Socialist explains Unions: Pros and Cons

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GUEST BIO:
Bhaskar Sunkara is a democratic socialist, political writer, founding editor of Jacobin, president of The Nation, and author of The Socialist Manifesto.

PODCAST INFO:

SOCIAL:

[LexClips]

Guest bio: Bhaskar Sunkara is a democratic socialist, political writer, founding editor of Jacobin, president of The Nation, and author of The Socialist Manifesto.

[booms]

The fact he had to explain what a union is is really sad.

[g]

Unions need to be disincorporated from the government and have their exception from anti trust laws suspended. If unions actually produce value, they will survive in the open market. If they dont, then they will have to have a reformation or perish

[Teamsterteacher]

My union has been with its company since 1917.

[GingerNinja-oslj]

I liked this debate it was so calm and an actual discussion on the subject, other debates tend to just be arguments where its two or more people just yelling at eachother.

[hunnymilk-brunch]

Gonna need lots of coercion at the hands of corrupt central planners to pull off this guy's visions.

[olivercompton]

lex sounds so much more stupid when you put him up against someone who thinks hard

[unodos]

One can debate the pros and cons of unions, but, I never understood the logic of an argument that in a "free country", it should be possible to forcibly prevent free citizens from freely deciding to group their leverage/speech together. For anything, including work if that is their preference.

[KurtCollier]

If your company cant afford to have workers that can afford to live in the city where your company does work, it doesn't deserve to have workers. If the business model requires desperate people to slave away while you live in opulence, maybe your business model is unethical. business leaders should be laughed at when they complain that their business will fail if they are forced to pay a livable wage. if your CEO makes more than a few million a year while ANYONE under their employ needs to seek government assistance to meet basic needs- they are not doing capitalism. They are just fooling you into thinking they are not already a socialist organization- they are just a shady and corrupt one that thinks supporting millionaires is more important than having a strong workforce.

[lordj]

If cooperation became a country it would be China. And this is why unions are important. To democratize the workplace to an extent that there is a balance of power between the working class and the business owners.

[rwmack]

As a union tradesman, I'll say this: the only advances in worker conditions, regulation and compensation has been from unionization. The Amazon, Starbucks and Gaming Industry unions have all developed because unions work to protect worker rights. It's not just about fair pay. Look at what the railway workers are asking for. Basics. That's their request. And the companies won't give it to them without unionized threats of strikes. Then the government says, "Screw you, workers, " and people wonder why unions are so ardent and combative. No one looks out for workers unless a union is there to preserve their fellow worker's dignity. The companies AND governments across the world will always end up looking to nickel and dime workers through abuses of power if they can.

I've seen what kinds of profits companies in construction have. In one state, the total package might be 65/hour (30+ in pay and the rest in retirement and healthy benefits, etc.). But across the border in another state an hour away, THAT union secures 100+/hr total package (half of that is base pay and the rest in benefits, etc.). Yet, these giant companies still pull in insane profits. I saw a firestopping job that won a bid at 100k. Next highest? Over half a mil. The low bid was from a new guy who thought bids were just based on take-off pricing for materials, labor, etc. But he saw that it's not like that at all.

Companies won't just die if wages go up. If anything, innovation flourishes when the belt is tightest. They wouldn't NEED to innovate if they were already sitting fat and happy on big profits.

That all said, wage increases might not be as much of an incentive for quality workmanship as much as Profit Sharing. Tell a worker they get a cut of the profits on a job and they'll work harder to get a job done faster, save on material waste and produce better if they know they get a cut of the money saved on shorter jobs and less material costs. Profit sharing is the key to getting employees invested in companies running long term.

We need companies, but I've seen plenty of companies started by past union members. Sure, they bitch about unions hassling them, but they only got their businesses because of the wages that supported their carreers and allowed them to financial freedom and stability to invest and start their own union-binded companies that supplied fellow union brothers and sisters.

[deadlevel]

It's the relationship of accountability between the policy and the people to which it applies.

People with power will always use it for the benefit of their ingroup.

The challenge is seeing each other as "us" instead of "them."

A set of parameters that balances the need for policy to be set locally with the need for altruism between communities.

I think we should have a grassroots branch of government with veto power that has specific scales of applicability.

Unions corrupt as the grow, just like Agencies, gangs and governments.

People click up and ingroup preferences continue to form.

That's why centralizing power is a fool's errand.

[Mareal]

Dam, so many young people have learned unions are bad which is so sad and wrong. Im old enough to know when we had more unions we had more people getting out of poverty and into the middle class. And the last time there was real wage increases was in 1975, right when the war on unions was starting. Today, less people get into the middle class and it has shrank. Most people are the working poor. People had way better lives and when their were more unions. Even today, the best non skilled jobs have a union-mta, police, fireman, sanitation, laborer, UPS, auto workers, 32BJ-building cleaners, doorman and concierge.
Come on. Why do you think all major sports have a union-basketball, football, and baseball.

[Paul-hzsh]

One issue is, that person at CVS can improve their knowledge and has the ability to leave that job for a better paying job. What his explanation fails to gauge is CVS has determined it’s going to pay its stockroom employee it’s cashiers X amount of dollars so that it can charge y amount for product that it is paying Z. When employees become unrealistic with their expectations and employers fail to educate their employees on how the system actually works, we end up with too much greend on both sides.

[davedeputyZX]

Lex seems to not know that other rich countries exist with strong trade unions and high levels of innovation. In fact the Scandinavian countries have some of the highest levels of innovation and also have strong trade unions.

[realkevinthobias]

The best method of increasing bargaining ability is by increasing your value in the job market. Those who pursue jobs with large supply in the job market are naturally easy to replace.

[HowardBell-mxcb]

I represent companies that have been organized since 1945. A “living wage” is for single people much different than a “family wage”.

[jackleonard]

Making money is an action. Keeping money is behavior. Growing money is knowledge.😊

[krush]

This guy has no idea of what INCENTIVES are… why would someone invest in a company, except without the possibility of taking profits.
Even in his euphoric world, “workers” would be upset that someone is making more than them.

[henlohenlo]

unions almost never benefit the economy.

multicompany wage fixing, and wage fixing. this is done in markets with low competition. like ups.

this creates huge inequalities within the economy, raises prices for consumers. deflects woes of economy from their sector onto other sectors that have low competition and low job creation.


who it benefits? only a small group of people. harms the broader economy. it's like a bandaid effect to make certain workers feel better, but at the cost of broader economy. what would help the economy? is these sectors boost job creation, innovation, and competition. to restore create more balance in the economy.