Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

And yet it's not, so clearly you are making a thought error somewhere along this heavily elided process.



Please do point out my logical error. I see countless examples of competition keeping corporations in check. What is keeping Unions in check then?


What is keeping Unions in check then?

Poor media coverage: https://uniontrack.com/blog/media-depicts-labor-issues

Conservative judges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME

Right to work laws

Corporations, like Apple, Amazon, etc.

Even "The Most Pro-Union President You’ve Ever Seen" couldn't bring himself to side with the rail union. The sad part is despite this, even though he isn't the most pro union president, he might be up there. That is to say, our federal government in general is very pro corporate.


I believe the parent is saying that if your logic were correct unions would be extremely powerful in relation to multinational corporations and everyone would be afraid of getting the union angry, as this is not the case something must be keeping unions in check or they cannot, at any rate, grow to be as powerful as you suppose.

That your logic as stated does not hold any identifiable logical error does not mean that it gives the correct result.


And unions are exactly that powerful. A strike can easily shut down a company, a town or a country. I do not see a similar power on the corporation's side. Firing everybody would just kill the corporation as well.


The data here seems to indicate otherwise https://www.epi.org/publication/latest-data-release-on-union...

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-y...

Now it's true I have not lived all over the world, but I have lived in numerous places in the U.S, in Denmark, and spend some time in Italy every now and then. I also lived in Germany as a kid, but I've never really seen these fearsome unions you are familiar with, and did I say again I am in Denmark? Even here it isn't like such a powerful organization.

Certainly one can find historical instances of powerful unions, but they do not seem to exist now, and thus your analysis must be faulty somehow. If unions are naturally more powerful than the other forces of society their power should always increase and not decrease, but as the data linked above shows the opposite is the case.

If you want people to accept your logic you will probably need to back it up with data, arguing about real world things like unions tend to bring forth such requirements.


In Europe I've seen airports and cities and even countries dead for weeks due to strikes. In my country I've seen union leaders become politicians and then in jail for corruption. In US I've seen evil laws (AB5) imposed on people by politicians (Lorena Gonzalez) owned by unions (Teamsters).

But I am open to the possibility of mistakes in my logic and dfxm12 post above had some good points.


The legislative and executive branches of the US government blocking the majority of rail workers from going ahead with a rail strike: https://apnews.com/article/business-economy-strikes-congress... .


Unions are kept in check by attrition of the companies they are associated with.


Your premises are unsound.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: