<story><title>The decline in unionization has fed the rise in incomes at the top</title><url>http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/03/jaumotte.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Frondo</author><text>Before anyone brings up the &amp;quot;I want to be paid for my skill, not my seniority,&amp;quot; I&amp;#x27;d just like to point out:&lt;p&gt;If you formed a union at your workplace, &lt;i&gt;you and your colleagues&lt;/i&gt; would get to decide the rules like that.&lt;p&gt;And a few other things I think are worth saying...&lt;p&gt;A union is a legal framework for the employees (who have no ownership stake in the business, despite putting their time and energy into the business day after day) to recast some of the power imbalance in their favor; since many of us here are employees, and not owners, we &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be looking out for our interests.&lt;p&gt;Aaand...a union isn&amp;#x27;t a &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s all be lazy and wreck businesses&amp;quot; framework; that&amp;#x27;s a bit of nonsensical propaganda that we&amp;#x27;ve all swum in for the last few decades.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frostmatthew</author><text>&amp;gt; nonsensical propaganda that we&amp;#x27;ve all swum in for the last few decades&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t sound like you have any actual first-hand experience with unions. I&amp;#x27;ll admit unions played a &lt;i&gt;significant&lt;/i&gt; role in improving the workplace for everyone, and we should all be thankful for their contributions 50+ years ago. But they are now primarily self-serving organizations that exist for the benefit of the union itself.&lt;p&gt;Before becoming a developer I worked in hotels (as a banquet manager), let me give you some examples of the types of things unions now fight for:&lt;p&gt;* a dishwasher cannot wash pots and a potwasher cannot wash dishes&lt;p&gt;* only an electrician can change the batteries in a TV remote or change a lightbulb&lt;p&gt;* when it&amp;#x27;s busy your manager(s) cannot help you&lt;p&gt;* re-hiring of employees who were terminated because they were caught stealing or physically assaulting other employees&lt;p&gt;The better an employee is the less they benefit from a union. It results in good employees not getting paid as well as they could be and bad employees sticking around because it&amp;#x27;s difficult (or impossible) to fire them.&lt;p&gt;We could certainly benefit from the types of professional association lawyers[1] and doctors[2] have, but those are quite different than unions.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bar_Association&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;American_Bar_Association&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;American_Medical_Association&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The decline in unionization has fed the rise in incomes at the top</title><url>http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/03/jaumotte.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Frondo</author><text>Before anyone brings up the &amp;quot;I want to be paid for my skill, not my seniority,&amp;quot; I&amp;#x27;d just like to point out:&lt;p&gt;If you formed a union at your workplace, &lt;i&gt;you and your colleagues&lt;/i&gt; would get to decide the rules like that.&lt;p&gt;And a few other things I think are worth saying...&lt;p&gt;A union is a legal framework for the employees (who have no ownership stake in the business, despite putting their time and energy into the business day after day) to recast some of the power imbalance in their favor; since many of us here are employees, and not owners, we &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be looking out for our interests.&lt;p&gt;Aaand...a union isn&amp;#x27;t a &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s all be lazy and wreck businesses&amp;quot; framework; that&amp;#x27;s a bit of nonsensical propaganda that we&amp;#x27;ve all swum in for the last few decades.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>forrestthewoods</author><text>&amp;quot;you and your colleagues would get to decide the rules like that&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;False. People who worked there before you decided the rules. Once you have an entrenched senior workforce the probability that they will vote themselves less power or money is remarkably low. It&amp;#x27;s basically the same problem as NIMBYism.</text></comment>