A recent story linked on HN that sadly didn't get much attention was that companies are in a crisis of not knowing what they can do to stop their employees from quitting. Glib answers like "pay them more" and "treat them better" aren't helpful because many of these are high paid jobs and everyone has a difference of opinion on what it means to be treated well (even if most will agree that being punched in the face all day is bad). Companies cannot get employees to tell them what they want. Exit interviews are mostly fruitless, surveys are avoided because workers don't believe they're truly anonymous, outside surveys have the same problem since the survey company is being paid by the employer.
How can a company get honest feedback from their employees without the employees fearing reprisals? A union is one way of doing it since employees (usually) trust their union to take their grievances to the employer with little risk to the employees as individuals or as a group. There was a case a few years ago where a European company opened a factory in the right-to-work state and wanted its workers in a union because that's how it maintained employee relations in their home country. They were confused by the hostility towards unions in that state, both by workers and by the government. IIRC, it was semi-skilled manufacturing so exploiting the workers would be self-defeating if they kept leaving for other jobs.
There are things I don't want, and things I prioritise to get rid of. The fact that for amazon getting rid of unions is a priority, suggests that unions are effective
Instead of restructure, the uion opted for bankruptcy? Way to "protect jobs"?
"The company's attempt to buy more time failed after union leaders rejected a new restructuring plan that would have cut a fifth of the 19,000-strong workforce. The union said its members would have to be paid £70m in wages arrears before it would consider the proposals."
Amazon sees the unions as a direct threat to their profits, but that doesn't mean that unions are effective. Amazon's profits going down doesn't guarantee that workers pay & conditions would go up.
I think nearly everyone agrees that unions are going to have a negative impact on profits, that hasn't a point of contention in the debate.
To downtime. The one and only lever a union brings is a withdrawal of services – i.e. strike. An employer won't take a union seriously until it has demonstrated that it will strike, so if it is more than a bluff among workers a strike is inevitable.
This is also why unions have largely fallen out of fashion except in industries where the workers are well off. Unless you are wealthy enough to burden several months, if not years, without work striking isn't an option and thus the union becomes toothless.
That's a bad take. Strikes are temporary, and have clear goals of increasing pay and work conditions. You talk as if a union is formed, then strikes indefinitely and hurts profits, then the business fails.
Unions have "fallen out of fashion" in the US because there are not enough labor protections in place. Even now you hear of Starbucks and Amazon even going so far as hiring firms to do hit jobs on union leaders. If you think this is because they are afraid of downtime, rather than having to actually share more of their profits with workers, suit yourself.
> You talk as if a union is formed, then strikes indefinitely and hurts profits, then the business fails.
The original claim replied to was that profit would decline, not disappear... Talk about a bad take.
> enough labor protections in place.
That's the remainder of the story. Because labour laws have appeared over the decades and centuries, one doesn't have to forego financial stability to save their life like people once had to. Workers now become de facto members of the government union which has already negotiated minimum standards for all. That wasn't always the case.
Those who are in a position to be able to walk away from an income for months at a time may hold on to eek out an ounce more, but it's simply not worth it to low paid workers who rely on a regular paycheque. The cost of losing a home and going hungry greatly outweighs any potential returns.
> The fact that for amazon getting rid of unions is a priority, suggests that unions are effective
Well, it suggests that unions are effective at creating negative consequences for the company. Those consequences could be "more costly to do business because the employees are paid more"; in theory, a good outcome. They could also be "more costly to do business because it's not against the rules for someone to plug in the monitor in their office because all electronics must be handled by a certified union member" (which actually happens); in theory, a bad outcome.
Not all "bad for the company" things are "good for the employees".
Damn right it's effective when you want to blackmail someone because you have extra time.
If you were prioritizing your life then I came and tried to rob you, what would be the chance that you prioritize my angle of attack?
Unions are literally built to prey on that cost that a company IS prioritized and by distracting it with legal hell it becomes slower and risks losing its position in the marketplace and thus potentially vulnerable to negoitations that are unfaorable because of exploiting what would otherwise be prioritization. Your example is just that the vampire sucked too much blood, and has a clear boundary of policy.
I completely get why unions are necessary. But it would be like me hiring a divorce attorney for my own wife.
A business is almost never going to want a union. And it seems weird to expect them to.