General Politics Thread

Also: Offering extra benefits to union members is, like, incredibly anti-Union.

It's 'solidarity', not 'salary'.

@Silas: "That’s a big assertion you’re making there, why do we need to increase production before we can distribute? Why can’t the existing production amount just be distributed differently?

To make a real world example, what if amazon shareholders just got less profits and amazon staff got paid more, without amazon making any more money?"

We could (and probably should), and that would add to economic growth, because working class people spend a higher proportion of their money than the wealthy do, so such income redistribution acts as a kind of stimulus to consumer spending. But first, of course, Amazon has to exist to be able to distribute the income it produces, and we're back to the same problem. Amazon is a very large, capital intensive business whose scale of operations is well beyond what any small, privately owned business could duplicate. I've explained what role large capital intensive enterprises serve in the current economy, for better or for worse, and now I want to hear alternatives, or I will begin to suspect you guys don't actually have any.

As for unions, how is offering benefits to non-members not an act of solidarity? They already bargain for members only, if they are going to do the work of negotiating on everyone's behalf, reserving additional perks for their dues-paying members (the ones that make the bargaining possible in the first place) only seems fair.

Wait... Are you seriously making demands here?

Well that was rude...

If anyone interested in a good faith debate would like to hear some solution ideas I have I’d be more than happy to share, but this clearly isn’t a conversation happening in good faith.

Then how do we get members? Go closed shop? I’ve had people say to me that they’re not going to both to join because they get the pay deal we negotiate even if they don’t join. It would be unprofessional of me to call them a scab, but it’s kinda tempting.

Edited by Silasw on Sep 13th 2019 at 7:11:41 PM

Giving benefits to union members is nearly the same as going Closed Shop any way, but no.

Look, I'll be honest: I don't have the answer either. All I know is that if your fellow workers have internalised the Capitalist 'fuck you, got mine' mindset so much that they can't be bothered to show solidarity, the way to fix that in the long term is not to enable that further.

Community is the answer. Benefits for all, but only Union members get coffee, cake, chat, commiseration and celebration at regular intervals at Union functions.

Socialising is not an unimportant benefit, but it's not necessarily the most vital in the wider workplace.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Sep 13th 2019 at 12:29:19 PM

I’m not sure how offering extra benefits to union members would damage the health of unions. That seems like a decent enough idea to encourage membership.

My union enjoys pretty high membership, but I do live in a right to work state so the union is kind of automatically at a disadvantage.

I can tell you at the very least if my union restricted access to the annual Christmas party to members they’d have 100% membership by the end of the week.

Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 13th 2019 at 4:29:51 AM

For lack of a better word it damages the soul of the union. Because giving benefits to union members that are denied to non-members gives the bosses an opportunity to paint the union as elitist, exclusionary or greedy.

It also readily invites corruption, since it gives an incentive to union members to gain benefits for themselves, even if it's to the detriment of non-union workers.

Basically it pits union members against non-union members, when the real enemy is the bosses.

If we get into the is-ought of the matter while the practical effect of a union benefits the workers, union membership shouldn't be something people engage in for personal enrichment.

Ideally you join the union for the same reason you participate in any democratic process or collective agreement: Because if you don't, you don't have a vote and while the people who participate still do so on your behalf, participation is the only way you'll guarantee that your specific concerns are heard.

You must have a good caterer at those parties. Or a lot of booze.

Sure, ideally people don’t engage in something like a union for personal enrichment. Practically speaking, though, the soul of the union doesn’t count for much if it can’t keep membership up. I mean, if extra rewards for members is what it takes to have a union protecting my rights, that’s a price I’m comfortable paying. We want to de-incentivize “free riders” as much as possible.

The food isn’t bad, but the open bar is the real attraction.

Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 13th 2019 at 6:00:13 AM

Maybe it's because of the privilege I experience from living in a country with very strong unions, but I cannot agree with this.

Regardless of whether you believe capitalism is something that needs to be gotten rid of or simply reformed, you don't defeat the problematic excesses of capitalism by embracing the problematic excesses of capitalism.

And you don't win the class struggle by inventing a middle class.

Well, what do you suggest then? “People should join unions out of civic duty” isn’t enough by itself, and unions are slowly having their membership eroded across the US. Is there a better way to increase membership? I’m not saying we should cut off non-members from the basic functions of a union, but create some incentive.

