Blogspam that doesn't even get the original story right. According to the WSJ that TNW is supposedly quoting, drivers are NOT being forced to listen to anything.
> Before accepting rides on his Uber app each day, Seattle driver Fasil Teka must first choose whether to listen to company-run podcasts on voting rights, collective bargaining and city council hearings.
No, technically not forced - the headline is misleading / clickbaity.
That said, drivers are going to be well aware that Uber's likely to be collecting metrics on who listens and who doesn't, and I'd hardly trust them to follow employment law to the letter.
Conjecture. You have literally no evidence in support of that belief. Not forced, full stop, the headline of the article is flat out wrong. If you defend this shit just because you agree with the sentiment, you have no right to an opinion about fake news.
EDIT: For the record, the parent has ghost-edited their post.
I would dial this back a bit. Worst case scenario, the commenter you are responding to is committing confirmation bias by making negative assumptions to match their existing negatives beliefs. Confirmation bias is easy to slip into even if you know it exists, and this angry response isn't useful.
Best case scenario (which I think is more likely), they are simply interpreting this story in context. Uber has several ethics scandals under their belt including ones involving them gathering and analyzing data for unethical purposes (guessing which of their customers have had one night stands).
How is this different from how fake news perpetuates? My foe has done bad things A, B and C, therefore it's OK to not just assume they are doing D as well, but OK to present D as fact.
For the record, what I am reacting to is not the possibility of a belief that Uber might do such a thing[1], but the defence of a naked lie.
1: I think such a belief is an extremely shallow reading of Uber as wanting to do evil in and of itself, rather than willing to bend a lot of rules very very far to serve their customers (and sometimes cross the line in creative data-driven marketing), and have created a toxic corporate culture in the process -- it's easy to see how 'break all the rules as long as you're winning' can do that. I also don't think they will survive long, companies with less toxic cultures (but no less friendly to the taxi-interest-captured regulatory bodies or unions) will prevail because they can attract the better talent. Firing a driver with good performance because he doesn't listen to the company podcast is not even remotely consistent with that willingness. But that's not the discussion we're having.
This is a company who wrote software to detect and hide from law enforcement, and you think it's not feasible they'd try and come up with a score for how friendly a driver is to unionization? C'mon.
The headline is incorrect - they're not being forced - but it's hardly "fake news" conspiracy theory to speculate that some drivers may feel pressured over this.
My post literally stated (now edited to add "the headline is misleading / clickbaity" to be even more crystal-clear on that point) that they're not technically forced.
I understand, and I understood before. You're defending the lie by saying that it's only technically incorrect. You do understand that the phrase means that you think it's still substantially correct -- not that it conceivably could be true?
I believe it is substantially correct that Uber and companies like it engage in ethically dubious and legally murky anti-union actions.
I believe it implausible that Uber didn't consider the pressure/intimidation aspect that a daily prompt to listen to their propaganda entails when adding it to the system.
I agree that the headline is over the top. That said, Uber now even tracks users when outside the car. Since they can't know for sure if it's being tracked, it's inevitable that the drivers will feel pressured, and Uber knows that.
Do you think people who share fake news on social media think what it says seems unreasonable? Do you think that's a valid excuse to share fake news, or to defend it when it's called out for being fake?
The difference is between presenting your ideas as "facts" - or making it clear that they are theories, ideally with reasons given why you think they are worth considering.
This exchange belonged to the latter category.
More generally, the term "fake news" is thrown around far too often for my tastes. If I remember correctly, the origin was a scandal about eastern european scammers writing deliberately doctored news to create controversy and cash-in on ad revenue.
Nowadays, this term seems to be used by anyone to describe any kind of rumors or guesswork (or occasionally well-researched journalism) that doesn't fit their particular view.
Right, but in some peoples' opinions, the moon landing being a conspiracy is reasonable. That doesn't mean we should discuss it like it's true on this website.
Sure. No evidence except centuries of union busting, Uber's flouting of regulations, metrics on everything, digging into ride records without permission to prove points to journalists, etc.
The company was just caught shadow-banning users who work for municipal government to avoid potential regulatory issues. Uber deserves zero benefit of the doubt, as they have proven themselves as an organization to be unworthy of trust.
Imagine doing a podcast solely for your employees full of propaganda with the purpose of preventing them from unionizing. Seems like a very disturbing company culture.
I worked quite a few retail jobs in college and the only ones who did not have mandatory training on the horrors of unions were the ones that were already unionized.
Walmart goes so far to avoid any talk of unions that the one time employees unionized, they shut down that entire department for good, across every store.
It should be compulsory for everyone to be a member of a union as the HR staff at Uber have recently shown. It's much better to let your Union representative deal with sexual harassment charges than your company's internal departments. In the UK there is ACAS as well but being a member of a union is important for all sorts of reasons; fair pay and better working conditions are just two.
I agree. As someone who only recently entered the workforce, I have noticed that people from the US seem to have a particular tendancy to dislike unions whereas here in the UK they are often seen as a good thing. Anyone have any thoughts as to why?
The US population has been under a sustained propaganda campaign for several decades intended to promote a hyper-capitalist/libertarian agenda that serves the interests of a very small number of people.
The media in the US promotes this message, both because its members have themselves been awash in the propaganda their whole lives and also because the media organs in this country are largely corporate.
Combine that with a general disinterest in critical thinking that has also been "encouraged" by those same cynical forces described above to ensure that they have an uneducated, incurious population that believes what they want.
So now you can see why income inequality is growing in the US.
Right. This disinformation campaign gathered steam in the 1970s. The Powell Memorandum is a decent marker of the beginning of this modern corporate political movement.
Cold War politics entered into the picture, too, since many labor activists were left of center and accusing them of being a communist beachfront was an easy political attack.
One other complication: as with most parts of U.S. history, racism shows up at key points. Some unions have a history of racial discrimination – not least because factory owners tried to use African American workers to break strikes – but others, especially the government unions, were actually attacking race or sex-based discrimination, which didn't win them support among the more conservative workers. One thing I've noticed is a trend in who is portrayed as the “lazy union worker” in attacks, where they never show e.g. a white police officer in a negative context but routinely depict a public school teacher as someone unqualified who got the job by virtue of being female, minority, etc. One thing we're not short on are people who will act against their own personal interests if they think it'll hurt an undeserving other.
I think its fairly easy to criticise the actions of existing powerful unions, and postulate that the less relevant unions lost relevance exactly due to the same concerns and lack of monopoly protection.
Teachers unions for instance are still very strong on a state-by-state basis, but are disliked because they continuously only promote public schools and do whatever they can do show disdain for private school teachers, and students. This 'us versus them' mentality doesn't endear them to parents who simply want the best education for their children and not necessarily a "public school".
Additionally due to teacher's unions, demonstrably bad teachers are difficult to remove from their positions.
Police unions act similarly, by closing ranks anytime there's a whiff of a corruption investigation and proposing measures that essentially make police officers a protected class when it comes to criminal investigations against them. It's no surprise that the general public isn't in favour of them.
Unions historically can be favoured by the general population, when most people in the general pop are also members of unions themselves. Unions have an us versus them mentality that puts them at odds not only with management, but also with anyone who isn't a part of a union. They make allowances for and have political alliances with other unions, but don't really think about the public good.
An example is that if Software Developers were all in a union, we'd probably work it out so that a garbage man's union strike doesn't affect us too badly, so that in the future when we go on strike, the garbage men won't suddenly find that the apps and software they depend on suddenly has zero support. Given this situation, software devs (of the union) would be 'okay' with the other union, but everyone outside of the union would be unhappy because they're left high and dry.
It's ironic that the US population has continuously voted to increases social welfare spending since the 1970s. Thanks to all of this socialism, the US now has lower labour productivity growth than anytime in the past century.
Labour productivity growth sure is a strange metric to highlight - why don't we look at just plain old labour productivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_Productivity_levels_...
The US is ranked 7th in the OECD, but only Luxembourg and Norway have substantially higher labour productivity, while the top 3-7 countries are virtually tied.
Growth is how much something improves by. Socialism doesn't destroy the knowledge that has been built up. It destroys the ability of society to accumulate new knowledge.
