The US Labor Movement (General Topic)
I wanted to start a thread about some historic labor developments going on -- not only this year, but over the last several years.
From the teachers strikes to unionization of Amazon, Starbucks, REI, Apple, this should be being talked about more.
The latest is Trader Joes, a large grocery store in the US -- roughly 500 stores nationwide. Workers in Massachusetts just voted to unionize. (Here as well.)
General thoughts?
From the teachers strikes to unionization of Amazon, Starbucks, REI, Apple, this should be being talked about more.
The latest is Trader Joes, a large grocery store in the US -- roughly 500 stores nationwide. Workers in Massachusetts just voted to unionize. (Here as well.)
General thoughts?
Comments (123)
And barely gets reported. Very encouraging signs. A healthy labor movement, starting with strong (strike-ready) unions, is crucial to any positive change were gonna make. Historically this is true as well.
The worst faulty idea about trade unions is that they are a socialist endeavour promoting socialism.
They aren't, actually. They are just a common sense way to deal with your employer.
This is something that Americans should understand for starters.
Joe Hill? https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/singing-wobbly-joe-hill-sentenced-to-death
I think it depends on the country we are talking about. Here in Spain trade unions are literally a way to promote socialism (or classwork-leftist doctrines) against the entrepreneur or employers.
I am agree with you that it is a group which -supposedly- has the aim to deal with the employer. But this is a leftist position indeed.
For example: in my country there are three key actors who debate about employee's income: government, CEOE (representatives of entrepreneurs) and UGT (Trade unions)
Wherever they debate is so clear that trade unions promote: worker rights vs rich privileges; better salaries; less working hours or gender equality, etc...
These concepts are socialist or at least "social-democrat" doctrine.
Well you can see it yourself in this image. Look the symbols. Trade unions are a promotion for socialism.
Obviously they can be and have been both.
But my point is that they are not all political. (Just as not all trade unions have been controlled by the Mafia in the US.) Yes, obviously the link between the trade unions and the left is both historical and present. Yet thinking of stereotypes actually does actually harm in my view
.
Of the five million Finns roughly 2 million belong to a trade union, about 69% of the workforce, which means that many of them aren't leftists.
For example, the vast majority, roughly 98% of the career officers in the Finnish Army belong to a trade union, The Finnish Officers Union, which is part of the confederation of unions for professional and managerial staff, AKAVA.
FYI, Finnish officers really, really aren't socialists and never have been. Career officers cannot join political parties, but can be members of a trade union.
(A trade union representative talking to new cadets. Note that the officer isn't wearing his uniform when in his role as representing the union.)
I'm not a leftist, but the small impact that trade unions have in the US simply will widen the gap between the rich and the poor and hinder the ability for a larger middle class to grow. People obviously can give examples when trade unions have done things wrong, but in majority of cases for the employees to have bargaining power towards the employers is a good thing.
That's true.
To be honest, I even think that trade unions (as we know it in Europe) do not exist in the USA at all. Probably, this is due to "Truman doctrine" which wanted to erase all "communist" or socialist theories. According to this thesis, trade unions are not allowed in the USA because it is "contrary" to capitalism itself. So, they eradicate all possible interference between a worker with his businessman. It is weird but it looks like they have the thought that "you are poor because you deserve it" and the "businessman doesn't have to pay with his taxes your medicines". They implemented the savage capitalism.
I am agree with you that in Europe, the trade unions had a more impact. All the progress in terms of healthcare system, public education, or the regulation of working hours came thanks to them.
But all of these efforts, have come, from a socialist thesis indeed. It has always been a fight between the businessman against the workers.
Another example: we are currently having a debate in Spain about to increase the minimum income to 1.000 . The businessmen obviously do not want to but the trade unions are fighting to reach this aim.
I see it as the classical gap between the rich and the poor. The powerful and the servant. Socialism vs conservatives or "traditionalists"
Prior to that there were the guilds but these were more of a middle class thing.
The trade union as a working class institution has lost much of its power because of globalisation and automation; decentralised occupations such as domestic servants restaurant and bar staff, never had much of an organisation or the ability to cause significant disruption by striking.
I suggest that the current upsurge of interest in trade unions is a manifestation of the loss of power of working people to influence the conditions of their employment. "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone."
The consumer has been king because mass production was the way to make money, so the masses needed to be paid so they could spend. Robotics and digital printing make mass production unnecessary for sophisticated luxury. The proletariat is no longer of any value, and therefore has no power.
In my view unions are more of a vessel for the employee to face the employer with more weight than just by being individual employees. That hasn't anything to with private property. In fact, many free market libertarians don't have any problem with trade unions... those that aren't mesmerized by the imagination of Ayn Rand.
Quoting javi2541997
I think the trade union movement was similar to Europe. But there are differences. History from actually the pages of the Department of Justice in the US:
Something like this didn't happen in the Nordic countries.
