
Why Labor Unions And Silicon Valley Aren’t Friends, In 2 Charts - bbrunner
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/29/why-labor-unions-and-silicon-valley-arent-friends-in-2-charts/
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lifeisstillgood
Oh this is moronic.

Trades unions did not come into existence to protect the jobs of middle income
workers just to spite the selfless and innovative capitalists.

The move out of the fields and into towns was unbelievably painful for the
families and workers living through it. Starvation was common throughout
nineteenth century Britain, workhouses a reality for swathes of the
population. And then they were exploited by the privileged - sexually
sometimes, almost always working in dangerous conditions.

Unionisation gave them a voice and a place at the table - it took long years,
with real violence, death and sacrifice as the cost.

I am just fucking outraged that this is now dismissed as fat union leaders
taking their lazy time to protect disrupted jobs. It's a meme I see here in
the UK too and each time I fail to hear how amazingly innovative the bosses
are, because most could not manage their way out of a paper bag.

And there is one more reason I think that the history of unions is important -
they came out of a period when almost all the workers moved out of the fields
and into the factories - and we are on the cusp of a time when all the workers
will move out of the offices, and into cyberspace.

I am a middle aged, middle class, educated, skilled worker in the fifth
largest economy in the world. Trying to exploit me is like trying to take
advantage of a Hippo with a headache.

That is not true of all of the other seven billion people who will benefit
from a trip to cyberspace. Some will lack education, healthcare, security,
credit, law and plain good luck.

They will need unions. Those unions will not look like the current damaged
crop. But they will be needed - history tells us that much. Now disrupt in
that direction and I will be there to help.

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falk
I'd like to see what a 21st century union looks like. It seems like you could
cut down on a lot of the overhead and bureaucracy that is associated with
unions via relatively new technologies such as the Internet.

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lifeisstillgood
It _might_ look like a subscription forum for workers in a specific industry,
providing legal services and a blacklist of companies who have verifiably
screwed over a member.

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malandrew
It's interesting to note though that the concept of a universal livable wage
is a solution that some technologists would advocate. Many of us realize that
it's simply a matter of time before tech replaces a significant percent of
human workers (as it did horse workers at the end of the 19th century). Once
that happens trouble will brew and the sooner we figure out how to solve it
efficiently and effectively, the smoother the transition will be for society.

