Comment by baron816
9 hours ago
Have you ever not been able to send your kids to school for weeks (or years in the case of COVID) because the teachers refused to work? Have you ever been unable to get timely medical treatment because nurses refused to work? Have you ever been unable to work yourself because the transit workers refused to work?
Maybe if employers offered better working conditions and salaries people wouldn’t feel the need to go on strike?
People have this right to take better jobs at other companies. This is how we get better working conditions: competition between employers. Tech has figured this out. I’ve never felt the need to go on strike.
Unions can be a deterrent to this. If you have sectoral bargaining, you can’t get a better deal anywhere because everyone pays the same. Or even if it’s within a single company, you’re just stuck with whatever scheme the union bosses agreed to.
But also, unions are a deterrent to new employers since fewer people want to start companies in industries where unions have taken over. They’re a nightmare to deal with. Fewer employers means less competition means worse services.
We have a dynamic economy with lots of competition. It’s easy to switch jobs and find a better place to work. We should not want to give this up.
"Competition is universally good" is what has decimated American manufacturing since Reagan. It's hollowed out the US middle class, which affects what the country can build, purchasing power, and innovation. Free trade policies have destroyed cities, eliminated millions of well-paying jobs, cut social services, and ripped the social fabric from communities. There were no alternatives to just "take a job at a better company"; most manufacturing jobs that left had no alternatives.
It was cynically selfish and short-sighted. The US from 1980–2020 is a perfect example of how much more complex systems, economies, worker dynamics, and second/third/nth order effects are.
You realize his examples are public sector unions. Which mean the “employer” you are referring to is the citizens? Not some evil corporation, government mandated monopolies which then get taken over to serve their union members.
I don’t have any objection to voluntary unions. Meaning people can join them for support or collective bargaining, but that citizens can just opt to not employ anyone in the union. Unions could be support structures for workers, instead they are mafia bosses.
Well… yeah. But I didn’t blame the employees, I blamed the employer who must have seen the writing on the wall for a long time and yet let it come to this.
Why do you assume unions are always reasonable? Unions in the US have a long history of over reaching and crippling industries and governments.
Those self-interested unions better stay away from my interests!
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Where do I say that nurses shouldn’t have good working conditions or good pay? Most of us have figured this out already: you can take a job at another company that’s better to work for. Most nurses do have pretty good working conditions and get paid well. Competition among employers is the solution here. Walking out and putting customers (or patients in this case) in a precarious position is not.
So she doesn't enjoy her job and only works there because you can't make up the $15 hour difference between her working in a book store for minimum wage vs her working for $30 an hour? Why don't you take a part time job on the weekend to lighten her load? There are many people who become a nurse because its a calling.