That is actually remarkable given that women entered the workforce en-masse during that time. Rapidly increasing the work-force with the same basic needs being serviced and still having any per-worker productivity growth.
Couldn't also have to do with the phase out of Bretton-Woods and the recovery of Europe from WWII during that time?
And with all that social redistribution marginal-utility-wise productivity must be off the charts. $1 in additional purchased products for consumption sure provides a lot more utility to someone at the bottom than $1 in additional products does for a billionaire.
>That is actually remarkable given that women entered the workforce en-masse during that time.
The labour participation rate went from 60 percent in 1970 to 66 percent in 1992. At the same time, average hours worked per employed person declined from about 1900 hours a year in 1970 to 1790 hours a year in 1992:
So there was no relative growth in the size of the work force.
Socialism destroys the economy. Believe it or not, forcibly confiscating the earnings of highly productive people, to give without discrimination to less productive people, is poison to an economy. And that is all social welfarism amounts to:
Leftist authoritarianism that destroys incentives and breeds dependency.
But hey it's politically fashionable to defend welfare, because it makes it look like you stick up for the underdog, so that's what the majority will continue to do.
Any politician that promises more government "help", from the pocket of the faceless taxpayer, will have a major advantage in any election. That's why social welfare spending has increased so dramatically over the last 50 years.
"People not included in the participation rate include those who do not want to work or can't work. This includes people such as students, homemakers, incarcerated people and retirees."
The labor participation rate doesn't include homemakers.
You misunderstand. It groups those who do not work and are looking for a job, with those who work, as being part of the labour force, and thus "participating". Nonparticipants are anyone not looking for work, like homemakers, students, retirees, etc
The problem is most of the "redistribution" that actually happens in the US isn't from billionaires to peasants, it's from doctors and engineers to retail workers. Or from factory workers and truck drivers to themselves, but with a huge list of strings attached to what the money can be used for.
It's not a matter of $1. In that case obviously your example is clear but what if you taxed that billionaire so much that he decided, "why bother" and he stopped investing, building firms and simply decided to live a life of ease in Mexico? The net utility in that case with the job losses and movement of capital it entails would be negative.
Now take a look at the policies on the table. Bernie's medicare for all has a projected cost of 2.5 trillion dollars annually. If we taxed everyone who makes 1 million or more a year at 100% we would have about 1.5 trillion in receipts. It just isn't possible.
>Almost all the benefits of economic growth since [the 1970s] have gone to a small number of people at the very top.
—Robert Reich, Financial Times, Jan. 29, 2008
>Since the mid-1970s, however, income growth has been confined almost entirely to top earners.
—Robert H. Frank, New York Times, March 9, 2008
>The modern American economy distributes the fruits of its growth to a relatively narrow slice of the population.
—David Leonhardt, New York Times, April 9, 2008
...
>These statistics appear quite compelling, but hiding in the background are some key issues that might alter the story. Average household size declined substantially during the past 30 years, so household income is being spread across fewer people. The mix of household types—married versus single, young versus old—also changed considerably, so the “median household” in 2006 looks quite different from the “median household” in 1976. Finally, the measure of income used by the Census Bureau to compute household income excludes some rapidly growing sources of income.
...
>Here is a preview of the key data issues that lead to the higher estimates of median household income growth.
>The price index used by the Census Bureau overstates inflation, and thus understates income gains, relative to a preferred price index.
>A changing mix of household types leads the overall median increase to understate the median increase of most household types.
>The Census Bureau measure of household income understates income growth by excluding some rapidly growing sources of income.
>The remaining difference between the 44 percent to 62 percent increase in median household incomes and the 80 percent increase in BEA personal income per person appears to be largely attributable to an increase in income inequality. The findings in this article are consistent with recent research showing that the largest income increases occurred at the top end of the income distribution. However, the findings here are not consistent with the view that the incomes of middle American households stagnated over the past 30 years. Income for most middle American households increased substantially.
So what's your point. Socialism was terrible for the economy but anyone who says wages stagnated is wrong because these stats show that income grew. So... socialism worked out?
IMO, what happened since the 70s is that corporate capture of economic growth increased, often through government spending. Basically what's being called neoliberalism: austerity for most, government handouts for the wealthy.
>austerity for most, government handouts for the wealthy.
It hasn't been austerity for most. I thought we just established that there has been a massive increase in social welfare spending.
>So what's your point.
My point is that wage growth has tracked productivity growth. Middle class wages have mostly tracked productivity growth. There has been a slowdown in wage growth, and this can be mostly attributed to a decrease in labour productivity growth.
Other factors have played a role in the slowdown in middle class wage growth, but they are far outsized by the effect of slowing labour productivity growth. Those 'other factors' relate to government intervention, not to any mythical "neoliberalism" that the socialist consensus always harps on about as it further pushes the US into socialism.
It's just like the "Japan has no housing regulations and it's better". It's not; the homes are small, cheaply made and over priced compared to anything in the west!
The only places where housing is priced at a sensible level are those countries that the government build high quality local housing that the market has to produce better housing than to compete.
Please, for the love of God, learn about the US home building industry and about the construction industry in general. Nothing you said even approaches the truth, except for old Japanese housing (new Japanese housing is much better than the old stock) being of lower quality than US housing.
Interesting but let's look at rent prices to give us a guide shall we?
In central Tokyo you can get a 300 square foot apartment for $1800 per month and in the Mission (probably the cheapest part of San Fran?) for something that small (it's the legal limit) it's about the same.
The rest of Japan is more expensive than the US per square foot.
You actually get less space usually in new Japanese housing if anything. And I maintain they are cheaply built compared to US property.
It's very difficult to compare property across countries but this has been my experience and I think everyone living in Japan vs Western countries you seem to get larger better built buildings for your money.
Japan is more land constrained than the US. That's why rent is higher. It has a much less developed construction tradition than the US, which inherited its construction technology from Europe. More importantly Japan focused much less on durable constuction during the Middle Ages, and instead focused on building types that could be quickly repaired and rebuilt. That tradition carried over to the present, while the US benefited from the European building tradition of more durable construction.
> I agree. As someone who only recently entered the workforce, I have noticed that people from the US seem to have a particular tendancy to dislike unions whereas here in the UK they are often seen as a good thing. Anyone have any thoughts as to why?
If you've ever worked with our seen some of the actions of unions I'm the US I'm sure you understand.
They are often political and you can usually be barred from getting a job if you aren't Union. At one point in my life I considered doing lighting and stage work for theaters. After trying for some time, and impressing people with my spotlight work, they told me I'd have to join the union here in NJ and that could take years. I'd have to work for free till I got in! This was common here in NJ.
The political side is worse. Let's say you're a Catholic and you work in a company. Your company forces you to work in the union. Then your union donates to pro-abortion charities. Is that fair? I don't think so.
Then you have the biggest debate that should be raised about unions: how corrupted they are. Union dues are high and it's not because of the good service. The heads make a lot of money on the backs of some of the hardest working people in our country. You've got union bosses taking half a million pay check who is skimming from minimum wage factory workers.
So that's why I think the average Joe hates the American union: they are rich, political, and will bar you from getting a job all while taking your money, pocketing it, and expecting you to thank them for the pleasure.
The corporation you work for can be political and has unilateral control over whether you get a job. The corporation can make political contributions and lobby. Corporation C-level execs are taking large paychecks off the backs of low wage factory workers. But the corporation is working (in practice) solely for the shareholders. It seems to me that Unions are no better/worse than the corporation except that their duty is to their members. In this way Unions don't need to be a paragon of virtue because they're a balance to corporate power (even if a bit of a greasy one).
> The corporation you work for can be political and has unilateral control over whether you get a job. The corporation can make political contributions and lobby.
You may think I'm ok with that, but I'm not. I don't think companies should be political vehicals unless that's their goal (like the Free Software Foundation or the EFF).
> Corporation C-level execs are taking large paychecks off the backs of low wage factory workers.
I don't see it that way. First of all the executives are the ones managing the company. Without their planning there would be no work for anyone to do. Union bosses convinced some group of people that they needed their help. After that they threatened the owner of a company saying "If you hire off union, we'll go on strike". Because of that the company won't hire off union. Now the union boss has a monopoly on who does and doesn't get to work for a specific company.
