Teamsters Seek To Unionize More Tech Shuttle Bus Drivers In Silicon Valley

An anonymous reader writes with news about the effort to unionize shuttle drivers in Silicon Valley. "Shuttle bus drivers for five prominent tech companies will decide whether to unionize on Friday in a vote that has the potential to dramatically expand organized labor's territory in Silicon Valley and embolden others in the tech industry's burgeoning class of service workers to demand better working conditions. Drivers who ferry Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga workers -- all employed by contractor Compass Transportation -- will decide whether to join the Teamsters union in an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Union leaders say they want to bring the drivers into the fold so they can negotiate better pay and benefits -- as well as relief from a split shift that has the drivers working morning and evening shifts with no pay in between. A contract the Teamsters struck over the weekend for Facebook's shuttle bus drivers, who work for Loop Transportation, offers a glimpse of what may be possible: paid sick and vacation time, full health care coverage and wages of up to $27.50 an hour."

Comments

That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Before too long we won't need the bus drivers. Automated cars will smash the unions

Re:That is okay

[gl4ss]

the blurb says for 5 companies.
then it says it's drivers from 1 company.

if it becomes a problem, it's really because the the companies decided to outsource the service, to save up, possibly to avoid paying their negotiated employee benefits and such.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

People said two decades ago that we would all have 30 hour work weeks from home in paperless offices thanks to technology. See how that turned out.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it mostly happened, but not due to technology. It is the flexibilisation of office hours that has enabled many people to choose to work fewer hours.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Unions are collective bargaining. Collective bargaining forms the basis for an intelligent, social civilisastion. Some unions are good for workers, campaigning for an end to the dire conditions found themselves enduring through early C20, and others are corrupt and useless (in Western Europe I have rarely found a harmful union, but the US is so hardline capitalist that even some of its unions end up top-heavy), but saying "smash the unions!" is like shouting "GMO is evil!" - it's a nonsense blanket statement by an anti-science ideologue;

2) Soon sufficient automation will make you unemployed. Be careful what you wish for, because it's only hubris that's keeping you confident. Unless you're a multimillionaire you're not secure, and a sufficiently small handful of multimillionaires in an automated utopia will soon find nobody is interested in protecting their wealth.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

My union had a clause that if there were technological advances they would need to be discussed with the union before deploying them.

Re:That is okay

[stealth_finger]

flexibilisation

Nice.

Re: That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

You got the second part right. I am a millionaire, but I am still worried!

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

in Western Europe I have rarely found a harmful union

You should visit France, Belgium or The Netherlands. Or the UK before the Thatcher governments.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Throw those wooden shoes into the new-fangled machinery!

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

"smash the unions!" is like shouting "GMO is evil!"

Right now, at this time, people and small business (and thus the economy) are losing a lot of money because unions are closing down the docks in major ports. Why? Because they want their uneducated box-pushers who are already earning 147k a year, to make even more. Did you read that? People who did not invest in any degree, dropped out of high school and got a job at the docks earning 147k a year, and are now demanding more. Demanding more by crippling the rest of the economy. Are you kidding me?

TFA even says:

"Now is the opportunity for shuttle bus drivers, for food service workers, for janitors, for security officers to re-ask the question: Should I be equally as valued as the high tech workers in the high tech industry?" said David Huerta, president of United Service Workers West.

Really? I mean, really? Are you seriously expecting an employee without a high school diploma doing the most simple job in the world to earn the same income as someone with a Master's degree or PHD? Really? That's just plain nonsense. Remember that all they do is drive a vehicle from A to B. Something that all of us do on a very regular basis.

Let's for a moment look at a Bay Area without bus drivers. There would be a bit more cars on the road so it would take me an hour to get to work instead of 40 minutes. And perhaps I'd work from home a bit more.

Now let's see what would happen to Apple, Google or Facebook if there would be no software engineers. Oh wait, I forgot. There would be no Apple, Google, or Facebook.

Is it really that weird that tech companies pay their high value tech employees more than the average bus driver?

The one thing that I agree with, and I agree with that very strongly, is that everyone who has a full time job should be able to earn a living wage and get healthcare benefits. Every single bus driver, every single janitor, every single security guard should be able to put a roof over their head, buy some nice toys for their kids and go to Disneyland once in a while. So in that sense, I do agree with the outcome of the process, and even think that the $27,50 is a bit low. $35 would be better and fair, considering the housing market in the Bay area.

