> So- in addition to losing their jobs, which Twitter assured employees would not happen
I'm not that old, but even I remember a time when companies, at least in principle, would invest in their employees (via stable employment, regular raises, mutual trust) in return for employees investing in the companies (innovation, extra effort, dedication, championing the company brand). Today, we have this:
- Companies using the barest of excuses, or none at all, to lay off employees. Because it makes good business sense.
- Companies lying, deliberately and freely, to employees about upcoming layoffs, in order to "stave off panic". Because it makes good business sense.
- Companies laying employees off in the most impersonal fashions possible (large Zoom meetings, automated email, SMS). Because business sense, etc.
- Companies literally escorting laid-off employees out of the building like criminals, on the premise that a suddenly-former employee is an incipient criminal.
- Companies stiffing people on severance, based on a cost-benefit analysis which concludes that the potential legal bills will cost less than a fair and reasonable severance. Because, again, it makes good business sense.
In spite of the downsides of unions, this turn of affairs is really an argument in favor of universal unionization.
>> I'm not that old, but even I remember a time when companies, at least in principle, would invest in their employees (via stable employment, regular raises, mutual trust) in return for employees investing in the companies (innovation, extra effort, dedication, championing the company brand)
Well I am old, and I don't remember the time you claim to recall.
I've never championed a company brand and I just threw up in my mouth a little even typing that.
According to my grandparents, back in the late 1940s through early 60s, I guess it wasn't rare for people to work at a _single_ company _for the entirety of their career_, fostering bi-directional loyalty.
>>They're not loyal to you, so why should you be loyal to them?
This always comes up in such discussions, but who exactly is They here. Company isn't a conscious entity, its the people. And those people are likely saying the same things about They as you/we are.
The real deal here is we have 100% ownership of any situation in life, and we are not loyal to ourselves, given this obvious fact.
If you have an opportunity significantly better than your current job, you must make the jump. But people often change jobs for petty reasons, which don't give anything much in the longer run. On the other hand, your perfectly good growth at your current place gets interrupted. Heck stability in itself is worth a lot. It helps one focus on relationships, fitness/health, consistent savings and investments, and debt raising for some investments(like buying homes etc).
People keep talking about compounding growth, and yet keep changing their process. In fact its sticking to one thing and doing it right is what causes compounding growth.
I'm not even sure I even understand what you're saying here. It seems kinda all over the place.
"This always comes up" -- really? You always hear quotes from 60+ year old people? Somehow I doubt that.
This came from someone with a lifetime's worth of experience from one company. Naturally he might have had different experiences with a different company, but on the other hand, he at least knew people from all over.
My impression from reading various accounts from people with long careers in tech is that the stuff that compounds also transfers. You don't take the obsolete frameworks and libraries with you (for example), but you take what you learned about frameworks and libraries.
>even I remember a time when companies, at least in principle, would invest in their employees (via stable employment, regular raises, mutual trust) in return for employees investing in the companies (innovation, extra effort, dedication, championing the company brand).
Has there ever been really any difference? I know rose colored glasses make people think times past were better in many cases, but I find no evidence that things in this regard are really any different for the majority of people.
For example, this [1] FRED historical data series shows layoff rate to be extremely flat for 20 years. BLS used to track some series also that were flat for as far as I can find data. Here's [2] a slightly different dataset that is flat back to 1967.
Any solid evidence that things have ever been any different?
> In spite of the downsides of unions, this turn of affairs is really an argument in favor of universal unionization.
Unions often drive out workers at the benefit of those getting union jobs, lowering employment. For example, see [5] and similar papers.
EDIT: 2 more datasets [3,4], back to 1919, still pretty flat.
> Unions often drive out workers at the benefit of those getting union jobs, lowering employment. For example, see [5] and similar papers.
This seems a bit misleading from the article you referenced:
“The researchers find that, for both men and women, more union involvement in wage setting significantly decreases the employment rate of young and older individuals relative to the prime-aged group (with no significant effects on the relative unemployment of these groups). In contrast, a larger role for unions has little impact on male-female employment rate differentials but raises female unemployment relative to male unemployment.”
Lower employment for the very young and very old is generally a good thing in places with a robust welfare state —- and certainly is overshadowed by the positives of unions, such as the lower rates of poverty, lower mortality and accident rates, and higher job satisfaction and overall wages as a percentage of productivity across many industries.