If that isn't anti-worker I don't know what is.
Second, lets say I engage in a discussion with an employer and they say "Hey, we would only make money hiring you at this rate" and I decide that it's fine because I'm industrius and they'll promote me after a specific amount of time. I don't want some third party coming in and saying "YOU CAN'T DO THAT! THEY HAVEN'T JOINED THE UNION! THEY CAN'T BE PAIED LESS THEN US".
You've turned hiring into a power game. If the employer is allowed to hire people below the union rate then the union is fucked. They've lost all of their gargining power. If the union looses it's power, they'll stop paying their dues. If they stop paying their dues the boss looses money. So what happens then? The union boss has a vested interest in lobbying to keep their job relevant. They've stopped working for the good of the worker and are now working for their paycheck. We've seen that at least here in NJ with union protection laws.
> But the corporation is working (in practice) solely for the shareholders.
Well yea that's the point. A company is just a few people getting together and saying "Let's do X because it will make us money". They then hire people to all do a very specific subset of problem X. The people aren't forced to work on that specific subset or at that company, they can work at another if they don't like it here.
On the other hand, at least where I live, a union is state-wide. If I don't want to give money to a union and I want to work off union then I have to move to another state. I'm completely screwed because every company shares a union.
> It seems to me that Unions are no better/worse than the corporation except that their duty is to their members.
They don't care about their members. They think of their members as a cash source. This illusion that someone is looking out for you is crazy. It's acctually in their best interests to keep working conditions poor enough that people don't like their jobs while still doing easy meaningless things to make people think they are productive.
Now granted not all unions are like this but the ones I've seen definetly are.
> In this way Unions don't need to be a paragon of virtue because they're a balance to corporate power (even if a bit of a greasy one).
This is an ends-meets-the-means situation. I don't think that greasy wheels are the ones I should be giving my money to and I definetly don't want to be forced to work for, in, or under the thumb of a union.
Just because something is called a "union" doesn't mean it's for the people it has united. Most unions are for the union boss and their chronies to make a nice pile of money.
Now, again. Not all unions are like this. This is one of those "absolute power corrupts absolutely" things. I'm completely fine with unions run by people who work at a specific plant where the union boss is actually someone who works at this plant and where the union's dues are actually the amount needed to hire only the barging person at the end of the groups contract.
The sad thing is most unions aren't like that. They're run by someone too big for their boots who want's to make a quick buck and is fine with lying to a bunch of people to make it happen and who'll make you thank them for the pleasure.
Also, this assumption that the "execs are taking large paychecks off the backs of low wage factory workers" is not shared by the average person. The Execs are there because they make decitions about how the company is run, has been run, and will be run. Without them the company wouldn't function just like how without the workers the company wouldn't function. Devaling them just makes people look bad in the eyes of the average worker. Very few people, asside from the small small number of radical communists, I've met actually think this and they are actively turned away by people perpetuating it.
If you want to sell unions:
* Don't lead with communism/"These people don't deserve it, because!"
* Show a list of unions that are run by people who work at the company
* Tell people that the corruption is a problem but you want to lobby to fix it by removing state-wide union monopoly laws
* Don't disallow people to work off unions. If it's acctually worse, then it should just make the union look better.
* Don't tell people who work hard that you know better then them and that they'd not be able to survive without the union's help.
* Don't charge union dues that are more then what is acctually needed (1 full time lawer, an office, a monthly meeting place). A union is meant to make things affordable to those who need it the most, not to make it mandatory.
>Well yea that's the point. A company is just a few people getting together and saying "Let's do X because it will make us money". They then hire people to all do a very specific subset of problem X. The people aren't forced to work on that specific subset or at that company, they can work at another if they don't like it here.
This is also true of Unions, you can go to a different company with a different(or no) union or you can go work on a different subset.
>On the other hand, at least where I live, a union is state-wide. If I don't want to give money to a union and I want to work off union then I have to move to another state. I'm completely screwed because every company shares a union.
You can go work in another state if you don't like it there.
>Union bosses convinced some group of people that they needed their help. After that they threatened the owner of a company saying "If you hire off union, we'll go on strike". Because of that the company won't hire off union. Now the union boss has a monopoly on who does and doesn't get to work for a specific company.
So individuals organized into an organization and were able to bargain successfully with another organization? I don't see the problem. The corporation is inherently organized and can act as one force, when workers do the same, it's suddenly a problem?
>You've turned hiring into a power game.
It already is one.
>If the employer is allowed to hire people below the union rate then the union is fucked. They've lost all of their gargining power. If the union looses it's power, they'll stop paying their dues. If they stop paying their dues the boss looses money. So what happens then? The union boss has a vested interest in lobbying to keep their job relevant. They've stopped working for the good of the worker and are now working for their paycheck. We've seen that at least here in NJ with union protection laws.
I don't see why the union boss has suddenly stopped working for the good of the worker. They only exist if people pay the dues so they should obviously still be doing their best job to convince people dues are necessary. In this case why do remaining members of the union not defect? The union must be doing something for them.
>They don't care about their members. They think of their members as a cash source. This illusion that someone is looking out for you is crazy. It's acctually in their best interests to keep working conditions poor enough that people don't like their jobs while still doing easy meaningless things to make people think they are productive.
How is that in their best interest?
>Just because something is called a "union" doesn't mean it's for the people it has united. Most unions are for the union boss and their chronies to make a nice pile of money. Now, again. Not all unions are like this. This is one of those "absolute power corrupts absolutely" things. I'm completely fine with unions run by people who work at a specific plant where the union boss is actually someone who works at this plant and where the union's dues are actually the amount needed to hire only the barging person at the end of the groups contract. The sad thing is most unions aren't like that. They're run by someone too big for their boots who want's to make a quick buck and is fine with lying to a bunch of people to make it happen and who'll make you thank them for the pleasure.
A corporation is not for the people it has united. Most companies are for the company boss and their chronies to make a nice pile of money. Now, again. Not all companies are like this. This is one of those "absolute power corrupts absolutely" things. I'm completely fine with companies run by people who work at a specific plant where the company boss is actually someone who works at this plant and where the executive's pay is actually the amount needed to hire a decent executive. The sad thing is most companies aren't like that. They're run by someone too big for their boots who want's to make a quick buck and is fine with lying to a bunch of people to make it happen and who'll make you thank them for the pleasure.
>Also, this assumption that the "execs are taking large paychecks off the backs of low wage factory workers" is not shared by the average person. The Execs are there because they make decitions about how the company is run, has been run, and will be run. Without them the company wouldn't function just like how without the workers the company wouldn't function.
Most executive pay is unnecessary/undeserved. Many companies would run just fine if they paid their CEO less.
>Also in my mind will be these words of Jeroen van der Veer, former chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, uttered at an FT conference in 2009. “You have to realise,” he said, “if I had been paid 50 per cent more, I would not have done it better. If I had been paid 50 per cent less, then I would not have done it worse.”
>This paper shows that the standard form of option compensation, with non-indexed at-the-money options, is very far from optimal, though, as its pay-for-luck component is in the ballpark of 90%, and its motivational power is rather low.
>Devaling them just makes people look bad in the eyes of the average worker. Very few people, asside from the small small number of radical communists, I've met actually think this and they are actively turned away by people perpetuating it.
You shouldn't speak for these people especially when I know plenty of people who aren't radical communists, are "average workers" and don't agree with you.
>* Don't lead with communism/"These people don't deserve it, because!"
I'm not.
>* Show a list of unions that are run by people who work at the company
Why is this relevant? I work at a large company and our C-levels are extremely disconnected from what I actually do every day.
>* Tell people that the corruption is a problem but you want to lobby to fix it by removing state-wide union monopoly laws
Corruption is a problem, but is union corruption any worse than business coruption? I'd bet not. Once again, unions are to balance power between the company and its workers. As far as state-wide union monopoly laws my state is actually extremely anti-union so I know nothing about this. Can you point me towards the law that entrenches state-wide union monopolies in new jersey?
>* Don't disallow people to work off unions. If it's acctually worse, then it should just make the union look better.