But they should also realize that if they had done better in school (no, that English major does not count), they could have had a tech job as well. It takes 16+ years of education to get a Master's degree. It takes less than 16 months to get a commercial driver's license. That fact is embedded in tech workers wages.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

>But they should also realize that if they had done better in school (no, that English major does not count), they could have had a tech job as well.

Good god, are you kidding me?

Let's start with the obvious - everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and wants and desires. Everyone is different. Some people no matter how hard they worked couldn't cut it in tech, they just don't have what it takes. And that's OK! I've tried very hard over a number of years to learn a musical instrument and failed miserably yet there is people who have no formal music training who can pick up an unfamiliar instrument and just teach themselves how to play. I'd so love to do that. Their abilities strengths and weaknesses are just different from mine. And that's ok. I watched my friend in high school struggle so much with math despite the fact she put in so much effort to try to "get" it. Her brain just had a difficulty comprehending. I mean she worked so hard but effort didn't translate to results. Me? I sit through one class half paying attention and everything clicks right away. This friend was not dumb, she was incredibly brilliant in other ways and went on to have a very successful career in the humanities.

Not everyone starts off on an equal footing either. The black kid (who already has a disadvantage due to their skin color) who grew up in a poor family. Yeah, their schooling was more like babysitting. Very little was learned and VERY little is expected of them. If you expect failure/mediocrity from someone that is usually what you will get. They may drop out to enter the job market to help support their family. This actually DOES happen, I've personally known people who have done this. Even if you do EXCELLENT in school, your education is sub par and you don't have the same knowledge as someone who went to a middle class school. I should know, I lived in a very sub par school district.

Sure doing well in school does tend to mean you do well writing software, but it doesn't always. People who do poorly in a classroom setting excel in the work environment and vise versa. So just "doing well in school" isn't what you actually need.

Not everyone enjoys the work. I actually know someone who is a manager in a fast food chain. He has an electrical engineering degree. He is a manager at a fast food joint because that's actually the job he enjoys. Reminds me of the scene in Office Space where Peter gives up his software engineering job for construction because... not everyone likes being a software engineer, even if they are pretty good at it and have all the educational prereqs. Some people need to work outside, work inside, interact with people, not interact with people, have a fast paced environment, not have a fast paced environment. I could go on and on... My sister is the same way, she did good in school but after trying every job under the sun (including very well paying jobs) she is unable to feel good in any job that isn't in the service industry.

Its likely that only a fraction of the people who drive busses for a living actually want to be engineers anyways.

>Really? I mean, really? Are you seriously expecting an employee without a high school diploma doing the most simple job in the world to earn the same income as someone with a Master's degree or PHD?

You are reading it wrong. Equally valued doesn't mean equally paid and never did.

Let's just say everyone wanted to be engineers and aimed for that. Well now we got a society full of engineers. That's a society that doesn't work because there's nobody else to do any other work. Congrats. We are already starting to see this sort of thing happening with the college bubble inflating bigger and bigger.

Everyone has their place in life and society and everyone should be equally **VALUED** and not be put down by assholes like you with an ego problem.

Re:That is okay

[dywolf]

the simple fact of the matter is that EVERYONE is underpaid.
that doesn't mean you should begrudge the dockworker a decent living simply because "they're uneducated box pushers".

rather, the key to boosting everyones' pay to where it should be is to start raising wages.
the economy can handle it easily.

The simple fact of the matter is that is wages had kept pace with productivity the current median wage would be ~140k/yr, and not the current anemic ~50k/yr.

All the extra revenue from that increased productivity has been going to the executives, the CEOs, the 0.1%, since the mid 70s. Ever since they first started weakening the unions, spreading the myth of "trickle down economics", and generally f---ing over the middle class who built this country and its economy. God forbid the people who actually generate that revenue, who actually caused the growth in the economy, share in the fruits of their labor.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Your salary isn't a function of your education level. If I stay in school until I'm 35 getting multiple degrees I don't graduate and say "where's my $300,000 salary?"

Re:That is okay

[Pope]

Yeah, everybody should go get a Masters degree and go be a programmer, surely these kinds of jobs will NEVER see wage depression as the market is filled with workers of the same skill set!

