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Automation Is Making Unions Irrelevant

Posted by Soulskill on from the skynet-just-wants-to-flip-burgers dept.

dcblogs writes "Michigan lawmakers just approved a right-to-work law in an effort to dismantle union power, but unions are already becoming irrelevant. The problem with unions is they can't protect jobs. They can't stop a company from moving jobs overseas, closing offices, or replacing workers with machines. Indeed, improvements in automation is making the nation attractive again for manufacturing, according to U.S. intelligence Global Trends 2030 report. The trends are clear. Amazon spent $775 million this year to acquire a company, Kiva Systems that makes robots used in warehouses. Automation will replace warehouse workers, assembly-line and even retail workers. In time, Google's driverless cars will replace drivers in the trucking industry. Unions sometimes get blamed for creating uncompetitive environments and pushing jobs overseas. But the tech industry, which isn't unionized, is a counterpoint. Tech has been steadily moving jobs overseas to lower costs."

28 of 510 comments (clear)

  1. Title is misleading by pkbarbiedoll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Automation is making human labor irrelevant, regardless of union participation.

    1. Re:Title is misleading by flaming+error · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Automation is shifting repetitive, uncreative, brutish work to repetitive, uncreative, brutish machines, thus freeing humans to pursue nobler interests.

      No consolation to the workers who can't find new jobs, I know. But for the larger society, the benefits outweigh the costs.

      In every change some prosper, some lose. But the same happens in every status quo. We may as well choose technological progress.

      If we are compassionate, we can give the displaced workers opportunities to learn new skills.

    2. Re:Title is misleading by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, and as we all know Sweden is the country with the highest unemployment humanly possible and its economy is about to collapse. People are rioting in the streets and even camp outside ... no, wait, that wasn't Sweden...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Title is misleading by scamper_22 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The big problem is simply that people are used to living an advantageous life over other people.

      You see this all the time with people complaining about being paid the minimum wage.

      Well what is wrong with the minimum wage? Someone has to be paid the minimum wage. Those paid higher than the minimum wage simply take advantage of the labor of those paid less and get more 'stuff' in life.

      The public school teacher only has a 'good job' because some waiter is being paid minimum wage so they can go out to eat on a weekend. Because some textile worker is earning minimum wage assembling clothes and the teacher can get a new pair of jeans every few months...

      The position is privilege is what union workers are used to. Both in the public sector and the private sector.

      Ultimately, technology is going to make us more egalitarian. There might be a few rich people in charge of the robots that provide us with cheap goods, but you know what will get to the average Joe... that they cannot complete with the average Joe's anymore.

      In a more egalitarian society... who gets to live in Downtown Manhatten in the 'nice' neighborhood close to transit? Answer that question without saying one person earns more than another.

      I too don't fear technology. But I do fear humanity.
      Humans love to take advantage of each other.
      The 'evil' banker, the teacher, the police officer, the businessman, the engineer... we all in general want to live a better life than someone else.

      To truly take advantage of this technological progress, we must rid ourselves of this. That will be the hardest challenge.

      We all *know* the solution to this.
      Things like work sharing, decreased dependency on economy growth...
      The question is how will societies transition their people to this model.
      How will they convince public sector unions, doctors, lawyers... that their standard of living will be that of the average citizen?

      Change of this sort is hard at the political level and social level. You're talking about changing the social situation of millions and millions of people who are used to a certain kind of living.

      Forget about the displaced workers for a second.
      Most of these displaced workers are in the private sector... and much of the created need is in the public sector or public related sector (healthcare, education, transit...)

      At some point the lack of tax money paid by these displaced private sector workers is going to hit the pocket books of government wanted to spend on the public related sector. Wait a minute... I think this is where we pretty much are.

      So no matter how many new skills you give these displaced workers, there isn't any money or perhaps even need to give them all jobs in the new field at the current going rate of those fields.

      And you're back to tackling establishments in the banking sector, public sector... and taking away a life of privilege and jobs from millions upon millions of people.
      Can't say that is going to be easy to transition to... and you can expect a lot of social unrest in the process.