Historically the US labor movement has been composed of both radical and bread-and-butter elements. Without the bread-and-butter unionism you can't succeed -- the material conditions of the members are the primary focus of a local, which in terms of US unionism usually just means you have some administration around a contract, and the union is the business which services that contract.
However, without the radical element the labor movement dies -- we see that in the United States as labor bureaucrats pushed out the radical elements in response to anti-communist propaganda. Labor feared being labelled communist and castigated, so they castigated their communist and socialist members to save themselves.
I agree partly with you. Bread and butter issues are the main forces of a union. But, as we see from the decline of the AFL-CIO from the 50's onward, if you kill the heart of the movement you die.
I am very happy to see successful union efforts at Apple or Amazon, but not to get overly excited, these are unions at specific locations--not company-wide unions. These seem to be primarily organizing efforts among younger economically precarious workers, which is another good sign.
Most American workers, though, young, middle aged, and approaching retirement, are without union representation.
My work history has been mostly in the non-profit sector--an area as in need of unions as any other, but is additionally hobbled by do-good thinking that discourages unions. I was a member of AFSCME while employed at the University. AFSCME didn't seem to be very effective at this location. Some groups at the U were represented by the Teamster Union, which seemed to be a better representative and organizer.
All very important. In terms of the anti-unionization bias, you see it full blown in the UK rail strikes. Mick Lynch has been doing an excellent job in communicating, but look at the spin and slant of the questions he constantly faces. From what I see of the US, they try to ignore strikes and unionization efforts entirely. Now that large companies are being successfully unionized, there's been some renewed interest -- but the slant is still there. You can tell the ideology fairly easily.
Quoting Bitter Crank
We run in similar circles. I was part of a unionization effort in a non-profit as well, in Mass. AFSCME provided some guidance.
Depends on what we mean by socialism. According to some, unionization itself is just one step away from communism. The problem isn't whether unions are socialist, it's why socialism has gotten so demonized that it's assumed unions are "bad" by association.
Quoting NOS4A2
It's like you're living Fox News talking points. This is what came first, which then inevitably leads to:
Quoting NOS4A2
[s]Anti-social[/s] individualist-minded people who constantly feel they're oppressed, and who were heavily brainwashed with Cold War era propaganda, will predictably feel this way -- about any institution, in fact. Not a surprise.
But your feelings and anecdotes don't really say much about the labor movement. I know plenty of people who had bad union experiences who are very much in favor of union efforts -- they see their importance and stick around to make them better. Disowning and fleeing is an option, of course. Comes down mostly to temperament. As I said, anti-social personalities aren't a good fit anyway.
Quoting Moliere
:up:
Again, just a matter of semantics. But I tend to agree with the underlying definition of socialism you're using here (power to the people), and so unions are indeed socialist by that standard: they help working people build power.
Well, looking at my country, or Sweden, I really don't find a "radical element" in our (or the Swedish) labor movement. After all, the Nordic model is called Social corporatism, which is institutionalized and basically part of the political structure in these countries.
Far away from radicalism.
Quoting Xtrix
If unionization is one step away from communism, then that 98% of Finnish active officers belong to a trade union makes me smile. After all, it's just an army that has since it's inception fought and prepared to fight Bolshevism, the Soviet Union and Soviet infiltration until the end of the Cold War and basically has been the only institution where Finlandization didn't happen at all. You really will not find in Finnish officer ranks an officer with political ideas like Hugo Chavez.
But generally I think the basic problem is that many Americans don't understand Social Democracy, or basically don't see it. Socialism is too many times simply related to communism (or earlier Marxism-Leninism) and now the examples given are Venezuela and Cuba.
Far better example would be the United Kingdom and it's Labour party and politicians like Tony Blair or Gordon Brown (not just Jeremy Corbyn). Looking at the UK, just for example, shows how actually successful social democracy has been. Corporatism and Social Corporatism might seem just one wheel in the capitalist system. In the end economies are a complex thing and there are many unique aspects in the US economy that differ a lot from other countries.
Folk group together to form corporations, combining their resources and limiting their liability.
The balance of power - who gets to do what - then bends towards those incorporations. When such a grouping of people make a contract with an individual, that individual is at a disadvantage because they have less resources and greater liability. (Think Uber's relation to it's "contractors")
Unionising is a way to counter that bias by grouping those disadvantaged individuals together t increase their resources and decrease their liability.
The Myth of the Individual in the USA mitigated against the uptake of unions. A Real Man stands on his own, not needing others to help him negotiate his workplace contract.
Hence the Myth of the Individual helped ceed power to corporations, resulting in the failed democracy that is the modern USA.
Yeah, it's pretty silly. But again, depends on how we're defining communism and socialism. By how I think of the terms, unions are certainly communist and socialist -- but so what?