It seems like you’re putting ideological purity ahead of actual results here, which I’m not sure I agree with.

I'm putting long term goals ahead of short term gains, rather.

When unions start extending special privileges to members, that may increase membership and even strengthen their position, but it also severely weakens the purpose of the union.

Just look at SAG-AFTRA, which very much does that.

It may be one of the strongest unions in the US, but it's also one of the most corrupt.

It's easy to blame film studios for not having enough roles for minority actors, for instance, but a lot of the blame also falls on SAG-AFTRA for specifically discouraging studios from using relatively unknown minority actors in favour of more established members (who are mostly white), because more work for minorities means less work for members.

SAG-AFTRA contracts require studios (film, animation or otherwise) to give preferential treatment to members when casting and hiring is concerned, with further special privilege in this area for long standing members, and requires actors to have a certain number of SAG-affiliated projects under their belt before they can get their SAG card in addition to requiring them to pay dues once they get their card regardless of whether they're currently working.
The end result is where the stereotype of the 'struggling actor' comes from: A system where young talents constantly see themselves passed up for roles in favour of more 'established' union members, which in turn leads to them getting less work, which leads to lapsed dues, which leads to them not renewing their cards, which leads to them getting passed over for roles even more.

I mean... Just ask David Hayter how well SAG-AFTRA setting its sights on video game voice acting worked out for him... And he was already carded at the time.

So yeah, special benefits for union members? Quick short term solution to declining union membership, big long term problem for union effectiveness.

Edited by Robrecht on Sep 13th 2019 at 5:08:16 PM

This is all making me look at joining UNISON now...

That’s more an issue with the nature of the incentive, not an example of incentives being inherently bad. People aren’t going to join a union just because it’s the right thing to do, so if we want unions to exist long term then we need to do something short term to address free riders and falling membership.

Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 13th 2019 at 8:26:12 AM

Sorry to be rude, but I'm getting frustrated. I have defended every point I made, utilized facts and logical arguments, and put my own opinions out there for you guys to poke holes in, and that's fine, but on my part I detect a condensation here that I find off putting. I have described how I feel the economy works, and some of you have attacked my description without offering any alternative. I haven't attacked anyone's ideas, merely defended my own. I feel like some of you have already made up your mind on these matters, and aren't open to other interpretations. That's a double standard, and I'm calling them out on it.

Moving on, in the US, labor law dictates that in a unionized workplace, employees have a right not to belong to the union, but any contract that is negotiated between the union and the employer must apply to all employees. Unions generally see this as undesirable, because it creates an incentive for free riders: why belong to the union if you get the same represetation anyway? However, "members-only benefits" are legal, and some contracts have contained such clauses. In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that non-union members cannot be required to pay union dues, although they can be required to pay an "agency fee" that is the fair share of what it costs the union to negotiate the contract, except in "Right to Work" states where even the agency fee cannot be required. Again, this is seen by labor advocates as weakening the union position.

It seems reasonable that, in order to restore to the union some of the leverage they had in the past, to allow them to bargain for contracts that make different provisions for union vs. non-union members, esp. if the non-members are not even paying an agency fee. It seems fair and equitable that if an employee contributes more to the union, then that employee should receive more in return. This would have the effect of making full union membership more appealing, reverse the membership decline, and make the threat of a strike against unreasonable working conditions more powerful. It's a win for the labor movement.

Counterpoint: I live in a country where people do join unions because it's the right thing to do and unions are very strong despite not even 50% of workers being members (the rest are 'free riders' as you put it).

So there's that.

I'm sorry, I really don't want to be rude, but I'm looking for a polite way of telling you that the more you explain, the more it becomes clear you've Dunning-Kruger-ed your way into thinking you understand how economic theory beyond some of the practical effects of capitalism work and failing miserably.

How is that a counterpoint? All you said was that unions are doing great in your country, which is of course nice to hear, but has essentially nothing to do with the fact that unions are shrinking and weakening in the US because they can’t encourage people to join.

It's a counterpoint, because you made the general statement ' People aren’t going to join a union just because it’s the right thing to do' and I personally know, like, a whole bunch of people who did exactly that. I am one myself.

