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0 pointsahepp5y ago0 comments

How can unions lose their incentive to serve workers? It's a collective body of the workers. When workers are owners, incentives are aligned.

If you're talking about union leadership being beholden to management, that is an issue unions often have, but I don't think it is relevant here.

I'm saying, create a union trust fund with 25% of the company's stock. It pays out dividends to all union members equally (not a slush fund for union leaders).

Thus union members have some say in how the company is run, but also have an incentive to be efficient and competitive in the marketplace.

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Meph5045y ago

Do you suppose that the union will raise the funds to aquire 25% or that the workers would take a pay cut to offset this? Or should a business owner give up a quarter of their company just so that the employees do the jobs they are compensated for?

And ownership can easily present a conflict of interest even when spread out.

So now 25% compensation is based on this buy in, if a business unit is doing poorly and has brought down that compensation, the company wants to shit can the business unit and its employees, the members of the union would not be directly working against their own interest fight to keep them. (this is always the case really, but now it is directly felt by the members)

aheppOP5y ago

How the union acquires their stake is a fair question which could be answered a lot of different ways. It can simply be considered a part of employee compensation. This is normal for software engineers (RSUs). The union might get a loan to purchase a stake. I worked for a company that transitioned from private to employee owned, it's not an insurmountable problem by any means.

Unless I'm seriously misunderstanding you, what you're calling a "conflict of interest" is literally my entire point.

It is a good thing that the union has an incentive to balance the interests of workers with the interests of the overall company.

If the company needs to cut jobs to be competitive, it is a good thing that the union has a stake in both sides of the issue. That way they will be incentivized to work towards a solution that is fair to the workers, and profitable for investors.

It's the exact situation we all face every day. I like the taste of donuts. I know that if I eat them all the time, I'll get fat. Because my stomach and brain have a "conflict of interest", I make choices that balance short term and long term pleasure. If every donut I made got somebody else fat, then they would be in trouble, because I might like the taste of donuts more than I care about their health.

Meph5045y ago

This is still compensation, if they are being paid by the company for what the company is willing to offer, it would need to be paired with a cash reduction, or amount to a raise paid for by the company.

Unions typically already have a seniority over competency problems, this seems like something that would only really exacerbate the issue.

You also have to consider these are warehouse workers not software developers, there is a very high turn over rate, I don't think many of the warehouse workers would be interested in a vesting period before they saw anything from their RSU.

I also and not sure how this would work in a PLA multi-union site, lets not forget that the truck drivers, electricians, and many others already have their unions, and in my experience once a place has a labor union onsite, they want supporting employees to be union also.

And I think we will have to agree to disagree on conflict of interest.

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Meph5045y ago

And ownership can easily present a conflict of interest even when spread out.

aheppOP5y ago

Unless I'm seriously misunderstanding you, what you're calling a "conflict of interest" is literally my entire point.

It is a good thing that the union has an incentive to balance the interests of workers with the interests of the overall company.

Meph5045y ago

Unions typically already have a seniority over competency problems, this seems like something that would only really exacerbate the issue.

And I think we will have to agree to disagree on conflict of interest.

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