
Delta anti-union poster: Spend on video games over union dues - zdw
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/10/delta-told-workers-save-up-football-beer-video-games-instead-union-it-didnt-go-well/
======
segmondy
Give me a break, some people are pro union, companies are not. pro union folks
campaign to get folks to join, companies campaign to stop that. Delta didn't
say anything along the line of if you join you will loose your job or some
subtle threat. They said spending $700 on video game sounds more fun than
union dues. I personally think it's funny. If anyone is going to be swayed by
that, then that person probably shouldn't join a union or can just as easily
be swayed by a union with something silly and more catchy than Delta's
campaign.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
Comments like this make me wonder what the economic philosophies of the
average HN commenter is. I see a lot of things that seem pretty pro-
capitalist, neo-liberal, etcetera. But I've always viewed the bulk of who's
visiting and viewing to be mostly working, middle, or upper middle class.
There's remarkably few people who benefit from the no-union position (even if
Delta's messaging was legal). Of course your company is going to protect its
own interests, but I'm surprised how frequently I see pro-employer comments at
the top, rather than pro-worker.

Personally, I dis-like Delta's messaging because it equates one of the last
vestiges we have of worker's rights -- the union -- to a video game console.
It's absolutely insulting to the worker, to suggest the people that work for
you are dumb enough to believe that argument. It's fine for the employer to
have an opinion on unions, but this is tasteless.

~~~
seibelj
A lot of people on HN are entrepreneurial, and have started their own
businesses or have worked at a small one and understand the perspective of
management. I do not want employees, no matter how low level, to view their
employers antagonistically. Unions foster a sense of antagonism and
inflexibility, which makes hard but necessary decisions more difficult.
Ultimately it will kill the business, which helps no one.

~~~
droptablemain
\--> "I do not want employees, no matter how low level, to view their
employers antagonistically"

The problem is, at its core, the employer-employee relationship is a type of
exploitation. Exploitation of any kind generally does not come without
antagonism.

~~~
leereeves
If you find it exploitative, try living without an employer, hustling for
every customer. You'll learn how much of a service employers provide by
providing a steady paycheck just for showing up.

------
chrisseaton
> Crosses One Line Too Far in Union Busting

With posters giving their point of view? I was expecting to read about them
calling in strike breakers with baseball bats, given that headline. Surely
posting literature that isn’t untruthful, offensive, abusive etc is always ok
and should be protected even if you don’t agree with the argument?

~~~
otikik
An example of the poster can be found here:

[https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1126477710434414592/...](https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1126477710434414592/photo/1)

A lot of people are finding it offensive.

~~~
dpark
Lame? Sure. Offensive? No.

"Offensive" shouldn't be a synonym for "something I don't like".

~~~
rhizome
Maybe consider "offensive" under its "aggressive" definition. It's a plainly
worded discouragement from participating in unionization.

~~~
sverige
I don't see any aggression. What is "aggressive" about pointing out that for
the cost of paying a union boss to negotiate for you, you could buy a video
game system instead?

Maybe more to the point, what's wrong with a company discouraging employees
from participating in a union? It's against the company's interests. They have
a right to try to persuade their employees with posters, just as the union has
a right to promote their position with their own propaganda.

~~~
gowld
Frankly it's none of their business, just as the company shouldn't lobby their
employees on who to vote for.

> It's against the company's interests.

The fact that it's a baseline assumption that a company's interests is opposed
to the interests of the employees who create the company's value is exactly
why employees and their unions need political protection.

~~~
sverige
It's definitely the company's business, since unions add another layer of
management to their business processes. And these days it's generally assumed
that a union is opposed to the company's interests because unions by
definition are there to extract money from both the company and its employees.

~~~
hannasanarion
Unions are nonprofit, they don't exist to "extract money" from anybody. They
exist to act on the behalf of all their members in negotiations, to increase
wages and to provide employment-related services like labor lawyers in case of
a wrongful firing. In the airline industry, Union workers make on average $12k
more than non-union workers, which more than makes up for the $700 dues.