I even know a good number of people who did so in the US.

If that were enough by itself we wouldn’t see unions in the US in their current predicament, so again relying on civic duty alone is self-evidently not enough.

There doesn’t seem to be any good reason not to offer incentives for union membership, other than some kind of nebulous ideological purity. The question is just what that incentive should be.

You keep referring to 'ideological purity' as if I'm just objecting for the sake of objecting and haven't explained exactly why I think it's a bad idea.

Also, honestly? If American unions aren't attracting enough new members, that may be a problem with the unions, not the 'incentives'.

Have the unions worked towards combating, for instance, workplace harassment and casual sexism? Because sure as shit a lot of women are going to need no additional incentive to join in that fight. (This is a rhetorical question, by the way, I know for a fact that while most new unions do fight the good fight, many of the older unions in the US are old boys' networks who contribute to workplace sexism rather than combating it.)

Have the unions embraced the rights of LGBT workers to work free of discrimination? (I already know the answer, it's the same as the one for the previous question.)

Unions, after all, are supposed fight for labour rights, not just for higher salaries and better benefits. Many of the more established unions in the US only do the latter.

Your explanation of why it was bad was just a bunch of vague handwaving about the”soul” of a union. That’s not an argument that can really be meaningfully engaged with, as it’s essentially meaningless. Even the SAG example was more about outright corruption than incentives for membership.

Free riders are a serious problem for unions in the US, whether you choose to see it or not. Whether unions or doing a good enough job or not that’s still true. There needs to be a way to encourage people to do it beyond “it’s the right thing”.

Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 13th 2019 at 5:26:39 AM

Sure, but your focusing on only one issue, we do need to solve the long-term problem of people not wanting to spend money to show solidarity, but we also need functioning unions in the short term and that means a level of playing the game as it stands today.

A lot of things that shouldn’t be are, many things that should be aren’t, we can fight to change such things but we have to work within the reality we have while we build a better one.

Sure but here’s the hard sell, the union is asking for your money. I don’t get a tax reduction if I opt out of voting (if people did you’d seen turnout drop like a stone), if you opt out of the union process you get a little bit more money each month, for people struggling to make ends meet that matters.

Regardless of the high philosophical ideas behind it a union is asking people to give it money, it has to offer something of value in return for that, 90% of people are going to have their eyes glaze over if you try and explain “the slight increase in collective bargaining power for the union that will result in an improved workplace deal for you” as the tangible product they get for their X bucks a month dues.

I can’t teach Socialism 101 in a one hour union brief, I’m asking for their money and I need to offer them something of value in return.

Now now, there are several people in my union who joined because it’s the right thing to do, me, the head union rep, the other [small number] union reps and I think a handful of our lay members.

We could problem fill the seats in a small meeting room with our principled members.

Which is exactly the problem, you end up with sod all people if it’s only the people who join on principle, which means you can’t do squat, which means you’re not helping people, which means nobody joins because they don’t see you doing anything.

It’s not easy to do that when your union has sod all money and sod all lay reps, because you’ve not got enough members because you’ve got a bunch of free riders.

Unions is some countries have been so totally broken that workers don’t believe the unions can fix anything, so they refuse to join, thus denying the union any power to fix the issues.

Edited by Silasw on Sep 13th 2019 at 12:34:16 PM

Yeah... See...

What you're telling me is that the problems with unions in the US aren't going to be solved by the unions themselves.

What you need is extensive reforms of labour laws.

'Cause, you know that great position Dutch unions are in? That's because we've solved the problem of free riders by enshrining unions in law and then simply subsidizing unions through taxes furnished over wages. And that works for us, because wages are high enough, as a result of unions negotiating directly with and advising directly to the government in order to get robust labour laws in place, that even the lowest paid workers don't feel the 'loss' of that income.

Historically, unions providing special benefits to members to the (perceived) detriment of non-union workers has never resulted in a strong, non-corrupt union in the long term.

Edited by Robrecht on Sep 13th 2019 at 3:02:35 PM

You also mentioned the reason why it works in the Netherlands and which I doubt it's widespread in the USA.

High wages.

It turns back on money to a degree since you are plain out saying that the reason unions work in the Netherlands is because the hit of their fee is lowered due to the higher pay.