True, it's a bad as labeling yourself a satanist in this country. But that's because of propaganda. Still, not the best marketing strategy.
Quoting ssu
A far better example of what? Blair was a much a neoliberal as anyone.
Quoting Banno
Yes indeed. Reagan helped perpetuate this bullshit "cowboy"-type version of the "true" manly American as well. The neoliberal policies that followed are no surprise, using this myth as window dressing. The country, and the world, has payed the price these last 40 years.
I'm afraid this is a myth. Unions, protected by the US government, were incredibly powerful until the 1980s. Stagflation and Reagan: the one two punch, killed their power.
As others have commented, unions were always a two edged sword, not nearly as romantic as we'd like to think.
After WW2, domestic policy was behind strong unions. That changed in the 1980s, and unions started to disappear. So American unions were always part of the way the US government pushed back against the control of industrialists. Then the US was de-industrialized, automated, and labor was outsourced oversees. A large chunk of the labor force today is just temporarily working on contract. There's no way to return to the days of powerful unions.
Not remotely true.
Quoting Tate
Says who?
Have you ever worked for a union?
Yea, it's true.
Socialism is a commonsense way for the wee folk to deal with the oligarchs ? (OK, maybe I just mean I'd the US to be more like Denmark.)
Hoffa and mob stuff comes to mind, but then I think we just need unions that are harder to corrupt. We need to keep trying to find corruption-resistant social structures.
:up:
The rich don't want to the poor to follow their example (it's the spectre of communism when the poor attain class consciousness.)
Power corrupts. Per legend, union stewards were usually the scum of the earth.
No, its not close to true. Feel free to pick up literally any book about it. The labor movement far predates any government backing, Teddy Roosevelt, or Woodrow Wilson.
Stop talking nonsense.
Power corrupts. That's the problem. How can we make power fragile and responsive to the people? But we need also worry about the madness of mobs. Let's just say it's not an easy problem, and I hope humans will figure something out without really expecting it much. I've been looking into web3 ideas which may be a bit utopian at this point but which seem better to me than complacence.
There were strikes, yes, but industrialists overtly controlled federal, state, and local governments. This meant that industrialists were free to use violence against strikers, and they usually did.
Roosevelt was the first president to use federal troops to protect strikers. He acted without consulting the industrialists, setting up a new dynamic that made the labor movement possible.
What's that?
The labor movement far predates Roosevelt.
Ok. When I think of the labor movement, I think of the Haymarket time period. I guess you're taking a much broader view.
It's a cluster of ideas, but let me give you one, which is not so off-topic. At the moment, the internet lives on giant servers owned by the rich, so the owners of this capital can track, adslam, and censor us as they please. Yet it's technically possible for us to host the/an internet on our own devices, with security and privacy and the impossibility of censorship built in. From a 'class war' perspective, I don't want oligarchs supervising and controlling what the proles can say another (including the use of algorithms that addict us to echo chambers and outrage.)
I am not trying to be aggressive, but I will say that this is wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Labor
The labor movement was inspired by industrialization, as @unenlightened said.
But there is a longer history to it.
I'm just used to "labor movement" referring to the bloody conflict between the government and industrialists with labor backed by the government.
That labor movement required government backing because of the far reaching power of the industrialists.
That's risible.
I'd just say it's only a story.
If you are a person who must work to live, then the labor movement is for you. Even in this era, with service-sector work being primary in the imperial core.
There is a bloody conflict, but the blood spilt is by the boss -- and the boss spills the blood of the worker.
I believe you'd disbelieve these as metaphorical expressions. And so I feel the need to relate a personal experience: I have met people physically disabled by Starbucks. They qualified, even in this regressive government, for disability. Serving coffee.
If you own a shop, then sure -- this is nonsense. But if you actually have to sell your labor... it aint.
That's kind of hard to believe. Maybe they had some health issue that came to light while serving coffee?
But aren't disability payments a result of the labor movement? That, social security, medicare, worker's comp, unemployment payments, aren't all these things a sign of the government's historic loyalty to labor?
Yep.
No. But I understand that a story on the internet is just a story, yeh? So I won't press the point.
These were victories which were hard fought. To the point of people being shot by Pinkertons etc. The government, in the USA at least, has been mostly anti-labor and pro-capitalist. Even the relatively conservative Foner would confirm this.
But it's ok -- I had to read them books cuz I was taught wrong too. So there's that.
Since the 1980s, yes. Before that, no.
But I'm not sure that it's an interesting disagreement for myself.
As long as you agree "since the 1980's" then you see what I'm talking about, I think. And what happened before? Just some stories that people like to tell.
The government has never been pro-union. Never.
FDR was somewhat receptive to unions, and with the proper push was able to pass the labor relations act in 35. Right away there was pushback, and it was significantly weakened through Taft-Hartley in the 40s.