Re:That is okay

[NotDrWho]

Automated cars will smash the unions

Well, until all the unemployed workers smash the automated cars.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it mostly happened, but not due to technology. It is the flexibilisation of office hours that has enabled many people to choose to work fewer hours.

Really? Show me these people working less than 40 hrs/week who are still considered to be full-time.

Re:That is okay

[nbauman]

Right now, at this time, people and small business (and thus the economy) are losing a lot of money because unions are closing down the docks in major ports. Why? Because they want their uneducated box-pushers who are already earning 147k a year, to make even more. Did you read that? People who did not invest in any degree, dropped out of high school and got a job at the docks earning 147k a year, and are now demanding more. Demanding more by crippling the rest of the economy. Are you kidding me?
 

Yes, I read it. It's $83,000 a year, not $147,000. Stop bragging about how smart you are if you can't read a simple newspaper story, realize there are two sides to the story, and do some simple arithmetic.

You say it would be fair for them to make $35/h. Well, $35/h x 40h/wk x 50 wk/yr = $70,000/yr, which is pretty close to $83,000. So they merely drove a good bargain. You have a problem with people making good money?

There are reasons why they make so much money that you resent them.

First, they know how to negotiate. That's something you might learn from them.

When they negotiate, they don't want to match the race to the bottom. They know how much their employer is making and they want a piece of the action. They want job security and they want, in effect, something like an ownership interest in the company. That's not so strange. In Germany, unions have a seat on the board of directors of a company.

Second, they made a grand bargain decades ago. There was new technology that would make their job more labor-saving and efficient. Instead of obstructing it, they agreed to be forward-thinking and go along with it. However, if the company got the benefits of improved efficiency, they wanted the benefits of improved efficiency too. That's why they're making $83,000 a year. Here's a profitable business, where the owners are making millions a year. Why should they settle for $70,000 when their boss is rich and could easily pay $83,000 a year?

My landlord was making at least $300,000 a year, probably more. He inherited the building from his father, like most landlords. He worked hard, just like a longshoreman. Do I envy him? No. That's the free market.

If you live in a rental building, do you envy your landlord if he makes $300,000 a year? Do you envy your maintenance man, who fixes your boiler? Do you envy your auto mechanic? This is a rich country. Why do you want to drag everybody down to the bottom?

Re:That is okay

[Wycliffe]

People said two decades ago that we would all have 30 hour work weeks from home in paperless offices thanks to technology. See how that turned out.

Unfortunately, the main reason this hasn't happened is because it's easier, more efficient, and cheaper* to train one person and have
them work 60 hours a week than it is to train 2 people and have them each work 30 hours a week.

*It's cheaper even IF companies were required to pay overtime (which many don't). Time and a half is cheaper than the added
expense of medical, additional training, and Brooks's law.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has their place in life and society and everyone should be equally **VALUED** and not be put down by assholes like you with an ego problem.

Two things. Number one, ego has nothing to do with it. In fact, if anything, I have quite the opposite.

Number two, we're now debating "value". I read it as a monetary statement, meaning that they want the same pay. If you want to take a more altruistic approach then I can only agree with you. Every life is of equally value, and everyone should be able to make a decent living. And that is exactly what I wrote.

My point is simply that greater efforts and success deserve a greater reward. That's what it all boils down to. If Peter gives up his software engineering job to be an unskilled construction worker, that is his choice but he should also accept the lower paycheck. If your EE buddy chooses to work as a burger flipper because he enjoys that more: go ahead, but don't complain about a $10/hr wage.

And I'll let you in on a little secret: I dropped out of high school as well. It was not until I was 21 that I realized that I wouldn't get far without an education. So I want back to college at nighttime next to a full time job at a factory, and earned my Bachelor's. I got into tech and moved to Norcal, and got my Master's degree (again nighttime/weekend studies) last year. I worked very hard and made lots of sacrifices to get where I am today. And it pisses me off to a unimaginable levels that others demand the same level of compensation without doing anything to earn it.

I directly report to an SVP of my age. Sure I'd love to have the same responsibilities and pay. But I know I will be working very hard for another 10 years, at a minimum, before I'll be able to reach that level. He also worked very hard to get where he is and he earned it all the way by making the right choices and sacrifices.