This is a freerider problem. Unions can't exist when freeriders can gather the benefits the union has fought for and not contribute.
>* Don't tell people who work hard that you know better then them and that they'd not be able to survive without the union's help.
I'm not.
>* Don't charge union dues that are more then what is acctually needed (1 full time lawer, an office, a monthly meeting place). A union is meant to make things affordable to those who need it the most, not to make it mandatory.
I agree with you in principal. I even agree with you in practice in some places. My problem is why do you not hold corporations to the same standard you hold unions? It seems to me that companies are just as guilty as most of the sins you prescribe to unions yet you hate unions because of this and still love the corporation.
Furthermore, I would make a "herd immunity" sort of argument for unions. My mother used to work for a large paper company which didn't have unions even though many of the other paper companies around did. How did they keep the unions out? They paid a quarter more and had better benefits. In other words, my mom's wage was raised by a union that didn't even represent her. The unions in this case served to make the firms around town compete on wages. If you paid poorly, your workforce would unionize and you'd be stuck with strikes, wage increases and beauracracy. On the other hand if you paid well, you only had to deal with the wage increases.
Because U.S. unions are the reason why unionised professions are so miserable. C.f. theatres, in which different people must take down a picture, carry a picture to a different part of the stage, put a nail in the wall, and hang the picture. C.f. prison guards, whose unions actively lobby for increased incarceration. C.f. public 'servants,' who are effectively unfireable.
When unions strike, they attack those who go to work anyway. They are closely associated with the mob and racketeering. They are, from what I can tell, generally worse than the corporations they ostensibly protect workers from.
I think it should be perfectly legal to organise, perfectly legal to collectively bargain and perfectly legal to strike — but it should also be perfectly legal to fire folks who strike, and perfectly legal to refuse to deal with a union. Also, public employees should be strictly forbidden to strike, or to collectively bargain.
I do kinda wish that there were a non-adversarial way for employees to have a voice with their employers, but unions as they currently exist are not the right mechanism. Maybe employment contracts?
There was a time in history when businesses were abusive enough that unions' outrageous actions were perhaps necessary, but that's simply no longer the case. Strikes and violence to overthrow paternalistic company town and unsafe mines? Maybe. Strikes and violence to ensure that teachers who browse porn in class don't get fired? Nope.
The employer-employee relationship is almost always adversarial, we just don't notice it because the power is so imbalanced in favor of the employer and it's to their benefit to convince you it's not adversarial.
The employer pays you the absolute minimum he can to extract the maximum amount of value out of you in return. If he could force you to work an extra day for free, he would. If he could force you to work unpaid overtime, he would. If he could force you to take a risk to your own health in order to work more quickly and make him more profit, he would. This is all inherent and necessary qualities of capitalism.
We have checks to try to make this system palatable for human beings to exist within -- employers are liable for workplace injuries, you must be paid for your labor (unless you are salaried), and unions exist. Corporate interests are constantly trying to undermine every single check we have installed, and to prevent new ones. They must; it's their job, it will increase profits.
Most complaints about unions essentially boil down to them being too powerful. But if the government isn't going to step in and be a check on corporate power, unions had better be powerful enough to do something about it.
Tricking you into thinking this relationship is not adversarial is the greatest trick your adversary has ever pulled.
A different legal environment leads to different outcomes. Mostly my personal interactions with unions involve not being allowed to plug in my computer because "That's a union job" and so losing a day of productivity waiting around for them.
And then there's the actions of police unions in encouraging officer impunity.
At the heart of the union mentality is the deep desire to advance their members at the expense of non-union members. As we have seen the full flower of this mind state has cost the US economy millions of jobs as the total cost of Auto jobs and by collateral influence many other jobs - whose work went to cheaper labor cost places. If we all were in the union and all wages were the same (with skill/education/risk/etc modifying premiums) this would be workable. As it now is China and India(to a lesser degree) can now sell finished goods into the USA for a lot less than they can be made in the USA. In an ideal world, currency changes and import duties would act to level this. Sadly this is not the case and various forces will make Chinese and Indian products take larger portions of our markets every year. The exception is big bulky/fluffy items, like mattresses and some furniture that is so bulky that freight costs act as a de-facto import duty.
Now in Europe we have a far higher degree of unions than the USA, so there is not as big a wage spread across the workers, as we have in the USA.
In the UK the unions got so far out of hand with greed etc that Thatcher was forced to act. I refer to strikes, work rules, featherbedding (Google it - union men who did zero work at all - but got paid because they used to have a job where they made an item for 8 hours, and the company eliminated the part completely - yet the whole factory went on strike to keep these men paid). As you can see the US and UK auto business pretty much died off in terms of the number of workers (compare the number of USA/UK Auto workers in 1960 to 2015)
Now to Uber. The taxi companies deeply want to kill Uber, and they will invite the unions to help them, and they do not see that taxi unions will kill the taxi companies - (autonomous cars will help do this as well).
Uber succeeds because the cost of taxi ride is huge with most of the money going to the medallion holders and not to the drivers (except for independent drivers who own medallions - tax and other laws force heirs to sell medallions after the owner dies in most cases because few heirs want to grow up to drive taxis). Medallion owners allow a pittance to reach the drivers - which is why Uber did so well. A person could drive for Uber and make lots of $$ and some for Uber as well. Medallion prices crashed by 80% or so. Many medallions in New York were bought by huge loans that are worth a lot more than the medallion is worth with either Uber drivers of autonomous cars in the race.
Huge legislative efforts by medallion owners to allow them to fire their taxi drivers and shift the medallion to their autonomous fleet are being made.
Enuf rant
Any grassroots action that would threaten the interests of corporations, such as Walmart, is managed by propaganda. See gravypod's comment for how to give the impression that unions are bad.
Because (a) we've been enduring a stream of propaganda for decades now which promotes the idea that unions are for lazy people who use longevity of employment over talent or drive to get promoted, and (b) anyone who has been part of a union in the US knows that if you have to strike against any powerful company, then you may be without a paycheck for up to a month of two, which completely eliminates the value of being in a union in the first place for most people.
depending on industry they may or not may not be good for you. a lot of the blame for the steel industry failing and in part the woes of the auto industry were blamed on unions demanding too much.
they also are a reason many don't like the police because that union buries a lot. throw in that public service unions run up salaries and benefits of members who aren't in dangerous or unfairly compensate industries and regular working people get annoyed (countless stories about exceedingly high payouts for some retirees because of pension abuse and such all paid by taxes). Government unions tend to be the prime reason many dislike them because of the near immunity some members derive from such status
lower income earners tend to not get as much benefit from the high cost of dues (based on percentage of income) versus some higher wage earners.
I think trade unions are fine. The issue I have with unions relates to public sector unions like AFSCME that are able to have representation on both sides of the negotiating table.
Libertarians (of which I am not) are not against unions, they are simply pro freedom. Freedom means being able to assemble, but it also means not being compelled to assemble, especially when a portion of the dues are used to fund political action for policies they don't support.
I don't really understand why the idea of union shops bothers people.
Freedom also means you can strike, walk-out, or quit your job if you want. Union shops exist because unions have the power to have everyone else walk out if someone is hired who isn't in the union. That's how the concept was originally created. (I think the formalism around modern elections, created by Taft-Hartley, is actually strongly anti-union but that's another matter) it therefore seems odd to argue that you should be free to work in a union shop without joining the union, with all of your union co-workers forced to not walk out in response.
Or just speaking practically- a good union is democratic, and the democracy is much smaller - you can have more impact if you speak up- than the big democracy of the federal or state governments. So shouldn't taxes be a larger gripe than union dues? A portion of my taxes goes to fund all sorts of things I don't support.
No, you're missing the point. The issue is individual freedoms. You're talking about the benefits of collective bargaining and calling that freedom. It is in no way the same thing.
I think the free rider problem you allude to is a result of union membership providing diminishing value.
But again, the only part I really have an issue with are public sector.
PS. You're not wrong about taxes, but let's not use debating fallacies please. We're talking about unions.
>I think the free rider problem you allude to is a result of union membership providing diminishing value.