> Lower employment for the very young and very old is generally a good thing in places with a robust welfare state…
Exactly, I can’t think of any country who has had problems with the majority of the 18-24 year olds not being able to find meaningful employment.
Well…except for every single country where this has been the case.
It’s not like they will be sitting around with no job prospects looking at the immigrant groups getting jobs (because they have no other choice but to work) and become susceptible to some right/left wing extremist groups or anything like that.
Seems like speculation / projection. If your argument about unions and extremism was supported, you’d expect to see a correlation between high union membership and “extremism”. If anything, countries with high union density (Sweden, Iceland, Finland) seem to have fewer extremist parties than low union countries like the United States, The Philippines, and Poland. In the United States, the long-term decline in industrial union power, as also seen in Great Britain during the Thatcher “union-busting” era, has presided over an increase in extremism.
So whatever effect union has in employment, it’s not the kind that is shown to lead to extremism.
Again, you cited a paper claiming that it supported that “unions == unemployment” when all it said was that unions are correlated with small increases in unemployment among the very young and very old.
What we know is that union membership is shown definitively to result in better working conditions and safety, higher job satisfaction, and higher wages across entire industries.
I cited no such thing but merely pulled an opinion out of my backside.
I’m really just saying that maybe it isn’t such a good idea to intentionally restrict young people from the job market because they have the exact same right to meaningful employment as anyone else.
>Lower employment for the very young and very old is generally a good thing in places with a robust welfare state
No, this is never a good thing. No welfare state replaces the lost income - it may reduce the pain but does not remove it. Otherwise those people would not be unemployed - they'd be retired.
And especially for the young - each year lost is a year behind for wages their entire life as they lag in raises, promotions, skills, and opportunities.
I'm not sure why you think this is a good thing. I've never heard anyone ever claim it, and I've read and worked with econ stuff a long, long time.
Can you cite a peer-reviewed paper about the claim you made? Did you read it in econ literature?
> overshadowed by the positives of unions, such as the lower rates of poverty, lower mortality and accident rates, and higher job satisfaction and overall wages as a percentage of productivity across many industries
These only accrue to those in the union at the detriment of others not in the union and consumers at large. Unions reduce employment, have slower employment growth, and raise costs, which is borne by society. A union is a monopoly on labor, which has all the downsides of monopolies on goods or production.
Some examples:
[1] " We find that unions adversely affect unemployment rates and the growth rates of gross state product (GSP), productivity, and population, while increasing the rate of wage inflation. The impact on the employment growth rate is negative but not significant."
[2]: "We find evidence that links union influence to slower job growth during an economic recovery, a finding consistent with previous studies reporting that unions negatively affect average employment and employment growth."
[3]: Lists data for many countries and many time periods about how union shops have lower employment growth.
I could go on and on. So while there are benefits to union members, it comes at a cost to those not in the union, to economic growth overall, to employment rates and employment rate growth, and wage inflation (thereby eating up the gains of union wages to begin with). The literature is pretty clear on these effects.
> A union is a monopoly on labor, which has all the downsides of monopolies on goods or production.
I appreciate your citation of those papers, but I feel that this is an unjust comparison -- unions raise wages for workers even outside of their industry, whereas industrial monopolies frequently depress wages and raise prices for the benefit of a privileged few (generally executives and large shareholders). Unions are, historically, a reaction to that power imbalance of industrial monopolies, and attempt to counter diminished bargaining power. Unions increase economic equality, while industrial monopolies decrease it.
This reminds me of the debate over universal healthcare -- critics asserted that it decreased labor force participation, and was therefore a failure, when others argued was that it was evidence of its success--as people who wanted or needed to quit their job, such as those also acting as a caretaker, but previously didn't yet qualify for medicare, could finally retire.
Abolishing slavery also increased unemployment, as do raising interest rates -- the youth unemployment rate is a single data point to be balanced with other economic indicators that at the end are simply tools to tell a story about the prosperity of a society. Unions density, low poverty rates, and high wages are correlated across not just states but the entire world.
It is not a comparison, unjust or otherwise. A union is precisely a monopoly on labor. That is the point of a union. If you google, this is a common definition in economics on what a union is.
Are you claiming a union is not a monopoly on labor? Are you claiming that this labor monopoly does not have features of a monopoly? Upsides and downsides?
