://rt.com/business/china-shanghai-free-zone-527/)

> _China launched its first experimental economic free trade zone in Shanghai,
> seeking to transform the city into an international financial hub and drive
> yuan convertibility. It is intended to boost growth which is now heading for
> a 23-year low._

If a reliable workforce was so key to strong manufacturing, as the OP claims,
then it would seem that there would be strong advocacy for workers' rights.
That China has been able to create a massive manufacturing sector with what
seems to be little regard for workers would argue against the OP's assertions.

~~~
nl
I have no idea which way you are arguing, since the OP was you, and your
replies don't seem to address the points raised.

 _If a reliable workforce was so key to strong manufacturing, as the OP
claims_

Agreed.

 _then it would seem that there would be strong advocacy for workers '
rights._

Disagree, and historically this hasn't been the case.

For example, in 19th century Britain the demand for cheap labour effectively
depopulated the countryside as people rushed to the cities to work in
factories. There was a race to the bottom in terms of wages and conditions
(eg, children working in mills), and it was unions and a public campaign that
stopped that.

 _That China has been able to create a massive manufacturing sector with what
seems to be little regard for workers would argue against the OP 's
assertions._

There are similarities between China and Britain in the industrial revolution
- a huge rural population rushing to the cities for better opportunities. Both
Britain and China were hugely successful at creating a massive manufacturing
sector while completely ignoring workers rights (although to be fair, China
seems better than 19th century Britain in that regard).

Like I said - I'm not sure if I'm agreeing with you or not. If I am, then
good.

~~~
danso
I think we agree...When I say OP, I mean the post that has been submitted for
discussion. I was arguing from a "if OP is correct, then we should expect x,y
in China" perspective.

------
theorique
Unions are just another group of people, with leaders and political aims and a
focus on advancing their own interests. (This isn't a judgment - management
does this, and non-unionized workers do this too).

I've seen unions mired in bureaucracy and questionable decisions, just as I've
seen unions with an honest interest in advocating for their members (for
example, legally defending members from bizarre attacks from the public and
unfounded criticism).

When the leadership and rank-and-file act intelligently, then unions work
well. When they operate in bureaucratic and self-serving ways, then they break
down and lose public support.

------
iSnow
Man, sometime this union bashing must get old.

Maybe unions don't have the leverage they had because China.

Maybe unions don't have the leverage they had because per-worker productivity
went through the roof while production did not keep pace.

~~~
pron
I am very pro-union and very sensitive to union bashing, but this article is
not guilty of this particular bias. If anything, it might be guilty of a
slight is-ought fallacy[1].

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem)

------
pron
This explanation may well be a partial explanation, but it cannot, by any
means, be the only reason, because it discounts a shift in the view Americans
(and to a lesser extent the rest of the western world) have toward the worker
vs. the consumer. It is undeniable that in the past decades American
businesses have placed increasing importance on consumer satisfaction over
worker rights and dignity; on low prices vs. fair prices etc.

So this is probably as much a cultural change as a "rational" reaction to
economic pressure.

------
jseliger
One other point about the "golden age" of unions (say, 1945 – 1973): it
occurred at a time when almost the entire developed world had destroyed its
entire industrial plant.

At the same time, much of the developing world as we know it now had caught a
nasty ideological virus that's not good for industry and trade.

------
philwelch
In the 19th century, most corporations operated in trusts and cartels, making
it difficult for workers to get a fair deal without forming cartels of their
own (unions). Most of the violent struggle labor proponents go on about was
during this era, when monopolistic trusts would have hired guns (Pinkertons)
to suppress labor disputes, and unions in response developed a tendency
towards mob violence of their own.

By the 20th century, progressives had enshrined many labor protections into
law and broken up the trusts. Some industrialists, like Henry Ford,
unilaterally increased wages to inspire worker loyalty and poach the best
workers from his competitors. This is perhaps the most analogous situation to
the tech boom we see today, and it's this stage in history that pg writes
about. Yet despite their gains, unions not only continued operating as cartels
but even, in many cases, continued their violent tendencies and developed
corruption and ties to organized crime.

Today we have a situation where labor unions have achieved absolute control of
certain sectors (longshoremen, teachers, police, Hollywood, airline pilots).
The results vary, but are pretty bad for everyone except whoever runs the
union. Senior airline pilots manage to capture all the profits generated by
the airline while pushing all of the risks onto stockholders, leading to a
bankruptcy cycle. ([http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-
airlines](http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines)).
Longshoremen's unions control the assignment of work, erecting a barrier to
entry for prospective longshoremen. Hollywood guilds are satisfied by simply
rent-seeking. Teachers unions establish themselves in the public eye as
credible authorities on education rather than simply a labor union seeking
better terms for its members. (Rhetoric about standardized testing can't be
taken at face value--notice how often you hear that a teacher's subjective
judgment of student performance is more reliable than a standardized
measurement. What the NEA really fears is any system that can measure the
performance of _teachers_ rather than simply trusting them implicitly once
they have their union card.) Police unions--well, you tell me why shooting a
black kid in cold blood gets a cop paid suspension and anyone else criminal
charges.

In most cases, unions will resist automation, resist any measurement of
performance in favor of seniority, and otherwise impede the efficient
operation of their employers. And in many cases, they don't even help the
median worker all that much. Once a union has a closed shop, the tendency to
reward seniority will metastasize until the union shits on junior pilots and
"casual" longshoremen more than management would have done in the first place.

And this is why people who support unions will tell you all about what unions
did a hundred years ago, because what they're doing now is not a very pretty
story.

(Note: I'm referring chiefly to American unions. In Germany, unions have seats
on the board of directors and presumably also stock in the companies their
members work for. This presumably tempers the parasitic tendencies American
unions have developed. It's worth noting that UAW vehemently resisted having
to hold stock in GM as a condition of the government bailing them out of GM's
insolvency.)

------
blahbl4hblahtoo
It has always seemed like there was a real libertarian streak among silicon
valley types, but this kind of historical revisionism sounds very "southern
republican" to my ear.

The thing is that people fought and died for the, if this is to be believed,
trivial concessions that management made to workers. You know, those same
trivial concessions that management made with little or no animosity that
stemmed from entrenched political viewpoints or historical precedents.

This article is the labor relations version of Jesus riding a dinosaur.

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't this Paul Graham guy have something to do
with this site?