Unions have had higher participation rates prior to the neoliberal assault. But the government has never been anything but pro-capitalist including FDR.
Heh. I was attempting a softer approach, but yes, I agree.
I was there. I was a management scab during a CWA strike once. I smile now because that whole world is gone. You've never seen a really powerful union, have you?
Like the dinosaurs, they once roamed the earth.
It's exciting stuff. By the way, the fire pic is great.
What do you know of "really powerful unions"?
Do you know what a management scab is?
it's when you're an engineer, but you're sent to handle critical jobs that aren't being manned because of the strike.
The strikers are fine with it because they know you aren't going to take their jobs permanently. Back then it was illegal to fill a striker's position with a new employee.
I think you've decided to edit the history books to suit your preferred outlook. You don't want to know that the federal government protected unions in far reaching ways.
Well, then I'd say I think you're an engineer who has decided to edit the history books to suit your preferred outlook, and that you do not want to know that working people *forced* the government to help them in far-reaching ways. It was only because of the movement, though.
I don't mind the federal government helping unions in far reaching ways, personally. If anything, I want them to do more.
-- to me what you're describing sounds similar to when nurses organize. They can't deny their labor, because that would mean dead people, but they still gain power through organization.
You were a cog in a grand machine. And you managed to make it work for you. Cudos!
But there are people who are still cleaning, stocking, etc. And they are suffering.
Labor never had the power to do that. When unions were strongest, it was when the government had a policy of backing labor. When the government withdrew it's support, when Reagan shot down the air traffic controller strike, the tide turned against them and they're gone now.
Quoting Moliere
What should we do?
The Party is the political arm of the Union Movement.
Read about the 30s. The Wagner Act wasnt simply a gift from above.
Quoting Tate
Theyre not gone.
:up:
How do you think the NLRA was passed?
I agree that Reagan was a major turning point in the labor movement. Although I actually put it down to Carter who started the whole "bail out business" thang. Reagan is the spiritual successor of that line of thought, but Carter seemed to be fine with neo-liberalism.
Quoting Tate
People who aren't in that situation should be supportive of unionization. Even in the bread-and-butter sense of unions - and really, anyone who has to work for a living is in that situation. No matter how much you make. There are obvious hierarchies and so forth worth recognizing. But, as far as I'm concerned at least, anyone who has ever had to work for a living should be a part of the labor movement.
Well... news to me. Consider this:
So, some level of unionizing was occurring at least in the immediate post-Civil War period. Congress did pass an 8 hour day law (applicable to railroads), and the SCOTUS upheld the law in 1917.
It would be more accurate to say that the existing union movement required congressional action to establish the 8 hour day across the country. That isn't the same thing as unions existing because of federal backing. The federal government is a tool which capital and labor both use for their own ends--the former more effectively than the latter.
The Socialist Labor Party was organized around 1873; union organizing was a major plank in their party platform. The Haymarket Riot in Chicago was 1886 -- all well before T. R. and W. W. An eight-hour day proclamation issued by President Ulysses S. Grant declaring that employers cannot reduce wages as a result of the reduction of the workday, 1869
I didn't say unions wouldn't exist without federal backing. I said the labor movement wouldn't exist without it. Maybe I'm overstating it. I think there's some truth to it, though.
I think labor unions were a tool the federal government used to wrest power away from industrialists. The rest was Christian do-gooding on the part of Wilson.
Quoting Moliere
ok
Maybe yes, maybe no. Social security and unemployment insurance were established by Roosevelt and the US Congress in the 1930s in the face of abject need. At least 25% of the workforce (unionized or not) were unemployed and there was growing unrest. Part of the motivation for the major safety net programs was to protect capitalism from revolution. Another motivation was to reduce poverty. Workmen's Comp was established in 1908. Medicare / Medicaid was established in 1966 under Lyndon Johnson. From Workmen's Comp to ObamaCare covers a century of time. It isn't like Congress has been tripping over itself to pass these programs--and we're still in finished! MAYBE we will find Medicare finally authorized to negotiate drug prices.
It would be better to describe safety net programs as pro-citizen, or pro-worker, rather than pro-union. Social Security, Unemployment, Disability, Medicare - Medicaid, and Obama's health care programs were all attacked (editorialy and in court) by conservatives, with strong resistance from conservatives in congress.
Mostly agreed, but it may become more relevant and therefore apply to the future of the US labor movement and not just its past. If the kids are going to organize, it'll probably be on their phones, and they probably shouldn't trust the 'free' software that makes them easy to spy on and censor.
Yea, that's true.
Wonderful, isn't it!
But that's the point!
Modern Social Democracy is part of modern capitalism. It's objectives are to curb the excesses of capitalism (as they see it), yet not to demolish capitalism. Even if they don't say that openly. They understand capitalism works and as democrats, they understand that they have to upkeep democracy, which means that there will be people with other ideas also.