In fact, in order for unions to exist in the US, they had to be specifically exempted from anti-trust laws. The original anti-trust law, the Sherman Act, was used against unions, so future laws had to specifically allow the monopoly of a union.
So yes, a union is exactly and legally and economically a monopoly.
> Unions increase economic equality
You keep parroting this claim, despite my just having shown you multiple papers clearly demonstrating that this is simply untrue. Those people now unemployed in those papers, those not getting jobs in the future because unions stagnate growth - are they now better off and more equal?
Unions change who gets what, at major cost to many people, making some of them incredibly poorer.
There is simply no free lunch here. Forming a monopoly on labor will have effects - getting more money for those in the monopoly is not going to raise all boats - and that monopoly and those in it will try to hold their income, at the expense of immigrants, of those outside the group, of society at large.
So they pass costs on to consumers as well as pushing those out of work that would compete with them. This is pretty straightforward - and demonstrated in the literature as I posted.
So yes, unions can raise pay for those in it, may have some ripple effects to others, but you cannot ignore basic economics and what losses are caused elsewhere.
If you're going to ignore well sourced, peer reviewed evidence, and not provide solid counter evidence other than your continued opinion, there is really little left to discuss.
> So they pass costs on to consumers as well as pushing those out of work that would compete with them. This is pretty straightforward - and demonstrated in the literature as I posted
The literature you posted demonstrated no such thing. Again, you're now making expansive claims that are interpretations well beyond the scope of these papers, using "first principals" and "common sense" -- they show that unions increase wages at the cost of slightly raised unemployment among certain groups. There is no free lunch, but unions eating lunch at the expense of shareholder profits is absolutely a good thing and the point. Their affect on consumer prices was not demonstrated by your literature, but I assume you're going to make the same false libertarian argument against "minimum wage" -- that it raises some consumer prices and unemployment, and therefore, should be abolished (in spite of the massive evidence that's shown that it's been radically effective at lifting people out of poverty while having little effect on both)?
Your blanket condemnation of unions is ideological.
> Unions Reduce Inequality. You keep parroting this claim, despite my just having shown you multiple papers clearly demonstrating that this is simply untrue. Those people now unemployed in those papers, those not getting jobs in the future because unions stagnate growth - are they now better off and more equal?
Ok, here's a source that supports that unions actually increase productivity, that's about 20 years more recent than the source you posted.
"In total, results suggest that right to work laws work as intended, increasing economic inequality indirectly by lowering labor power resources. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed."
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708067
Union Density Effects on Productivity and Wages
"Accounting for selection effects and the potential endogeneity of unionisation, the results show that increasing union density at the firm level leads to a substantial increase in both productivity and wages. The wage effect is larger in more productive firms, consistent with rent-sharing models."
https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/130/631/1898/5824627
"Decompositions based on public-sector earnings indicate that increases in union density have produced inequality that is 29 percent below what it otherwise would have been"
First, you never answered why you claimed unemployed youth is a good thing. Care to explain?
Do you now agree that a union is a monopoly of labor?
And switching to RTW laws instead of unionization hits upon one of the key areas: RTW lets more people work, so those regions also get lower quality people into jobs. Lower quality people earn less generally.
From your first paper, regarding RTW laws: "previous research finds these laws to be largely inconsequential" - so: did this paper overturn all previous papers? Or did later papers still support the "largely inconsequential" part? Papers are a discussion, so it's best to look at followups, such as the more recent, more widely cited [1]: it states that RTW is not what drives inequality - that is caused in the paper by preexisting variables, that both drive inequality and the passage of RTW laws. So I guess that covers that, right?
As I showed above - union companies have slower employment growth. This is done at the cost to less employable workers - especially youth and old - as also demonstrated which you then said was a good thing, for who knows what reason.
Your second paper is the same short-sighted claim you keep making - of course wages go up for those in a union. No one disputes that. It does not address that the cost is passed on to society and to displaced workers, which is the part you seem unable to admit also happens. If a monopoly on labor drives up wages, where do you think that money comes from? Owners simply hand it over? Or does it put pressure on employment, on investment, on business expansion, on prices?
We can keep going around. I agree there are benefits to unions, but you seem unable to admit there are also costs. Do you still think there are no downsides and that unemployed youth is a good thing? Do you admit a union is a monopoly on labor?