No, free riders are a problem regardless of membership value. You say that you are for unions but you are against the only thing that allows unions to exist.
The benefits of collective bargaining stem from the individual's freedom to withhold their labor. Or are you arguing it's somehow unjust for people to refuse to work with non-union coworkers?
Compelling an individual to support a group runs against the concept of individual freedom. I support the right to form a union and the right to not join one. I do not support the right to require an individual to join.
I mean salaries [1] for almost everyone other than executives and programmers haven't increased in 20 years. Corporate profits on the other hand are at record levels - so basically in my opinion workers are being screwed.
Workers indirectly invest in the stock market through retirement funds and other investments. Also, I think higher profits increase bond yields and bank interest rates.
> If living costs raise and the quality of available jobs worsens (e.g. less job security) but your wage stays the same that's objectively a loss.
Google gives "control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly or unscrupulously."
I'd say keeping your workers confused about their rights was a form of unscrupulous control. Hurts the bottom line when employees want things they are entitled to by law.
What you're saying is "companies should hold a lot of power over workers." Management is much more powerful than an individual worker and collective bargaining via unions seeks to be a check on that power. Why is that so undesirable?
It's undesirable because the company shouldn't be forced to allow unions.
Maybe the company thinks unions are inefficient or doesn't like the collective bargaining power (in extreme cases it resembles a monopoly). Companies and workers are entitled to their opinion. Workers can choose to work at companies that allow unions.
Of course management (multiple people) should be more powerful than an individual worker.
That's how it is in Brazil where I work, unions are mandatory. If you don't "voluntarily" contribute to one, your employer is required by law to withold a day's pay every year, and give it to the default union for your category. Obviously not anyone can start a union that counts.
It's controversial, but, IMO, it's not good at all. Unions here are very political, and often detached from what the workers actually want.
I once "participated" in a nationwide protest I hadn't heard about until the very day. Union thugs stopped the corporate buses full of workers from reaching the factory, got in bus by bus and instructed us to remain on the bus "for our own safety" - seriously, direct quote - so we were "deliberately" late for work.
I used to like my union when I was still working there. They always managed to negotiate higher and fairer raises for us every year.
That said, some things were unpleasant. For example, they wouldn't let you switch from a 40h to a 30h contract, no matter how many times you told them you actually wanted that, because they would always take the stance that the employer was forcing the employee to do that so they could pay them less.
In Brazil, being part of a union is for all intents and purposes compulsory (you have to jump through hoops to opt out). It's terrible arrangement that leads to endemic corruption and graft. The union ends up operating for the benefits of those running the union.
Back when I worked there, the union I would have been a part of (had I not jumped through hoops) tried to make it so software engineering would be a licensed profession requiring a degree in the field.
I'm so glad to not be working in that system anymore. There are many reasons why productivity in Latin America is less than half of the US. The attitude towards unions is one of them. I guess its a swell idea if you don't care that your country and industry is competitive globally.
When this was brought up in the past HN/Uber discussions, several commenters made the point that a union runs into much the same bad incentives, in that they need to protect other employees with more "value" to the organization -- which may include the harasser -- just as the company wants to defend high performers.
That linked comment is pretty ridiculous. Unions only have that kind of hire/fire ability in some of the building trades. I've worked for 4-5 different employers that were unionized, and they had nothing like that kind of influence. You work for the company, who has hire/fire rights, under a contract negotiated by the union.
There's definitely a bias towards protecting useless people, for the simple reason that divide & conquer is a key tactic for disrupting the bargaining position of a union, and it's always a better play to defend the dopes.
WRT to harassment, unions almost always help. The company has an interest in not getting sued, the union has an interest to protect the employees. As with any relationship involving humans, things go off the rails sometimes, but you are protected against most types of arbritary and capricious retailiation.
Your comment is quite disingenuous. First, harassed employee can also be union member, and then should protect him/her as well. Second, harassers are often being bosses or in other position of authority relatively to the harassed. So it's actually more likely for the harassed to be a union member.
Look for example at recent Fox News scandals. It's quite unlikely that C-level executives are members of the unions. (BTW, funny that you quote Fox News about covering sexual harassment.)
You are simply wrong - the union is obligated to do their best to protect the jobs/rights of their members. That includes union members accused of sexual harassment.
The Guardian article is an interesting one and is about a union performing studies internally that leaked. It shows that Unions can be horribly sexist or racist, just like society at large can also be. I think the point remains that having a union to talk to is useful for many reasons and they absolutely should help resolve sexual harassment cases; the fact that they haven't in these examples does not prove that unions can't be a good thing.
Maybe women only Unions should be a thing; they have more of a right than anyone to ask for better pay and conditions being paid a lot less than their male colleagues.
What do you recommend then? So basically go straight to the police then if sexual harassment at work isn't dealt with? Having another avenue of people who are supposed to help you should be useful in the majority of cases.
I'm glad we are in agreement - unions will attempt to protect the job/rights of the accused harasser. Hence my comment that I'd be very happy to have a union rep if I wanted to harass people.
I don't think this is inherent to the idea of a union. Unions should be democratic (I don't defend unions that don't give a shit about democracy), and tend to be quite concerned with process. If the union wants to support the accused and not defend the harasser that's their perogative, and if you don't like how your union handles (or doesn't handle) these situations you have the ability to lobby your union to change its process.
I'm glad we all now agree that the main problem to be solved with sexual harassment cases is ensuring the protection of the accused and due process.
Strange - so much interest in due process now. But I don't recall seeing a single comment of that nature when discussing Uber firing Amit Singhal, or Susan Fowler's accusations. Where were all the union advocates then?
probably because they weren't mentioned then, and unions aren't that topical in the US where the corporate lobby has mostly dismantled them and disadvantaged the citizenry.
Except that the victim of the harassment would also have union representation. Assuming that both the perpetrator and the victim started out equal, the union hasn't changed the balance of power at all. However, in most cases of harassment, the perpetrator is someone with more power than the victim, so the union shifts power towards the victim.
Are you sure? Is that really the case? They have a legal duty to defend you against all charges whatever the evidence? I don't think so. Certainly not in the UK. I know people who have been dismissed by the employer with the union rep present to ensure it's legal and above board and the worker is represented. Representation isn't equal to defense.
Well, they're obligated to prevent the accuser from losing their job from making the accusation. The accuser probably wants more than that, however. My understanding is that in many countries other than the US unions are legally allowed to do the sort of self-policing of their members that would help in this case. The law exists because historically many non-socialist unions in the US formed part of the bulwark of segregation and had to be prevented from finding ways to kick non-white members out.
I started talking to uber drivers in Seattle about unionization / Seattle regulations, and was surprised to discover nearly unanimous opposition to the idea. The only person not opposed was a career taxi driver. Almost no one else was or wanted uber to be a full time gig, and they wanted minimal hassle/regulation/etc. between them and an easy source of side income.
Anecdotal, with an n around 10, so not worth much, but I found it surprising. I suspect a lot of the Seattle unionization movement is thinly veiled rent seeking from the taxi lobby.
If I may give a weaker, counter example with anecdotal data from Seattle: I have only used Uber three times, and the last time I asked the driver about unionization and he was very for it (so an n of 1). He explained that all of the risk is on the driver and that sometimes Uber makes it very hard to work. He gave an example of a friend who was driving and ran over a rock while pulling into an apartment complex. The protocol was that another driver came and completed the ride for the user. However, his vehicle was now flagged as 'in an accident' when the problem was a flat tire, which his friend was able to fix that day.
Unfortunately, by being flagged as an accident the friend couldn't work again for a number of days as there was some sort of vetting process to ensure the vehicle was working right (very reasonable imo). However, as explained to me, there was some hang up with Uber where he couldn't get vetted for much longer than usual and couldn't work. He thinks that being unionized would allow for more driver friendly policies that would have prevented this.
This seems an example of how the US approach to unions is completely broken. In the UK, unions exist that cover pretty much every single industry. Membership is, however, entirely optional. If the union has a sufficient sized membership (percentage based, I think), then they have to be involved in various types of management discussions, but that's it.
If you don't want to be in a union, you don't have to be, and you don't have to make payments out of your wages.