------
bargl
I'm pretty pro union myself. However, I think it makes sense for people to
NEED the union. If they don't need it they shouldn't join it. Defaulting into
something is how you get stagnation. You should think about whether or not
$700 would be better than the union.

If you get rid of the Union and then your pay goes to shit, then Unionize
again and demand higher pay. We should make Unions as fluid as possible so
that not only companies but unions feel the pressure of their membership
numbers.

EDIT: Yes, I know this ignores the startup cost of forming a union and the
pressure by companies to form unions. But I think that points out a flaw in
our current legal system not a deficit in my (overly) optimistic idea of how
easy it should be to form and end a union.

My goal is competition in unions, not to start and stop them every time they
lose favor. Starting and stopping them may not be realistic ever, but it'd be
nice if we had options.

~~~
engineeringwoke
I'm not sure what happened but this website versus two years ago is filled
with shills. Posting on twitter that your employees should buy an Xbox instead
of join the union is fucked up

~~~
chrisseaton
> Posting on twitter that your employees should buy an Xbox instead of join
> the union is fucked up

Did they post it on Twitter? I’m not sure that’s what happened in this story.

But anyway the argument they’re making is ‘your union is not worth $700 to you
so spend that on something that is instead’ I don’t know if that’s true but
it’s a reasonable and plausible argument.

------
rdiddly
Flagged for changing the link from

[http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/05/10/delta-union-
busting.htm...](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/05/10/delta-union-busting.html)

to

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/10/delta-
tol...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/10/delta-told-workers-
save-up-football-beer-video-games-instead-union-it-didnt-go-well)

circa 5pm Fri 5/10/19.

PSA to all confused readers reading comments posted before that time.

Moderators, if this isn't against policy, it ought to be.

~~~
zdw
As the person who posted the original article then going to the front page
later and seeing some other story and title replacing the one I linked was
pretty strange.

~~~
rdiddly
Odd indeed!

------
mevile
Delta is the only big American airline, that I know of, that doesn't own any
Boeing 737 Max aircraft.

I don't know when these planes will go into the air again but I assume they
will. Based on the reporting of the problem with Boeing and these planes I
don't feel like I want to fly in that plane and I don't want to play ticket
games to try and avoid a particular type of plane.

I know lots of people have good reasons for being angry at Delta, but for me
just the fact that they don't have this particular plane and thus I'd never
have to worry about ending up on one of them makes me likely to continue using
Delta. Is this irrational of me?

~~~
toolz
Irrational? Not at all. Delta can be reasonably well priced and you're
avoiding a known risk that hopefully is fixed. If you're paying substantially
more for Delta to avoid that plane while also not having the income to support
that luxury it might then be irrational.

------
caymanjim
The naivete of people in situations like this drives me nuts. This person
discovered that a company they frequent has done something that offends their
sensibilities. Now they going to Do Something About It! And we should all join
them! This aggression cannot stand!

This is arbitrary offense-taking. I'm not taking a stand on whether or not
Delta has done something egregious. I don't care about the underlying issue.
What I can't stand is people who become aware of something like this and act
like they've uncovered a crime against humanity that we're all ignoring.

I guarantee that the author wrote that blog post while wearing clothes
manufactured in a sweatshop, on an electronic device manufactured in many
sweatshops, with a stomach full of food picked by disadvantaged illegal
immigrants, after driving home from work in a vehicle powered by oil from an
unsavory country. They're proud of the million miles they've flown, with a
carbon footprint that's big enough to sink a continent.

To be fair, the author acknowledges much of this in the post, which makes it
all the more inane. This one company crossed some arbitrary ethical line in
the sand, and the author wants everyone else to jump on board.

The world is a messy place full of suffering and wrongness. By all means, pick
the occasional battle and take a stand once in a while, if that's your thing.
I'll find something better to get bent out of shape about.