In Sweden the Social Democratic party has been in power for I guess well over hundred years now. And what is Sweden? It's capitalist, with IKEA and Volvo cars. The result is a rather wealthy population and not so many billionaires, less income inequality than in the US and a large welfare state.
This is the part to understand from trade unions: they fit happily to the capitalist system and the economy can be very free market even with them. Trade unions, if they get powerful in the US, won't change the system. Sorry. They aren't going to be an engine of change. Even Marx admitted this possibility (unfortunately I don't remember just where the quote came) that the proletariat might not fight for the revolution, but simply demand higher wages. And along with safety issues and other work related stuff, higher wages are the objectives of trade unions.
And this is why in the US both the right-wing (which wants to demonize the left) and the left-wing (which wants to demonize capitalism) don't actually talk so much about the European style social democracy. The left-wing of the Democratic party goes to the length of even talking about themselves as 'Democratic Socialists', not social democrats. As if there would be a difference.
Socialism basically means that means of production is owned by the state or the collective.
There being oligarchs means that a small group not only has wealth, which has been acquired through illegal means, but also has power over others. In a functioning democracy there can be rich individuals, but that doesn't mean they would control the legislative and political branch of the government.
Hence in Denmark the richest people do have an important say in public matters, but they don't control the politics as to be oligarchs or have gotten their wealth through corruption. (At least I've not heard about Danes speaking of Danish oligarchs.)
I love unions in theory and wish my country (the US) had a significantly stronger labor movement. Particularly, I'd like to see labor represented on boards, and workers having decision making authority on risky practices like stock buybacks and debt funded dividends.
In practice, I hate unions at work because they make discipline and changing practices to take advantage of new technology a nightmare and I dislike having to do negotiations.
Specifically, I don't think police should be allowed to have unions at all, full stop. You can't have an effective paramilitary organization with two chains of command, where the putative commander in chief says to do one thing and the union leader says not to do it. All my worst HR cases have been with police unions too, so that doesn't help. Having to give gigantic raises to put GPS in vehicles or get bodywork cameras is incredibly frustrating, especially when you are managing a poor urban community that has had many high profile police brutality cases and whose police force is under censure by the DOJ, and still can't get reforms.
Isn't that a bit hypocritical?
Then in terms of wages, benefits, youve had what others thought you deserved. Its like having two employers, except you pay dues to only one of them.
They have, and its very possible they will again. Your gut feelings aside.
Quoting ssu
Not always. In fact, Im not sure even most of the time. What unions fight for, if they havent been corrupted, is worker dignity. Sometimes that involves wages. Mostly it involves more involvement in decision making.
Nope. But I see why those with anti-social personality disorder may think that.
Sure. :rofl:
But a lot of the hate is just that I don't like haggling and I don't like having to run dozens of different models for various proposed pay scales. I feel like they offer up so many just to wear the finance team down.
What do they say about good negotiations though? Everybody leaves unhappy.
But the other option, that the trade unions are non-existent (or illegal) can lead to very ugly situations.
A lot of times it can feel like "workplace democracy", which especially the Swedish like with their (företagsdemokrati): A nice thought to empower and integrate everyone to the decision process, yet is hypocritical in the end as some obviously carry the risks and reap the rewards more than others. After all, the CEO and the summer intern aren't equal stakeholders in any organization.
:up:
One way to check the health of a democracy would be to see whether the will of the people is manifest in the laws. Along these lines, we'd want to see if the laws favored the rich minority or a non-rich majority.
This is a good point.
Someone made this inquiry from the US and the results absolutely horrible. What the voters wanted didn't matter much if anything in the actual implemented policies!
One person I know of, which everyone should check out if they haven't already, is Tom Ferguson. His "investment theory of party competition" is worth the time -- the book is Golden Rule.
The bottom 80% of the country have almost no political power whatsoever. Their interests are simply ignored.
Yes, that's what I had in mind. Our electoral system and gerrymandering also makes many votes seem worthless.
If workers' lives and livelihoods were cared about more than profit margins, there would be no need for collective bargaining measures.
In much governmental practice as well as most accounting practices thereof.
Many government officials have acted and are acting in ways that are quite harmful to very large swathes of American citizens. There are specific pieces of legislation, as well as specific court cases, throughout the last five or six decades that have rendered the overwhelming majority of Americans virtually powerless to be able to elect someone who does what's best for them.
When I was much younger, I used to jokingly say "We have the best justice system money can buy" as a means to point out the benefit of having a good defense attorney. It garnered very little, if any resistance. Usually people would smile while responding, regardless of what they said while smiling.
Mind you, I understood very little about how the justice system and other governmental institutions actually worked, but don't get me wrong, I did have the basic understanding of how it was supposed to work - ideally. I had no idea how monetarily corrupt American government actually was/is until I had been exposed to more than enough adequate evidence to know.
