Comment by spopejoy
1 hour ago
Hmm, maybe you can enlighten us with some examples of "corrupted unions" focusing on harmful product changes to some kind of demonstrable extent?
The issue of leadership corruption in unions is well-known and definitely does _not_ lead to the kind of PC tyranny you're worried about here.
To be clear, what I'm objecting to is the "harrrumph I'll support worker's unions IFF they hew exactly to my non-working-condition-oriented values and demands." How about just supporting the workers?
The most recent examples are the unionized London Google workers attempting to force the company to terminate its military AI contracts and giving researchers right of refusal on individual projects. Something similar happened at Microsoft, it was not a union action but it was organized.
In the current political environment it’s not a stretch to imagine a union attempting to change Wiki policy to achieve political goals. Wikipedia is a public good and I would highly oppose this.
I’m more pro-union than most, I support having a union rep on the board as in German companies, but I think this should come with both designated powers and limits. The union gets a vote on the direction of the company, but they don’t get to dictate it, which would effectively be a seizure of the company. When it comes to work conditions and pay, they get a much stronger vote, strong enough to force fair compromises. That’s the union deal.
Co-ops are a better model for workers who want to join a company where they have full democratic control.