    4. Re:Title is misleading by blue+trane · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We should challenge the economics that says we can't create money and give it to people. In fact we created $16 trillion (enough to pay off the entire national debt) in two years to bail out financial unions (source: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3 ).

      The best option (that I can think of, at least) is to give everyone a basic income (an idea that goes back to Founding Father Thomas Paine in his 1795 Agrarian Justice), and stimulate innovation and technological progress with challenges from both biz and govt (X Prize, DARPA challenges, Google bug bounties, Netflix prize, etc.). The resulting increase in knowledge advancement will raise our survival fitness fastest because knowledge empowers us to better predict and adapt to sudden catastrophic changes.

      We start by challenging the fundamental assumptions of popular economics, one of which is that government can only spend what it takes in. This assumption has been violated by the history of the United States, which has had a national debt since its very founding. Lincoln printed some $480 million greenbacks to raise money without increasing taxes or borrowing it. Japan runs a 230% debt-to-gdp ratio and has a currency they keep trying to devalue. Dick Cheney was right: Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.

    5. Re:Title is misleading by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree with much of your analysis.
      However the speed of technological change, and the rate at which human labor becomes irrelevant, are quickly outpacing any kind of egalitarian drive in human society, any kind of evolution as a species regarding our interactions with one another.

      The reality is, in the next 50 years much of the human race, especially in the developed world, will become irrelevant to the "machine world" that will replace human labor. The systems in place to support the lifestyles of those in control won't need the millions of permanently un-employed, and they won't foot the bill for some kind of social welfare system to keep them quiet.

      More likely a permanent state of drugged obedience via constant virtual escapism while being constantly controlled and monitored by the omniscient security apparatus.

      --
      We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    6. Re:Title is misleading by crazyjj · · Score: 4, Insightful

      thus freeing humans to pursue nobler interests.

      Yeah, we'll have plenty of time on our hands to pursue interests like huddling around trashcan fires, stealing food, and begging for change.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    7. Re:Title is misleading by bondsbw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Giving everyone a basic income would provide them a safety net, encouraging risk-taking and innovation. Whoever does succeed contributes more back to the societal safety net.

      But some people don't try. They don't want to try. If given a choice between a free shack and a nice home they can work to afford, they will choose the shack. How do we get them to contribute something positive to society, and to take the risks that the safety net is intended to promote?

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    8. Re:Title is misleading by F'Nok · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not everywhere has the incredible income disparity of the US, so you're making a lot of assumptions that while valid for the US, don't apply to the rest of the world as equally.

      Probably the take away from that is that other nations are evidence that there are other ways and perhaps the US should start looking at them.

      When I go out for dinner here in Australia, my waiter isn't on minimum wage, we don't have a culture of tipping because they actually get paid enough to live.

      No, no one needs to be paid the minimum wage, and the minimum wage conditions of the US are frightening to me and evidence of serious social inequality and damage.

      The unemployment benefits in Australia are larger than a full time job on minimum wage in most states of the US. That's how stark the difference is.

      The problem is not that 'someone needs to be paid minimum wage'. Because there are nations where the US concept of minimum wage would be considered poverty.

    9. Re:Title is misleading by hab136 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >No, and I mean NO! because central wealth distribution has been shown time and again to disincentivise people from actually doing something useful with their lives. If you earn enough from benefits, and your benefits reduce if you work/produce value, then why do anything useful? And Benefit Dependency is a really nasty pernicious place to be in.

      The thinking is that there isn't enough useful work to be done. Machines will do most of the grunt work, and you only need x engineers/electricians/other useful jobs per 100,000 people, so what should everyone else do? There's only so much room for artists/writers/musicians. So, since there is no work to be done, yet the person still needs to live, they need to be supported somehow.

      The alternative is: there's no work for you to do, please starve to death.