Votes aren't worthless.
It's also in the interest of the two parties sharing power in the US to sustain the current polarization (or division) among the voters. Americans have taken to heart the idea that giving a vote to a third party will benefit the party they hate the most. This is the idea that both parties want to promote.
When there is the will, there is a way.
It continues...
Another Amazon facility in upstate NY looking to unionize.
Always like to post some good news
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/business/economy/starbucks-union-campaign.html
We better hope they succeed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/29/opinion/election-workers-republican-oz-vance.html
Never realized what a worm Shultz was. Should have known.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/teamsters-warn-ups-strike-is-imminent-if-company-doesnt-improve-pay-offer-by-friday/
An interesting and pertinent question raised by NY times columnist Peter Coy:
This strikes me as getting at something really important (pun intended there).
Its not about making everything equal. Its about the reasonable split. 90+% of profits go to shareholders. The CEO to median worker ratio has skyrocketed, but I usually take this to be a stand-in for shareholders, since CEOs are usually compensated through stocks and so are major shareholders themselves (this incentivizing robbing more from labor).
90% to shareholders is not a reasonable split. 350-to-1 isnt a reasonable split.
Theres been times in this country where things were much more egalitarian. We dont even have to compare ourselves to other countries. We can go back to that. It was healthier for companies, as well as workers and society writ large.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/nlrb-joy-silk-union-recognition/
1) Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. The people who are basically both an employer and the employee. (Here I mean the real self-employed persons and not Uber drivers, who in my view are "entrepreneurs" just for the company to avoid taxes.) The United States has the highest percentage of entrepreneurs, those that are self employed, and can be considered the most entrepreneurial country in the World. Over every tenth in the American workforce is an entrepreneur. Then there are the companies which are run by a family: again here the relation that the "employer" and the "employee" have is far more than just a work related matter. Small family enterprises don't fit the typical view of the greedy employer who steels from the employee.
2) Trade unions have been bureaucratic and slow to spread when totally new industries appear. The reason is quite logical: a new industry is created by inventors and entrepreneurs in garages or similar tiny enterprises. Extremely seldom can huge corporations invent something totally new and thus create totally new fields of industry or service. At start there usually are no huge corporations... it only through time comes to that through competition. And the fact is that trade unions are concentrated in sectors where there are large companies or a single entity like the government. Again for this there is a rational reason: in a company of less than ten people, it's far more easier for the individual worker to approach the "employer" than in a corporation of 20 000 or more. For a trade union to bargain few with big companies is easier than to approach thousands of smaller companies.
Do people still believe this nonsense? Good god.
Do people still read economic history? Nonsense!!!
How about the...
a) Aviation industry?
b) The automobile industry?
c) The computer industry?
Notice you had to go back 100+ years ago.
For example, what's the origin of the internet? A common Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP) for different computers. With the personal computer it's even more obvious: a computer just made for consumers. A totally new field truly starts with innovations and innovators and no prior market.
And it isn't that already existing huge corporations really can imagine totally new industries. The whole large structure of a large company makes it difficult. And if a company has been "visionary", it's really rare they also dominate the field later. Best example is Xerox with it's research center in Palo Alto: it was an outside guy called Steve Jobs that went with the graphical interface and wysiwyg text editors that the Xerox research team had made and even that guy didn't notice the aspect of how the computers in Palo Alto formed a net (ethernet). And Xerox? The company didn't see any potential for commercial sales. When there doesn't (yet) exist a market, it's only visionaries who see a possible market.
But back to the subject: trade unions can use their power more easily if the industry has few large corporations. With a sector that isn't dominated by large companies you find less unions. The service sector has a lot of small businesses accomodation and food services (with about 8 million workers). The largest trade union is NEA and the most unionized sectors are education, steelworkers, public service workers and autoworkers. Sectors you don't see so much small companies and entrepreneurs.
Came out of defense department research. Government funded As were most computer technologies. Which can then be said to be the product of entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Complete mythology and hero worship.
Quoting ssu
Less need for unions at a mom and pop store. But no one is talking about small businesses. Theyre not the issue. Why you want to make them the issue is a mystery.
But military doesn't make it a product for the civilian market. And this is crucial: as I stated, Xerox research center made basically all the real leaps in computer tech... and Xerox isn't dominating the market. This is even more clear when you have military sponsored investment. The classic obstacle is that the technology is simply declared secret. Well, not much will come out of that!
The only example of the Soviet Union where the army made something that was later extremely useful was for the Air Defence of Moscow Stalin started to build ring-roads around the capital. As then Moscow grow, there were these ring roads around it already making it later easy for the city to grow. But otherwise, how much for example technology done to make the ballistic missiles and the Soviet Space program gave to the Soviet ordinary citizen? Not much.
