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Madison Reeves on why she left LMG (threadreaderapp.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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[–] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

Alright, so let's take a look.

  • union dues

No escaping this one.

  • bureaucracy - need to go through the union

What does the employer have to go through the union for?

  • unwanted strikes - if your union goes on strike, you are not allowed to work

If the employer is rocking, why would union members vote to strike?

  • special treatment - unions try to equalize, so higher performers may not be fairly compensated

This doesn't feel right but I can't quite put my finger on why so I'll reserve judgement for now. 😄

I can see the extra layer of overhead in the case when everything is perfect, but given the incentives in traditional for-profit corporations I can't see that case ever being realistic. In addition, even if a company is perfect today, the way corporations are structured makes it incredibly easy for that to change especially if there's no worker-controlled counterbalance to such change. So just on the basis of that, if I'm an awesome, perfect employer, and I presumably want this to go on, because that really is part of being awesome, I should want to create this counterbalance against change for the worse. Assuming a for-profit, not-a-co-op corporation that is. It looks to me like this overhead is the price of preserving this perfect environment over the long term. Doesn't that make sense?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    What does the employer have to go through the union for?

    Benefits, and depending on the union's rules, salary adjustments. Some unions also require informing them of schedule changes.

    The reverse is also true, employees may need to go through the union depending on the union's rules.

    If the employer is rocking, why would union members vote to strike?

    Idk, perhaps communication issues w/ management? Over-zealous union leadership?

    The point is, the employee isn't empowered here, they're subject to whatever the union agrees to do.

    My uncle went through multiple strikes, few (if any) he actually agreed with, but had to deal with being out of work. He wished he wasn't union so he could just continue working.

    the way corporations are structured makes it incredibly easy for that to change

    Sure, which is why it absolutely depends on the type of organization. Something owner-operated has a much lower risk of unexpected awful changes than something publicly traded.

    A lot of owner-operated businesses don't intend to sell to someone else, the owner will just shut it down when they're done operating it. So "long term" in this sense is until the owner retires. And if they do intend to sell, they could at that point encourage the employees to make any employment adjustments needed.

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