      The ratio of employed people to the total population has been slowly shrinking in the US. Currently 58.7% of the US population is working; the rest are not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio

      What happens when that ratio dwindles lower, to 40%, or 25%, or 10%?

    10. Re:Title is misleading by F'Nok · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not in British English.

    11. Re:Title is misleading by WrongMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful
      "More likely a permanent state of drugged obedience via constant virtual escapism while being constantly controlled and monitored by the omniscient security apparatus."

      You make that sound like a bad thing. But for many people, getting high and playing video games all day would be a kind of utopia.

    12. Re:Title is misleading by jd.schmidt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You are trying to answer the profoundly wrong question. More or less no one now or ever has expected or demanded a totally egalitarian society. Some few have maybe dreamed of it, but no one has demanded it. Even in communist countries there was no real expectation that every member of society would get exactly the same thing, more of the case that there was an attempt (unsuccessful) to prevent anyone from falling too low.

      The issue is if you don't stand up for yourself you will get walked over.

      Consider "Right to Work" as a simple example, it is NOT the case that these laws repealed some requirement that all unions contract be exclusive by law. Those exclusivity terms were negotiated between two free groups. Instead these laws scratch out, by government fiat, parts of existing contracts and make it illegal for two parties to agree these terms. Why if you are free to join with another person and start a company, should you not be free to join with another person and start a Union

      I have a great deal of faith in people to take care of themselves given the chance. The basic problem is there is a deliberate attempt to prevent people from being able to stand up for themselves. Let’s start by removing those barriers and see what happens.

    13. Re:Title is misleading by MtHuurne · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thinking is that there isn't enough useful work to be done.

      There is plenty of useful work to be done: children would benefit from smaller classes, the elderly would like more attention, cities could be made prettier, there are lots of things that can be researched. The problem is that no-one is willing to pay for those things: we're always looking for lower costs, lower taxes, not higher quality of life.

    14. Re:Title is misleading by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Surely, there will be some freeloaders, but so what?

      Your country must be more civilized. Where I live, the freeloaders are everywhere.

      One major problem is that the "system" is beyond the ability to control. The government provides assistance in all forms, but somehow that is never enough. Our government provides food, shelter, clothing, and emergency health care to the freeloaders. That's never enough though... now they need cell phones and laundry service and food/care for their pets and transportation and better living conditions. (Did I mention that despite the government assistance, they don't take care of themselves or their kids, so now there are more health care costs, etc.?)

      If you do work, you don't get much or any of that for free. You start at $0.00, and work for your money. Then you pay taxes, and buy those things I listed. By the time you pay for health insurance and everything else that puts you on the same level as a typical freeloader, you are left with little money to spend as you want. You work 40 hours per week, yet barely live any better than those who work 0 hours per week.

      So why slave away at a thankless job, away from my family during the day? I could be spending more quality time with my family, being lazy or doing whatever I can do without paying money for it... all while having all my needs and many of my wants provided for by the government check.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    15. Re:Title is misleading by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Should all exclusivity agreements be banned, then?

      If a company can sign an contract agreeing to use one specific supplier as their exclusive supplier of candlesticks, why can't it, instead, do the same in-house, and sign a contract agreeing to use people from one particular labor union as its exclusive supplier of candlestick-making employees?

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    16. Re:Title is misleading by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

      Perhaps it's a little more complicated than forcing people to work with the threat of poverty?

      This is one reason Scandinavia's taken the path it has: the societies have bet (correctly, imo) that in the modern world, the quality of labor you get solely from threatening people "work or die!" is relatively low, and that labor forms an increasingly irrelevant part of a country's total GDP. What actually drives the economy are people who have some additional reason and motivation to work, and skills to do so at a higher level than basic drudgery. So there is a high minimum wage (around $18/hr in Denmark), and the entire unemployment system is geared towards retraining people (with free education) to fill high-skill jobs where there's a shortage of labor.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  2. The rich, the robots, the rest of us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who will be left with any real income to buy all this stuff?