I'd guess the line runs between the group that considers driving for uber a "side gig" and the group that actually does it full-time. Seems to me, these two groups have vastly different backgrounds ans needs.
I think the question has to be which of the two groups is the bigger one and how well the needs of both groups can be reconciled.
One of the reasons why Uber, and maybe some of those drivers, were opposed to the idea of the unionization push was the restriction on voting rights; iirc, only drivers with at least 6 months experience (or thereabouts) would have a say in the direction of the union.
That takes a lot of power from people who just want to use it as a form of supplementary income now and then, and those people aren't unreasonable for thinking that a union would continue to champion the interests of those 'career drivers' over them, if it got going. I wouldn't call that rent-seeking behavior from the "taxi lobby," but it would disproportionately benefit people who saw their jobs with Uber as full-time taxi drivers.
The interesting part of the article for me was the news that the Seattle city council voted to allow Uber drivers to unionize. It was illegal before? I thought the constitution guaranteed freedom of assembly. Do workers need permission to elect representatives to negotiate on their behalf?
Companies can't unionize -- it's called anti-competitive behaviour.
Depending on who you ask, Uber drivers aren't necessarily workers; they might be independent contractors, i.e., companies.
EDIT: Also, depending on the definition of "allowed to unionize" here, it's possible that this goes beyond allowing collective bargaining to prohibiting Uber from hiring anyone who isn't "blessed" by the union.
I appreciate the condescension, but saying that a state thinks something when referring to an enforcement ruling from a particular office is very misleading. In particular you can say the state both simultaneously thinks that they are contractors (how the rest of the Uber employees are treated) and it thinks that they are not (the ruling outcome of this one case).
So saying a state thinks something when there are many conflicting internal positions is worthless and just ends up being a tool to push a particular political agenda.
People actually think lots of apparently conflicting ideas - a common one being believing in religion and understanding science - and in fact the person you originally responded to pointed out the supposed "conflict" here - that individual contractors, despite being "independent" companies, may have collective bargaining rights.
The comment I replied to made it sound as if the state had some kind of position on the matter, but the linked evidence was only that a particular office ruled on one single case.
>california most definitely thinks they're workers,
That's what happens when comments get a lot of downvotes. You don't see a "karma" score on HN, but comments with negative number of votes get more and more grayed out until they are hardly visible.
It's not really depending on who you ask and it's very surprising for me to read comments like yours on HN of all places, the law is very clearly laid out and some protest signs in Sillicon Valley do not change the reality. You can check the IRS website if you're confused about what the distinction is between a contractor and a worker.
Sorry, I was unclear. I should have said "depending on the context and which law applies". The IRS definitions apply when you're dealing with the IRS (unless they don't, e.g., if you convince a court that the IRS is incorrectly applying the law) but they're not necessarily the same as the definitions which are legally relevant for antitrust purposes or for the purpose of Labour relations regulations.
The taxes are never dodged. Either Uber pays them (W2) or the independent contractor does (1040). The bigger issue, st least under Obamacare, was if they were elegiabke for group health insurance if they worked more than 30 hours.
Depends on country often self employed get better tax breaks in return for less benefits - this is "real" self employed contractors not faux self employment like Uber et al
I was also confused by that part of the article, so I looked up the relevant legislation [1]. It seems that taxicab drivers are classified as independent operators, and so aren't subject to the same sorts of collective bargaining protections that traditional employees posess. This legislation appears (IANAL) to say that Uber (and other entities that contract with for-hire drivers) cannot include provisions in their contracts that prohibit collective bargaining.
As a result, since Uber can't prohibit unionization through its contracts with drivers, it's now trying to prevent unionization through propaganda efforts.
Laws to "allow" unions do not grant additional rights. In fact they take away rights. Specifically they make it illegal to do certain jobs without being a member of the union, creating a government-sanctioned monopoly. Union advocates say that people are better off without the right to work outside the union.
While this can definitely be true, note that that "laws that allow union" can also take the form of lifting restrictions against anti-competitive behavior (i.e., restrictions against monopolies on the supply side of labor). Therefore, such laws really can be a reduction in regulation rather than a misleading way to describe increased regulation. Indeed, the "right to work" laws usually take the form of restrictions on the sorts of free contracts that employers and groups of employees can enter into.
This is all depressingly similar to the choice of whether to call something a "subsidy", "tax cut", "welfare", or "entitlement". Although those terms can be given distinct objective definitions made with respect to either the status quo or an idealized laissez faire world, in practice the choice of terminology is political.
> note that that "laws that allow union" can also take the form of lifting restrictions against competitive behavior (i.e., restrictions against monopolies on the supply side of labor)
This wording doesn't make sense to me. Can you give an example?
Sorry, that should be "anti-competitive behavior". (Edited.) Thank you.
In many places, there are laws against collusion by market participants, e.g., doctors can't talk with each other about their prices, the CEOs of GM and Toyota can't coordinate on whether to have a sale, and the CEOs of Apple and Google can't agree not to hire each other's employees (heh). These laws often impede the formations of unions, which are collective groups of employees who coordinate on wages, benefits, etc. By repealing anti-competitive laws, or paring them back so they do not apply to unions, this can allow unions to form where they would not. The argument is that allowing monopolies (or at least oligopolies) in the supply of labor is a way to balance the negotiating advantage that businesses have on account of natural monopolies/oligopolies in the demand for labor.
I'm quite glad to see people are beginning to recognize the benefits of labor unionization. I know that for some the idea of unions is horrendous but that's due to how many unions have become just another boss where they call the shots and not represent the grievances of their members. At its core the ability to collectively bargain is the best thing anyone can do under capitalism whether it's for wages and benefits as workers or lower prices on goods as consumers. To impede or outlaw that behavior fundamentally is anti-market propaganda and it should be met with fierce opposition by all.
Well no, but as the title said, if you'd like to continue being an employee for Uber in the Seattle area, it sounds like you have to at least pretend to listen to outright propaganda.
Imagine if before you were allowed to sit down at your desk to work in the morning you had to listen to pro-genocide propaganda. It's obviously not something you want to listen to, it's not related to your work, and it's an abuse of the basic system of business.
These kind of tactics are shortsighted and will absolutely hurt uber.
No one is forced to do any job in the strict sense of the word, yet workers are constantly exploited because people need to work somewhere to make a living and some of those places suck.
On the one hand, part of me thinks this is grimey, capitalistic slime-balling on the part of Uber; using psychological warfare to make a buck.
And on the other hand, part of me thinks that trying to unionize Uber drivers is a bad move. If I wanted to make a quick buck with a side-job, Uber would be a great way for me to do that without having to trudge through the Gigs on Craigslist, etc. etc. etc.
But if they unionize, it will become "just another job" and be tightly regulated, making the ability to get a quick buck nearly impossible; turning Uber into a full-fledged job with all the bureaucratic hooplah. While that would protect the fraction of workers looking to make Uber their full-time job, it would reduce the "Cowboy" nature of the job and make it hard for people to get in and get quick work.
Uber bolsters its fleets in part by offering predatory loans to drivers who are effectively indentured to work full-time with the company.[1] This is a core aspect of its growth strategy and is not incidental to its operating economics.
Regardless, the ability of a company to provide transitory part-time labor should not be considered as an end in itself. A part-time worker whose earnings are subject to change at the whim of Uber's fare adjustments is even less likely to make major financial commitments than a part-time worker in a low-wage service position. This has a negative effect on the growth and security of the economy as a whole.
If anything, we should encourage the transition of these contract positions into "just another jobs." Those gigs on Craigslist will be available in any case.
Subprime leases at 50% more than the national average lease $/week. Seems pretty unethical to me; Companies lending to people who have no business borrowing money...reminds me of the 2007/08 mortgage crisis.
> Subprime leases at 50% more than the national average lease $/week. Seems pretty unethical to me; Companies lending to people who have no business borrowing money...reminds me of the 2007/08 mortgage crisis.
Subprime loans are expensive because they're risky. Nobody is stopping those people from taking the normal lease, except that they can't get one because they have bad credit.