Quoting Mikie
They actually are one important factor when you consider why unions are so rare in the US. Not everything is about politics.
In the overall picture of the economy small businesses have a large role to play. Small businesses (those smaller than 500 people in the US) account for the majority of new job creation (62,5%) in the US since 1995. Small businesses employ 45% of the private sector workforce, businesses with less that 20 employees employ 16% of the workforce, hence basically every sixth US worker is employed in a company with less than 20 people. If (and when) you have a lot of entrepreneurship, these people won't be for trade unions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/opinion/uaw-strike-unions.html
Packaging research and innovation that is publicly funded into a pretty package for consumers isnt that valuable in my view. The claim was that innovation comes from entrepreneurs. Thats not the case with the internet.
Quoting ssu
Who cares? Unions dont exist for owners interests.
Small businesses arent the problem. Most dont need unions because they get along fine. Everyone knows each other.
There's the technological innovation and then there's the innovation to use the technology in various ways.
If the net would be a) just a military application, none of us would use it and if b) it would be just by universities and public organizations, the vast majority would not use it. Not at our spare time, likely. You see, without the entrepreneurs these technologies would be just like computers were in the 1970's and 1960's: used by companies and organizations by specific "computing"-branches, which dealt with using computers.
Perhaps the unlimited-profit objective/nature is somehow irresistible. It brings to mind the allegorical fox stung by the instinct-abiding scorpion while ferrying it across the river, leaving both to drown.
Corporate CEOs will shrug their shoulders and defensively say their job is to protect shareholders bottom-line interests. The shareholders, meanwhile, shrug their shoulders while defensively stating that they just collect the dividends and that the CEOs are the ones to make the moral and/or ethical decisions.
The more that corporations make, all the more they want nay, need to make next quarterly. It's never enough. Maximizing profits at the expense of those with so much less, or nothing, will likely always be a significant part of the nature of the big business beast.
Still, there must be a point at which that inhumane corporate practice can/will end up hurting big businesss own monetary interests. One can imagine that many living and healthy consumers are needed.
I think its naive to think the balance wasn't struck 100 years ago, or so, to allow this to continue. I make no moral comment.
Too bad. Alabama needs unions.
Unions are the most powerful tool to fix the most important problem in this country. Hamilton Nolan
Hes speaking of wealth inequality, which underlies so many other problems. And hes right. Its not voting, its not government (although local government is a bit different). Its really unions, and in particular their ability to strike, that serves a counterbalance to the power of corporate America and K street.
The entrepreneurs. Yeah, those valuable parasites who know how to take technology they dont create, put it in a pretty box, and advertise the shit out of it. So lets worship Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. Brilliant billionaire geniuses.
What a bunch of bullshit.
Good remark.
If only trade unions were responsible to the workers, we (workers) would make a real counterbalance to corporations.
The main problem of trade unions in the 21st century is that they are part of the government. I will be more specific: they are lobbies of both right-wing and left-side political parties. There are not many unions which are apolitical. The interests of trade unions, apart from representing and defending the rights of workers, is to press other groups, using low or 'toxic' practices often.
On the other hand, I learnt by experience that it seems there are different 'classes' of workers according to the unions: why does a worker of a bank or big tech have the opportunity of being assisted by a unionist and a prostitute doesn't?
There was an important strike by farmers in Europe a few months ago. It is crazy that here any union went to assist and represent the farmers, because 'farming' is related to far-right. This situation was crazy. The farmers were abandoned by both the government and trade unions.
My criticism of them goes in that way: a real trade union would assist every class of worker. From a Google engineer to a prostitute or farmer.
Unions should extend to everyone and they basically do. Theyre susceptible to corruption and laziness like any other institution. The last 40 years or so, until recently, has shown what happens when you play it safe.
Im glad to see unions on the rise again. Despite what the numbers may say, theyre gaining power.
No, they do not extend to everyone. Maybe I sound a bit stubborn regarding prostitution or sex workers, but these professionals are not covered by trade unions. There is a big debate in each nation about whether prostitution should be eradicated. I agree that around more than 80 % of the women of this world do the job forced by violent situations. But others don't, and we have to accept that there are women and men who exchange pleasure for money. I fully consider these women as professionals without any kind of discrimination. It is unfair how it seems they are hidden from the groups or collectives.
I did a search on Google, and this is the 'group' which is the closest thing to a trade union for prostitutes: English Collective of Prostitutes
Better than nothing, absolutely. But they are not a trade union in the purest sense of the organisation. My point is, some class workers (prostitutes) will not have the same back-up from a union as others (Ford or Santander Bank workers, for example).
Unions should extend to everyone and basically do.
Quoting javi2541997
Of course. Prostitution is illegal in many countries. But unions basically extend to everyone else. The degree of power varies.