    1. Re:The rich, the robots, the rest of us by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich."
      --JJ Rousseau

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  3. Union perspective by Livius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The fact that unions think they are there to protect jobs, rather than do them, is the root of their problems.

    1. Re:Union perspective by Kenja · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's frankly OK with me in the bigger picture. It is better to have two parties fighting over power (unions vs corporations) rather then having one party (corporations) running unchecked.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  4. Re:Unions protect jobs just fine by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The real power of unions is all in government employee unions who hold an undue amount of influence over those who set their pay.

    You assume that most Fedeal workers are well paid and still have a great retirement plan. This is not the case.

    Take a look at the GS wage charts, and what a government retirement is today (no more than a 401k).

    It's not as "sweet" as you think.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  5. isn't that *American* unions? by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Informative

    The U.S. is an odd place in many ways, on all sides: how the unions operate, how employers operate, and how labor law operates (which in turn influences those things).

    In Germany's export-manufacturing sector, automation hasn't really made unions irrelevant. Nor has it in Denmark's. But unions there are a bit different, as is the overall political climate. In particular, large employer confederations and large union confederations negotiate more frequently, and on a more consensus-oriented basis.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    1. Re:isn't that *American* unions? by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's a lot of horse-trading going on, yes, but they nonetheless succeed in maintaining relatively good worker protections and benefits. Consider how much better German car companies treat their unionized German workers vs. their nonunionized American workers.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  6. What about non-factory jobs?? by digitalaudiorock · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The whole premise of the article seems to assume that unions are exclusively about 1950s-like factory jobs. How about all those low paying service jobs out there? I don't see too many robots stocking shelves at Walmart. In decades gone by, in a large part due to unions, a guy who was willing to get up every day and go sweep floors at a factory could actually survive. Today's equivalent, those low paying service jobs, pay so little you're almost better off not working at all.

    That's why unions are under attach these days...because a large chunk of corporate America is still dependent on a few jobs that they can't automate or outsource and, if unionized, might actually pay a fair wage...and we can't have that now can we??

  7. Re:Nirvana is when humanity does what we want to d by datapharmer · · Score: 4, Informative

    actually that is hardly correct. While it is hard to distinguish "work" from non-work activities in a hunter-gatherer society (thus your 24/7) if we use standard methods to delineate these activities you will find that most hunter-gatherers dedicated only 12-18 hours per peek to work-comparable activities. That is overly broad, but don't think you've got it so great. You work a lot more to watch tv than our ancestors (and some current cultures) do to watch the stars. It is all a matter of perception and values.

    --
    Get a web developer
  8. US unions are bizarre by stenvar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Michigan lawmakers just approved a right-to-work law in an effort to dismantle union power,

    Right-to-work is the law in many European nations with strong labor unions.

    The widespread use of closed shop and union security agreements is a US aberration and has nothing to do with union power in general, it has to do with protecting the power of a few powerful and politically connected organizations.

  9. Automation is good by enriquevagu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Repeat with me: Automation is good. It makes we, human kind, more productive. With the same human work, we can get more benefits for ourselves, so on average our wealth improves. The people that do not need to do manual and repetitive jobs can move to a more creative work which produces more benefit for mankind. Gutenberg's printing was good. e-mail was good, despite removing works in the Post office. Hydraulic excavators are good. And all of them reduce the number of jobs, and unions cannot and shouldn't try to prevent this. Fortunately, we are no longer relying on picks and shovels to dig tunnels.

    The problem is not with automation, which is good for mankind as a whole; the problem is with the distribution of wealth. We are facing a serious problem, in which those who have the machines (capital) become much richer by producing the same as before, and those that lose their employments become poorer. I certainly believe that this problem will aggravate with time, as more jobs are out-dated by technology, and "the system" cannot provide an alternative way to earn a living.

    One option might be to move to a system in which everyone has a basic "social earning", enough for a living, while those with a work would earn more money. However, this imposes serious trouble, such as obvious abuse and unfairness. I see the problem, but I don't foresee a clear solution.