2. Unions rarely, if ever, negotiate rights only for their own workers. The massive union protests prior to COVID asking for minimum wage increases didn’t ask for minimum wage increases only for union workers. They asked for federal and in some cases statewide increases in minimum wage which would affect all workers.
3. A lot of the research shows that higher union salaries also translate into higher non-union salaries, so union efforts also very directly help non union workers.
China. India. Japan. Korea. Pretty much all of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Unions are prevalent in Northern Europe [1]. That's it. That's the exception.
Outside Northern Europe, countries with great workers' rights [2] have between one in four and one in six people in unions.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_comparisons_of_t...
And how do you propose we align around such things? It seems like you’d need to organize your labor pool and possibly position yourself to bargain collectively, perhaps?
If you read my magnum opus, Chronos Shuffled, you would see that individual negotiation by an enlightened majority will reach the same common goal if... um... everyone individually pursues the exact same agreed upon goals...
...shit.
This is the distraction I'm talking about. Unions, in this century, have been effective at one thing: dividing voters from organizing around labor reforms in law.
For one, get tech workers to vote. Ironic detachment from politics still appears to be a thing for many in our industry. After that, this is political organization 101. For all the tech unions we do have, I haven't seen them try to expand workers' rights broadly. Because why would they. That's the competition.
What divisiveness? Most news I hear about unions paints them as a negative without backing anything up.
> We need workers’ rights for everyone. Not just those who are in a union.
Agreed, but we have to start somewhere. If unions are able to push for some type of labor benefit, then good for them.
Unions are fundamentally about putting workers and management into separate categories. (And unionized workers on a pedestal above others.) In an industrial context, this makes sense. In a start-up, it does not.
By definition of function, employees and shareholders are at diametrically opposed incentives if the organization prioritizes return on capital over all other things.
If you are in an organization, where in the majority of the ownership is held by the people who have funded it, then at the starting point, it is already adversarial unless you are an equal partner in equity.
Since the vast majority of organizations are set up as such, and unless you have a controlling interest in the organization from a legal stock perspective, then you are in a position of no power to start with, and it will continue that way until you become a significant shareholder.
Unions are required to provide the collective action necessary to counter the overwhelming legal power of shareholders in the current structure.