> I'm not that old, but even I remember a time when companies, at least in principle, would invest in their employees (via stable employment, regular raises, mutual trust) in return for employees investing in the companies (innovation, extra effort, dedication, championing the company brand).
So I'm in my mid 40s, and my earliest memories of company-labor relationship, has always been one of union crushing, layoffs, and pitting towns against each other to see which factory or mine was going to close first, before offshoring. But then again, I grew up in the deindustrializing midwest.
I'm not saying this rosey world never existed (I believe lifetime quality employment still existed in the 1960s), but it's been like this for more than half a century.
In the past there were companies that treated their employees well, and also companies that didn't. I am pretty sure that all the points you mentioned are not new developments of the last 20 years.
In the present there are also both kinds of companies. Are you sure you aren't comparing the worst of today's companies to the best of the past's?
> Companies literally escorting laid-off employees out of the building like criminals, on the premise that a suddenly-former employee is an incipient criminal.
It doesn't take many incipient criminals to ruin things for everyone. You'd do it to if you've ever had an employee steal or embezzle from you, and it's a lot more common than you might think.
At some point you'd figure out Americans would look around the world and start asking: "are we sure we're doing this right?".
In every place in Europe I know of, you're not escorted outside of the building by anyone. You just go at a leisurely pace and drop off your badge and stuff, put your stuff in a bag, etc.
I've still never heard of this here in Germany. Maybe it's because you usually can't fire people valid TODAY, so they still have some runway of around 3 months and then they don't feel like they need to grab stuff and run?
#4 "escorting out" is usually a result of applying #1, #2, #3 and #5 to a person and realising the affect those actions might have on them, just more good business sense!
I think that there is a cost to companies operating this way, but the cost is largely unseen or harder to account for. Arguably doing everything opposite of those points can be "good business sense" too. For example, going with the mindset of investing in your employees.. two of the points below:
> Companies using the barest of excuses, or none at all, to lay off employees
The intention is to streamline everything and cut costs and improve efficiency for the business. However, doing the opposite here helps preserve tribal knowledge (possibly leading to better business outcomes). It helps improve retention because it creates an environment where employee isn't constantly optimizing for the best compensation and looking to jump ship at the first better opportunity.
> Companies lying, deliberately and freely, to employees about upcoming layoffs, in order to "stave off panic". Because it makes good business sense.
Doing the opposite leads to employees being more focused at work. Instead of prepping for the next interview, they can focus their energies on company initiatives.
I’m not that old either. At least I tell myself that. It might even be true.
One doesn’t recognize a well packaged lie overnight. Or at least I didn’t. Took burnout to realize the company I was willing to give it all for never really meant all of those sweet things it told all of us. And that was true long before I worked there. The wrapping was nicer. Have you heard of a “pension?” Some of the older employees, by tenure, would talk about them. They sounded just magical. Wonder where those went. Not the only perk that has vanished with time, but perhaps one of the most notable.
But it took too long to see it. I didn’t really want to. It hurts getting your heart broken.
> I remember a time when companies, at least in principle, would invest in their employees
I remember that time too, back before we had armies of employees with nebulous job titles like "Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Advocate". Maybe someone realized some of these positions don't actually create any value, product, or service. Or as you put it, "Because business sense, etc." My impression is Twitter has extremely high overhead costs, and the gravy train has run out of steam.
People can stop buying products that don't agree with them. It might not be in your financial cards but if it is a free product there is no excuse - it makes good business sense.
I'm not that old, but even I remember a time when companies, at least in principle, would invest in their employees (via stable employment, regular raises, mutual trust) in return for employees investing in the companies (innovation, extra effort, dedication, championing the company brand). Today, we have this:
- Companies using the barest of excuses, or none at all, to lay off employees. Because it makes good business sense.
- Companies lying, deliberately and freely, to employees about upcoming layoffs, in order to "stave off panic". Because it makes good business sense.
- Companies laying employees off in the most impersonal fashions possible (large Zoom meetings, automated email, SMS). Because business sense, etc.
- Companies literally escorting laid-off employees out of the building like criminals, on the premise that a suddenly-former employee is an incipient criminal.
- Companies stiffing people on severance, based on a cost-benefit analysis which concludes that the potential legal bills will cost less than a fair and reasonable severance. Because, again, it makes good business sense.
In spite of the downsides of unions, this turn of affairs is really an argument in favor of universal unionization.