Bay 12 Games Forum

Why should you get a voice in how union workers protect their compensation?

Because one way or another, everyone pays for everything… and any government (or pseudo-government) decision is usually made between two parties but imposes a cost on a third party that isn’t part of the agreement.

Think about how many things you have to pay because of others’ decisions.

Yeah so I think I should clarify my stance. What I want is effectively a universal labor union, not these piecemeal industry- and geography-specific unions.  Ostensibly that is what the labor laws in the US did for a while, and was partly why the unions got weak - the workers had their protections in law, and they were paying for it with taxes, so didn't really want to double-pay by also paying union dues.

My other concerns are the unions are targeting the employers - which are the entities that generally are actually creating wealth - instead of targeting the industries that are charging people lots of money.  You don't get a functional economy by stressing the entities that actually create wealth.

I almost think we don't need labor unions, but we need consumer unions.  Collective bargaining for housing, for instance.  I dunno how you'd swing that, to be honest, but it's an interesting thought.  Make a resident-owned real-estate conglomerate, with the goal not of making money, but of keeping prices down.

Three episodes into Travelers.  Interesting so far.

I'm wondering if it's going to go 12 Monkeys or a different route.

EDIT:

What do you mean, "if they were allowed to unionize?"

They are "allowed" to - it just takes effort. Unionizing isn't from some magic union fairy coming in to rescue anyone.  I suppose if unions used their war chests to help people get by until they get union benefits instead of or in addition to funding strikes, I might think they are doing more to help the people they need it.

Also I don't know many single moms that can do union jobs - most of those schedules don't align with school hours, may require even cross-town relocation that isn't paid because "it's too close", and child care inevitably eats up all the extra union wage (have you ever looked at day care prices?)  So unless the unions can simultaneously increase wages for their "own" as well as help keep price pressures down for everyone else, unions are not really not the panacea it seems.

Basically it takes a community of people working together, not vilifying everyone who is in a different group... in-group/out-group dynamics are terrible. Bad enough on just neighborhood economic and neighbor-dispute scales, but even worse in international politics, as we sadly see in the news every day...

Oof just did my open enrollment for 2024 health care.  My annual out-of-pocket just for the premiums is over $6000 a year.

Gross.

More evidence that people aren't even trying any more (even though the headline is quite funny because of it):

House Speaker Mike Johnson holds first former news conference.

(I wonder what it is now, given it used to be a news conference...)

EDIT: they did fix the headline, so you can't see it there now.  But seriously... they really don't have any review process do they... they must really be making live, un-curated edits to their page...

I really get annoyed when my kids don't move their bowls and I have to do it for them.