Well, a lot of the actual workforce in every country are those valuable "parasites", as you call them. Nearly one fifth of the workforce in the US are entrepreneurs. It's a similar amount compared to those who work for the government and local states. Obviously your leftist ideology comes here through there, but the simple fact is that a lot of people are also their own employers (thus simply don't have an employer), hence they might have a different viewpoint of leftist ideas of the workers/capitalist feud. Just as land owning farmers might be similar "parasites" to you (at least the more wealthier ones).
But anyway, unionization shouldn't be only a leftist idea. Luckily for example here in Finland, it isn't. The second largest union in Finland is Akava, the " Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland", which for example has as it's member organization the union for military officers. Nearly all of the officers in the Finnish armed forces belong to this union, and they definately aren't leftist. The Akava itself has close links to the conservative party.
It's simply common sense to have unions to negotiate with the employer(s).
Always fun to watch the topic immediately switch to mom and pop stores and other small businesses when the parasitic, greedy, pathetic behavior of entrepreneurs that were all supposed to worship is pointed out. Politicians do this all the time with taxes (You want to tax small businesses to death!)
Also, your take on whats leftist or not is worthless. You have no clue what my views are, or where they fall on some conventional spectrum they blather about on cable news.
I wouldn't think of Elon Musk and the like as "entrepreneurs". It's YOU who make this reference. The corporations Musk and some Bezos are the head of are extremely big corporation. Yes, the "entrepreneurial" age of the IT -sector was more in the 1960's and 1970's. Of course, you can argue that computers using punch cards had been around for quite some time. But IT-sector that we know of today didn't exist then. And now it surely isn't about entrepreneurs, but large corporations.
They (Musk and Bezos types) are an example more of the fact that Wall Street pours billions and billions at some corporation making their owners and CEOs extremely rich. So rich that they start their own space programs. That's hardly entrepreneurship.
America has this desire of worshipping the few success stories as proof of the American dream. Yet when I refer to entrepreneurs, I do talk about the actual masses of ordinary people.
It wasnt the masses of people that created computers and the Internet. That was the point. It comes out of government spending, mostly the department of defense. Ditto for drugs and medical research often funded by the taxpayers, like from public research universities and research hospitals. The work is the taken and packaged nicely, privatized, and makes a few people rich. Thats what is called entrepreneurship in the United States.
Whatever youre talking about, I dont know. Maybe something like the Miracle Mop.
Even if I very gladly acknowledge the positive things that comes tech innovation that the defense sponsors, I still argue that a lot comes from entrepreneurs and small companies themselves. Soviet Union with it's central planning wasn't this paradise of innovation.
Quoting Mikie
I think you are referring to the case of Wall Street and "Business Angels" giving money to lucrative startups and then huge companies hoarding the patents, knowhow and ideas by compensating few people with enormous sums.
Well, that isn't what ordinary entrepreneurship is about.
It's like if I'd talk about people who play basketball and you're reply would be "Ah, those filthy rich multimillionaires in the NBA who dribble a ball". Well, the vast majority who play basketball don't get any income from it and those who play in the NBA are about 550 players at a time. So why define the millions of people who play basketball by the 550 or so?
Sputnik?
Anyway the US is centrally planned too.
If the real argument here is the tired line that capitalism free markets and privatization and the profit motive somehow leads to greater outcomes, then fine I have no desire to debate religion.
Quoting ssu
So you are talking about the Miracle Mop and the like. What are your examples of all this small, everyday entrepreneurship? The Pet Rock?
We were discussing computers and the Internet. But by all means give some instances
Farmers for starters, usually they don't work for a company and are basically self-employed entrepreneurs, even if many times simply they are put into a category of their own. But apart of the non-agricultural field "unincorporated self-employed workers, the three most common industries are professional and business services (22.37 percent), construction (18.46 percent), and education and health services (11.45 percent)" in the US.
So it could be an electrician, a lawyer, a dentist.
So anything at all, provided you work for yourself. In Other words, small business owners. I dont see anything innovative about that, and if all those people are entrepreneurs, then the term is useless or redundant.
Yet self employed have this thing that they don't have an employer. Or they are their own employer. Bit of a problem for the worker - employer
And it's not useless. If you have a totally new field of industry, obviously at first there isn't any "industry". Usually there are some innovators thinking about something, like well, flying. Only later, they might try to make an enterprise out of it, like the Wright brothers did. Did they end up owning the largest aircraft company? Obviously not. But many of them actually both built their aircraft and flew them. Present day Boeing is a perfect example of how little is there between the modern corporation and the pioneering days of aviation.
For huge corporation it's hard to pick up innovations. Apart from warfare, states and public sectors aren't very apt at looking from totally new ideas. Small companies and the self employed do have a historically important role here. As they have in ordinary stuff too.
Huge corporations can be innovative, though. Apple, AT&T, IBM etc. But they were all in a social setting that fostered innovation because of growth.
Huge loss. Very sad day.