<story><title>Seattle Considers Measure to Let Uber and Lyft Drivers Unionize</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/technology/seattle-considers-measure-to-let-uber-and-lyft-drivers-unionize.html?smid=fb-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gburt</author><text>Can you share some of the arguments in favor of involuntary unions? (I&amp;#x27;m even willing to invest some time digging if anyone has some pointers to potential sources of literature, I am genuinely interested.)&lt;p&gt;My personal experience has been that when I&amp;#x27;ve been the so-called &amp;quot;beneficiary&amp;quot; of one, it has not actually benefited me and has often made for awkward scenarios where there is me and the counterparty (&amp;quot;employer&amp;quot;) and this weird semi-interested third-party regulating how we can interact, regardless of what is actually in my self-interest.&lt;p&gt;Just to be clear, I am all for collective bargaining in the sense of a bunch of (small) actors choosing to work together against an adversary. I would do this myself if I deemed it beneficial. I don&amp;#x27;t understand why we would mandate that individuals had to be bound by the agreement whether they want to participate or not. I recognize that this is a common structure though.</text></item><item><author>RickHull</author><text>&amp;gt; Note I&amp;#x27;m not opposed to people&amp;#x27;s freedom to unionize. In fact, it should not take an act of government to &amp;quot;permit it&amp;quot;, and people should do it if they want.&lt;p&gt;Everyone has the right to organize a voluntary union.  What requires special legislated privilege are things like collective bargaining, which is not a normal component or outcome of voluntary negotiations.&lt;p&gt;Modern unions in the United States enjoy many legal privileges that were specifically lobbied for.  It&amp;#x27;s this type of privileged union which is being argued for, not a mere voluntary association under an impartial legal regime.</text></item><item><author>jngreenlee</author><text>This is going to lead to messy public arguments, at least in part driven by existing cab drivers that will be seeking rents from the successful upstarts.&lt;p&gt;I think this tactic was used before in other historically disrupted industries...the incumbents would push for unionization to keep inefficient players on life support, at the cost of the upstarts.&lt;p&gt;Note I&amp;#x27;m not opposed to people&amp;#x27;s freedom to unionize. In fact, it should not take an act of government to &amp;quot;permit it&amp;quot;, and people should do it if they want. It&amp;#x27;s just the unintended consequences and manipulation of the move to unionize that are interesting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>latj</author><text>What you are describing is what existed before what we have now. A group of people working for an employer would try to negotiate for safer working conditions, better benefits, etc. The employer would take the list of demands, fire the person who handed him the list and say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m not giving you any of this shit and anyone who talks about it again gets fired too.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;So people started organizing by trade. It made sense because workers of a common trade share experiences and grievances. If one particular employer treated its workers bad, that trade guild had more leverage by threatening work stoppage against other employers who could put pressure on the first employer.&lt;p&gt;Over time employers started to converge and grow in power. Now you have a company who employs thousands of people in multiple locations. To keep the balance in power, the unions converged and grew in power. You cant threaten to replace a union worker if everyone who does that job is in the union(1).&lt;p&gt;Now the unions are big enough to disrupt economies, sway elections, etc. They are large professional entities of lawyers, financial managers. They want everyone in the union for maximal leverage (ie fewer scabs, more dues) so they lobbied to affect the policies we have today.&lt;p&gt;The small voluntary no-admin-overhead organization you are describing is ideal, but its really unlikely to work. It would depend on the employer allowing it to happen.&lt;p&gt;I could say more here about the growing wealth gap, criminalization of poverty, and the quiet ongoing class war, and end with a Malcom X quote, &amp;quot;Anytime you depend on your enemy for a job you&amp;#x27;re in bad shape.&amp;quot; But I dont feel like saying all that. ;)&lt;p&gt;1. robots</text></comment>
<story><title>Seattle Considers Measure to Let Uber and Lyft Drivers Unionize</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/technology/seattle-considers-measure-to-let-uber-and-lyft-drivers-unionize.html?smid=fb-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gburt</author><text>Can you share some of the arguments in favor of involuntary unions? (I&amp;#x27;m even willing to invest some time digging if anyone has some pointers to potential sources of literature, I am genuinely interested.)&lt;p&gt;My personal experience has been that when I&amp;#x27;ve been the so-called &amp;quot;beneficiary&amp;quot; of one, it has not actually benefited me and has often made for awkward scenarios where there is me and the counterparty (&amp;quot;employer&amp;quot;) and this weird semi-interested third-party regulating how we can interact, regardless of what is actually in my self-interest.&lt;p&gt;Just to be clear, I am all for collective bargaining in the sense of a bunch of (small) actors choosing to work together against an adversary. I would do this myself if I deemed it beneficial. I don&amp;#x27;t understand why we would mandate that individuals had to be bound by the agreement whether they want to participate or not. I recognize that this is a common structure though.</text></item><item><author>RickHull</author><text>&amp;gt; Note I&amp;#x27;m not opposed to people&amp;#x27;s freedom to unionize. In fact, it should not take an act of government to &amp;quot;permit it&amp;quot;, and people should do it if they want.&lt;p&gt;Everyone has the right to organize a voluntary union.  What requires special legislated privilege are things like collective bargaining, which is not a normal component or outcome of voluntary negotiations.&lt;p&gt;Modern unions in the United States enjoy many legal privileges that were specifically lobbied for.  It&amp;#x27;s this type of privileged union which is being argued for, not a mere voluntary association under an impartial legal regime.</text></item><item><author>jngreenlee</author><text>This is going to lead to messy public arguments, at least in part driven by existing cab drivers that will be seeking rents from the successful upstarts.&lt;p&gt;I think this tactic was used before in other historically disrupted industries...the incumbents would push for unionization to keep inefficient players on life support, at the cost of the upstarts.&lt;p&gt;Note I&amp;#x27;m not opposed to people&amp;#x27;s freedom to unionize. In fact, it should not take an act of government to &amp;quot;permit it&amp;quot;, and people should do it if they want. It&amp;#x27;s just the unintended consequences and manipulation of the move to unionize that are interesting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rverghes</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s generally to prevent free-riding. Let&amp;#x27;s say the union negotiates benefit X, and the company then provides benefit X to all employees including non-union employees. An example could be safety features that the union is pushing for. The non-union employees have benefited from the actions of the union without having to pay the cost.&lt;p&gt;To balance this, involuntary unionization usually requires a majority vote from the employees to unionize.</text></comment>