The problem with the mortgage crisis was that banks were making loans to people they knew would default on them and then reselling the loans as AAA loans, and insurance companies selling credit-default swaps under the same assumption. Then suddenly everyone finds out that so many of the loans are garbage that it made huge institutions insolvent.
There is none of that going on here. Uber is just willing to take the risk of defaults for the benefit of having more drivers.
> Subprime loans are expensive because they're risky. Nobody is stopping those people from taking the normal lease, except that they can't get one because they have bad credit.
This is bullshit. There is unlimited miles and they can return the car whenever they want. There's nothing predatory about it. I've had Uber drivers who bemoan the fact that they bought their own car instead of getting the lease.
> Subprime leases at 50% more than the national average lease $/week.
I'm pretty anti-Uber, but that's not shocking given the unlimited mileage provision. My last car lease quoted additional mileage over the 10k/year at $0.21/mile, which'd add up extremely quickly as a taxi driver.
I disagree. Here in Sweden, we actively discourage jobs that pay borderline-poverty wages. Taxi rides should not be cheap. You are buying someone else's time. That should be expensive for the middle-class.
So you're saying only rich people should get taxi rides? I thought Sweden supported the poor more.
Also, you're aware that when the minimum wage is too high, it just means there will be more unemployment, not that everyone gets a raise.
Now the debate is: are people happier with a job with a low wage or are they happier at home doing nothing? Studies show that people are more depressed at home when unemployed and have more chance to improve their condition and salary by starting at lower paid jobs doing something. But many of the supporters of high minimum wage would rather people stay at home than improve themselves starting with lower paid jobs not because it helps the poor but because it helps the high minimum wage supporters sleep better at night knowing that although more people have no jobs, at least no one is being underpaid... well... except for those not being paid at all.
I accept your comment about 'supporting the poor' was probably flippant but still, I find the idea that the best way to support the poor is to make taxis cheaper, rather than increasing the/enforcing a minimum wage absolutely bizarre.
I also wonder whether having these artificially low prices for things like Uber, reduces the incentive to improve more efficient modes of transportation like trains/buses.
> I find the idea that the best way to support the poor is to make taxis cheaper, rather than increasing the/enforcing a minimum wage absolutely bizarre.
I explained this part in my comment. Enforcing a higher minimum wage just put people out of jobs, it doesn't give everyone a raise. So you're not raising people's wage, you're actually taking away from them their whole wage bringing it down to zero.
>Enforcing a higher minimum wage just put people out of jobs...
Maybe increasing the amount taxi drivers are paid would drive up the cost of taxis and thus drive down demand for taxis. This seems reasonable to me. We're defining a minimum amount somebody's time is worth, which means the cost of things that use peoples time go up.
The root "problem" taxi drivers solve still exists - people still need to get around, but taxis aren't the only way to solve that problem. Train and bus services could be expanded or improved.
The other thing to consider is that the extra money the taxi drivers earn will most likely provide other economic opportunities.
Who's We? Shouldn't taxi drivers be free to define how much they want to sell their time? Why should you decide for them? Isn't that paternalistic and anti-freedom? Why do you know better than they do what's best for them? Why not let them be?
> Shouldn't taxi drivers be free to define how much they want to sell their time?
The problem with this is that, in my (perhaps naive) mind, the logical conclusion is a race to the bottom fuelled by greed (of the business) and desperation (of the employee) which helps nobody. In my view there should be a regulation to prevent how far this can go.
By the way, I don't think we'll agree on any of these points, but it's refreshing to have a discussion that doesn't descend into name-calling and personal criticism :)
> the logical conclusion is a race to the bottom fuelled by greed (of the business)
If that were true, we would all be paid minimum wage, which is not true. As you gain experience, you bring more value and therefor employers are forced to pay you more, which is demonstrated by reality as I said, we're not all paid minimum wage for exactly that reason. Race to the bottom happens when the minimum wage gets so high that even qualified people get minimum wage and the rest are just unemployed and don't get anything at all.
> So you're saying only rich people should get taxi rides?
I do agree with that, best if middle class people use public transport (or worse, their own car).
> I thought Sweden supported the poor more.
It has nothing to do with support of the poor. In India, taxis are incredibly cheap, and there is no shortage of poor people. Poor people can drive buses and trams, too, you know.
> Also, you're aware that when the minimum wage is too high, it just means there will be more unemployment
No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment. (You are simplifying the whole economy to the labor market, but there is also demand side.)
That's amazing, you're basically saying better services should be for the rich only while the poor should use lower public services while saying at the same time that you support the poor. Incredible. That's what socialism always does, pretends to help the poor but in the end only the elite benefits from it.
> No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment.
When it comes to low skill jobs, yes, increasing the minimum wage does create more unemployment as the middle class is not able to pay for them anymore, only the super rich. That's a well no fact, you can look it up.
That's not a fact. It's nonsense you believe to be a fact. Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Germany all have low unemployment rates (and higher total employment rates than the US) and have higher minimum wages. Economies adapt to higher minimum wages, they may lose jobs in the short term, then adapt and total employment can return to former levels if the correct policies are in place.
Btw, when you say socialism pretends to help the poor, but helps the elite, that doesn't help your case. By all objective measures, the poor are better off in western european social democratic countries than in a free-for-all capitalist society, like the US. There are other models, like Singapore that also work well, FYI.
> Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Germany all have low unemployment rates (and higher total employment rates than the US) and have higher minimum wages.
France, Belgium and Ireland all have a higher minimum wage and higher unemployment rates than the US. Clearly the unemployment rate is affected by multiple factors. The issue is whether a higher minimum wage increases unemployment, not whether you can counteract it with other policies -- applying the other policies without raising the minimum wage could result in even less unemployment.
> Btw, when you say socialism pretends to help the poor, but helps the elite, that doesn't help your case.
There are a huge number of nominally socialist policies in the US that really exist at the behest of large corporations. Mortgage interest tax deduction -- "help people own a home", really makes home ownership more expensive and transfers tax dollars to mortgage banks. Ditto student loan interest subsidies. Affordable housing subsidies -- placate political demand for lower housing costs without actually lowering market rate housing costs for low-middle income working people, transfers tax dollars to landlords, encourages low income people to rent rather than own. Social security -- no progressive rate structure, tax cutoff for millionaires, benefits based on lifespan and historical income which both disadvantage lower income people. Tax deductions for employer-provided health insurance -- implicit subsidy to large insurance companies. Affordable Care Act -- huge tax dollar subsidy to large insurance companies, effectively prohibits people from saving money with high deductible insurance plans that are less profitable to same insurance companies, and discourage overconsumption and overpayment to medical companies.
US is not free for all capitalism, it has one of the biggest welfare and government job program on the whole planet (the industrial-military complex), so not sure what you're talking about here. Western European countries are still pretty much capitalist countries with a pretty free market. And they are still doing not as good as freer countries such as Switzerland or Luxembourg and as you mention Hong Kong and Singapore.
The only countries that are going socialists are Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and friends and we know how they're doing.
> you're basically saying better services should be for the rich only while the poor should use lower public services while saying at the same time that you support the poor
No, what I am saying that taxi driver's job should be paid well enough. If you want a personal driver, it will cost you. The interpretation that taxi is better than public transport is yours only.. Many people in Europe don't need taxis, because we have excellent public transport, which, by the way, also employs people.
I am not sure how you can twist the logic to think that my position supports the elites more than poor. :-)
> No, what I am saying that taxi driver's job should be paid well enough.
How about letting taxis decide how much they want to charge, crazy thought, huh? Turns out many of them are happy to drive for Uber. How about we let them be? Or do you know better than they do what's good for them?
> Many people in Europe don't need taxis, because we have excellent public transport
No we don't. Public transport are still dependent on where you live, unless you live close to a station, it's not that great cause you still need to drive to the station. Not to mention the strikes (I live in France), the delays etc. Having a personal private driver on demand is a way better experience than riding a public bus (gosh do I hate this every single time I have to use it).
> I am not sure how you can twist the logic to think that my position supports the elites more than poor. :-)
Well simply put, your policies make it unaffordable for the poor to get access to the best services and only the elites can. So, there you go :)
> No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment. (You are simplifying the whole economy to the labor market, but there is also demand side.)
