This is a ridiculous statement. The "actual value" of the striking workers (pilots) labor is "ALL the company's profit?" Nobody else -- mechanics, flight crew, reservations agents, IT staff, marketing, execs -- deserves a piece? What about investors -- by definition, nobody invests in a company designed to not return a profit.
Of course I don’t mean that one specific subset of employees (e.g. pilots) deserve all the profits distributed to them at the expense of other employees. Ideally all the workers of a firm would be organized together, but I’m aware that this isn’t the current reality of this situation.
And money used to pay back loans wouldn’t be considered “profit” in any definitions I’m familiar with. If the “investment” takes some other form such that the investor expects to be paid back a lot more due to employees being paid much less than the value they’re delivering, then yeah, I’m fine with the employees organizing and saying that’s not going to happen.
>> I’m fine with the employees organizing and saying that’s not going to happen
This is even more ridiculous. Is YComb (since we're on HN) not entitled to a positive return from the companies it helped found, just because some random group of employees claims they aren't being paid according to the "value they're delivering"?
I never used the word “entitled.” I think if an investor is extracting surplus value from employees of one of their portfolio companies, the employees of that company should be free to attempt to organize to regain as much of that surplus value as they can.
You are backtracking. The initial statement you wrote said that the value of the worker's labor = ALL the company's profit. If the workers "regain" it all, there's nothing left for an investor/founder. Since this is the scenario you endorse (you've said so three times), your position is that investors and founders should not receive any return on their investment, nor any gains from establishing the company in the first place.
> The initial statement you wrote said that the value of the worker's labor = ALL the company's profit.
I didn't say that. I said that I don't have a problem with workers organizing to ask for more compensation so long as the company is earning profit. I didn't say anyone is "entitled" to anything and I didn't even predict whether or not the efforts would work.
> If the workers "regain" it all, there's nothing left for an investor/founder.
I addressed investors already. Money used to pay back a loan is not what I consider "profit," in the same way that money used to pay for office electricity is not what I consider "profit." Obviously companies have to pay their bills. As for founders, I assume they're functioning essentially as the manager/employer and thus are the party that is negotiating with the organized labor of their company. I'm not prescribing some amount of money they get to keep versus their employees—that's precisely what the negotiations will determine.
> Since this is the scenario you endorse (you've said so three times), your position is that investors and founders should not receive any return on their investment, nor any gains from establishing the company in the first place.
I have said that zero times and have now explicitly refuted it twice, lest there be any confusion about what I am claiming.
>> until they’re receiving all the company’s profit, at which point it would be as if they’re receiving the actual value of their labor
Your first comment clearly states that the value of labor is all the company's profit. ALL. You wrote it. "receiving ALL the company's profit" = "receiving the actual value of their labor". Which means, it's only possible for the airline to show a profit by underpaying labor, and therefore existence of profit = investors are exploiting labor for "surplus value." As long as you stand by the initial statement, everything that follows is crazy-talk, whether or not you're able to follow the logic of your own statements from a to b to c.
Ideally all the workers of a firm would be organized together
They are. That organisation is called a company and decides what they get paid, which varies by job and rank.
There's no such thing as a union in which every employee of a firm is represented - by the very nature of what unions do, they create a (largely imaginary) line between "labour" and "management" then pit the first against the second.
The point of the article is that yes, the scenario where pilots can claim all airline profits is ridiculous, because is it sub-optimal for everyone -- pilots, passengers, and certainly investors.
It also never argues that pilots are "delivering value" equal to the airline profits. Only that the pilots are in a position, due to regulation, to claim those profits, because they can shut the airline down (a power that flight attendants, mechanics, reservation agents, etc don't have).