~~~
norgie
Very true, we should never criticize anything bad because we can't criticize
everything bad. We do live in a society after all.

~~~
bkuhn
I realize sarcasm is the "way of expressing things on HN", and I did some of
it myself in a post upthread, but to get serious on norgie's point for a
moment: I picked this specific issue to speak out on for two reasons: (a) as a
regular traveler [0] and speaker at FOSS events, this was a great opportunity
to draw attention to the problems with airlines, as all of us use them to
attend these events and my blog is well read among FOSS folks and (b) as
someone who _is_ a frequent traveler, and recognized by Delta as a "good
customer", I have a louder voice then most in this debate.

There are indeed a lot of issues that we should be speaking up on, and it can
be exhausting to speak up on all of them. I try to target moments when my
voice can get a bit more attention than usual for some reason and pounce on
the opportunity to make a difference. I think it's a good approach.

(Again, I'm the poster of the ebb.org blog post that was the original article
linked to in this thread; as others have mentioned, this article was changed
to be about the Washington Post news story that inspired my blog post).

[0] and yes, the fossil fuel impact of that does bother me and I've spoken
about that too at FOSS conferences)

------
purplezooey
Someday unions will be back. Until then, keep listening to what your Sinclair
station tells you.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/05/10/delta-union-
busting.htm...](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/05/10/delta-union-
busting.html), which points to this.

------
rayiner
Wherever you stand in the union issue, you have to take exception with the
dishonest reporting about Delta’s profitability. Airlines are enjoying profits
recently because of low fuel prices over the last five years. But nobody
mentions that Delta went through bankruptcy in 2007. Airlines aren’t a long-
term profitable business that can support inflexible union arrangements. A
spike in fuel prices can quickly put them in the red.

~~~
vageli
> Wherever you stand in the union issue, you have to take exception with the
> dishonest reporting about Delta’s profitability. Airlines are enjoying
> profits recently because of low fuel prices over the last five years. But
> nobody mentions that Delta went through bankruptcy in 2007. Airlines aren’t
> a long-term profitable business that can support inflexible union
> arrangements. A spike in fuel prices can quickly put them in the red.

Airlines don't hedge against increases in fuel price by engaging in futures
markets? That sounds borderline irresponsible of management.

~~~
function_seven
That's another way to quickly go into the red. You purchase futures contracts
to hold your fuel prices steady, then the market turns and fuel gets really
cheap. Your competitors can now start a fare war and you're locked into
expensive fuel while they enjoy cheap fuel.

When you make a bet on the future price of a commodity, that bet may work well
for you (see Southwest during the late 2000s [1]). But it just as easily can
hurt you if the prices move the other way.

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/business/worldbusiness/28...](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/business/worldbusiness/28iht-
hedge.4.8517580.html)

------
everdev
Honestly, I'd rather fly with an airline where the mechanics aren't unionized.

I don't want someone to have a poor team attitude and not care about what
they're doing because they know they can't get fired for less than 3
infractions or whatever else the union negotiates.

I want underperforming mechanics out ASAP and the best ones rewarded.

~~~
sparky_z
> I want underperforming mechanics out ASAP and the best ones rewarded.

That would be nice. I think it's more likely that it would be the mechanics
that don't make waves and keep costs down who would be rewarded. Woe betide
the mechanic who insists on delaying a flight and costing the airline large
amounts of money to investigate a possible issue that might result in a 0.01%
chance of a crash, rather than delaying it to a more convenient time.

~~~
everdev
Sure, that would be nice. Maybe I'm just not familiar with unions, but what
are some examples of high performing / high quality companies with a unionized
workforce?

My only experience is friends who have worked in unions and their stories make
it sound like there's little to no chance for advancement besides waiting in
line, so at best people skate by and do the bare minimum and at worst actively
try to subvert management decisions.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Plumbers, electricians, lots of other sole proprietor workforces in the trades
have unions that institute strong training and protection for their union
work. Is it perfect, nope. I can't stand police unions in my state because
they prevent perfectly reasonable road crews from functioning with only flag
crews instead of with flag crews and a usually sleeping officer just to pad
their wages. There's some crappy things about unions but it's the only
effective way to protect individuals from companies. They don't however
protect companies from outsourcing, usually to lower paid non union workers of
lower quality.