Nobody can prove something like that because it depends on dynamic characteristics of the economy. If everyone who makes minimum wage worked for the government and the government did nothing but pay them more money by taking on more public debt then the current-year employment rate obviously wouldn't go down, but our current economy doesn't look like that.
Only ~1% of workers in the US make minimum wage, and they represent an even smaller percentage of total consumption than that. Increasing their wages is not going to create a large increase in local consumption, especially when some of the money goes to things that don't create new local unskilled jobs, like increasing salaries for existing CEOs, or leaving the local economy and going to workers in China or India, or creating demand for skilled jobs that the newly unemployed minimum wage workers aren't qualified for.
And the entire wage increase comes out of the employer's pocket, which for middle class employers means that much less consumption by the employer -- the "increased demand" from higher minimum wage is the broken window fallacy. Meanwhile there are existing jobs that can justify the lower wage but not the higher wage, so those people become unemployed, which reduces local demand, not only due to the lost amount to the employee but also the profit that employee had previously generated for the employer and the surplus for the employer's customers and suppliers and so on.
Finding the specific data at that granularity is apparently a pain because everybody provides data for income instead of wages which doesn't distinguish $15 for 20 hours from $7.50 for 40 hours.
FWIW the median wage is ~$16.
> does it include everything sub-living wage?
There are many people who work primarily for tips, but raising the minimum wage wouldn't change that.
Minimum wage is traditional special interest politics. The benefits are concentrated (the specific people who make minimum wage and don't lose their jobs get a raise) but the costs are distributed (things cost more for everyone, higher unemployment).
Suppose you raise minimum wage by 10% and as a result 9 people get a 10% raise and one person loses their job. Well, you just got yourself 9 votes at the cost of one, even though the net result across those ten people is negative. And the net result across all people is even worse because now people have to pay higher prices for things, but those costs are too widely distributed to change anyone's vote.
So raising the minimum wage (or having one at all) will tend to have more political support than it can justify on the merits.
>Studies show that people are more depressed at home when unemployed and have more chance to improve their condition and salary by starting at lower paid jobs doing something.
1. Could you cite one of these studies? This is the first I've hearing of such a phenomenon.
2. That seems insanely counter-intuitive, and even if it's true, it probably hits a wall at some point. To use an extreme example, I for one would rather sit at home collecting an unemployment check than work at a literal sweatshop. If studies are showing people are happier without a living income than with one, then perhaps that says something about society's attitude towards work and how work is glorified as not a means to an end but an end unto itself. I would say that should be pushed back against, and that we should continue enforcing a living wage, and simply giving people money if they can't find a job that pays one.
The facts are that the bottom 5/10/20% in Sweden are better off than in the U.S. (from measures such as life expectancy, literacy, etc).
Yet, our society is structured around collective bargaining. So it disproves your claim that the marginalized are hardest hit. Society provides a net to catch those that fall off the edge.
Personally, I believe a society should be judged by how it looks after their worst off. That's not libertarian, I don't know what to call it. My mother would call it being 'nice' or 'responsible'.
While true, this is likely driven primarily by demographic factors. The US averages are dragged down by demographic groups which are common in the US, but rare in Sweden.
When you correct for demographics by comparing Swedish Americans to Swedes, it turns out that all income percentiles besides the bottom 10% are better off in the US. Even the bottom 10% are not very different.
Note that countries populated by those other demographic groups also perform fairly badly. For example, Italy also tries to be "nice" or "responsible" (as you describe it), but Sicily is a very scenic (and tasty!) basket case. (I think it's not un-PC for me to talk about Sicily, since my ancestry is more Sicilian than anything else?)
I don't want to go here, because it's the thin edge of a tbh racist wedge. In Sweden there is practically zero unemployment for 'ethnic swedes'. So the debate here is now on integrating new arrivals in the workplace. The notion that somebody would say 'hey, but we have full employment for ethnic swedes, screw the others' is inconceivable. For the reason that we live in the same society. We share the same public transport and public spaces. If they are worse off, i will eventually be worse off (through them destroying our shared space). Having buy-in from everyone in society is crucial. That is why benefits are not means tested here. Yes, socialists want benefits for everyone, not just the poor. Because, when the rich stop receiving child benefit or university grants, they actively undermine the system. Naturally, our right wing parties want to means-test benefits. It's the opposite of anglo-saxon economies (disclosure- i'm from one, hence i notice these differences more than your average swede).
seems to me that, for a very long while, transoceanic immigrants have tended to bring more in terms of education and other factors; influenced by the immigration process, among other things.
as "Swedish Americans" aren't exactly a properly random sample of people plucked out of Sweden and relocated, it's not clear that it's very useful to compare to "all Swedes in Sweden".
The goal - as per jamesblonde's comment - is to measure the effect of two different systems of government. The effect on the underlying people is the sample. So in this sense, the more different the people, the worse they are for this measurement.
Just to add an anecdote that reflects on Swedish society values from this weekend.
The number one cultural event here is the Eurovision Song Contest within Sweden (to select the representative for the Europe-wide contest). The winner of the popular vote this year was an ex-convict who was considered 'rehabiltated' and always talked about his family. People love the way society helped him when he was down and how he rebuilt himself. It isn't a rugged individualistic notion of how he saved himself, more about how support structures enabled him to change himself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano_Omar
By any objective measure, it's the most talked about/watched event in the annual calendar. Embarrassing - maybe, but it's all the kids talk about at school. Btw, I bet on Robin at 14/1 - my outsider perspective helps finding that kind of arbitrage opportunity.
On the topic of helping the bottom 20%, I should also add that in Canada, those who enjoy our socialized health insurance owe a nod to trade unions who advocated on behalf of it's huge membership (third of Canadian workers, post-World War 2).
Back in the 1960s, if you look at the opposition to the proposition of Canadian Medicare, it was exactly who you'd expect: Medical associations, Pharma, Insurance Companies, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Who favored it? Trade Unions, Association of Social Workers, Farmer Associations, United Church of Canada... it also polled heavily well amongst the population
In a public commission (1961), Trade Unions advocated for medicare by revealing the limitations of private insurance, where they could point out that profit-driven insurance schemes that enrolled their members tended to severely restrict or deny coverage in many areas (rehab, preventative health, mental health) despite the fact that their plans had costly deductibles and co-insurance charges. They also point-by-point countered the arguments against Medicare made by the Canadian Medical Association. And they also pointed out a purely market-driven allocation of resources created huge inequalities in access to care, such as the lack of doctors in some provinces and lack of dentists outside of our two biggest cities.
Collective bargaining and safety net are quite different concepts. In fact, it's been pointed out by Luigi Zingales and others that Southern European countries actually have stronger job protection rules than Northern countries, yet our workers are clearly not richer.
>So it disproves your claim that the marginalized are hardest hit.
Even if poor people in Sweden are better off than poor people in the US, it doesn't mean it's because of the collective bargaining, it may be caused by something else.
He lives in Sweden. Of course it always can be something else, but I think he is in a better position to judge that than you, since he lives in the system that has that policy.
Unless you have a good reason to think otherwise, why not just believe him?
Uber drivers cannot choose their own pay rate, if that's what you mean. Recently, they've been unable to even choose if they want to accept Uber Pool rides (i.e. there's no indication when you're picking someone up if they're the first in an Uber Pool ride).
You're asking to go silly places, and full conspiracy mode. So let's go there.
I'd say Democrats, and the liberal press. What better way to show Republicans being bad, then how quickly companies go full abusive when they're in power and working hard to remove consumer/worker protections.
Democrats would also love to get unions/workers out of the right. So they just need to show some soft support, and let it get quashed by ANY random republican with a chip on their shoulder (which is really any at this point).
Not only that the CEO of Uber has shown early support for Trump, and most Americans are of the thought that CEO/Company are the same thing (so it's easy to make news of them showing support for anything). In this case the Liberal media would like nothing less than making it untenable for a CEO to show support of any cause (due to CEOs being brutal conservative monsters). They would probably love to see the fallout from such support (further media attention), to make boards consider barring their CEOs from being political in any way.
That was an interesting mix of painful and fun to write.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-gears-up-to-block-bid-to-f...