These days, you can get a Bachelor's degree for as little as $12k, and ever for half of it if you are quick enough. Without going to class, at your own pace. TFA mentions a bus driver doing nothing for 7 hours a day. He would get his degree in as little as 18 months if he would spend that time studying.

Being poor is no longer an excuse. Being a minority is no longer an excuse. Having dropped out of high school is no longer an excuse. You want something, you earn it, don't demand it.

On a side note, there are professions that are grossly underpaid. Examples are teachers, nurses, and other healthcare workers who are expected to have a decent education but get barely enough money to drive a car. These are the type of people that should be earning $30 instead of the $12-15 they're getting right now.

Re:That is okay

[Wycliffe]

1) Unions are collective bargaining. Collective bargaining forms the basis for an intelligent, social civilisastion.

saying "smash the unions!" is like shouting "GMO is evil!" - it's a nonsense blanket statement by an anti-science ideologue;

When I think of Unions I think of all the corrupt Unions that litter the USA. Standing unions are a corrupted version of collective bargaining.
Collective bargaining is good. I'm not a big fan of the standing unions we have today. If unions came into existance, fixed the problem and
then disbanding then I wouldn't have a problem with them.

Re:That is okay

[Wycliffe]

"Now is the opportunity for shuttle bus drivers, for food service workers, for janitors, for security officers to re-ask the question: Should I be equally as valued as the high tech workers in the high tech industry?" said David Huerta, president of United Service Workers West.

Really? I mean, really? Are you seriously expecting an employee without a high school diploma doing the most simple job in the world to earn the same income as someone with a Master's degree or PHD? Really? That's just plain nonsense. Remember that all they do is drive a vehicle from A to B. Something that all of us do on a very regular basis.

If I could get the same pay for driving a bus without the stress of programming AND get time off in the middle of the day,
I would quit my job as a programmer and become a bus driver tomorrow. Besides requiring more education, many of the
higher paying jobs also have more stress and more responsibility.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I read it. It's $83,000 a year, not $147,000. Stop bragging about how smart you are if you can't read a simple newspaper story, realize there are two sides to the story, and do some simple arithmetic.

Perhaps you should read it again. It says that the average working made $147k. Some people who don't make the number of hours that they'd wish, don't. That means that according to your calculation, the average worker works (147000/35) 4200 hours a year, or 350 a month, or 17.5 hours a day. I call bullshit on your math.

It would make more sense if they'd make ~$70/h (147000/2100 where 2100 is the number of hours/year). In that case, you'd have the workers complaining about low hours doing ~20 hours/week.

That's not so strange. In Germany, unions have a seat on the board of directors of a company.

That statement by itself tells me how close Deutschland is to Soviet Russia. Total madness.

I'm an employee of a company. I provide a service, in exchange for compensation. That's it, and that's that. I have no business whatsoever to tell the leadership how to run the company. If I want to run a company, I'm free to start my own.

Unions are nothing more than a group of employees. And they are useful in the sense that they can provide a single voice for negotiations and concerns, but that's it. Unions have no business dictating the company leadership on how to run the business.

At the beginning of my career I joined a local union. After the first year I canceled because I saw the destruction that they were responsible for. Never ever will I join union voluntarily again.

Re:That is okay

[Chrisq]

Before too long we won't need the bus drivers. Automated cars will smash the unions

I hope their steering is better than that

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron, ya sure, slander unions, that's quite enlightened. Really, union bashing goes to show just how low the affluent can go. Can't make money honestly, no problem, cheat your employees and treat them like wage slaves!

Slavery is alive and well. The lower class working poor are financially enslaved by the over-paid upper class owners.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

We're all wage slaves. Some of us are house slaves and have nice beds, some of us have to work in the fields and sleep in the barn.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

People said two decades ago that we would all have 30 hour work weeks from home in paperless offices thanks to technology. See how that turned out.

Unfortunately, the main reason this hasn't happened is because it's easier, more efficient, and cheaper* to train one person and have
them work 60 hours a week than it is to train 2 people and have them each work 30 hours a week.

*It's cheaper even IF companies were required to pay overtime (which many don't). Time and a half is cheaper than the added
expense of medical, additional training, and Brooks's law.

And the fact that it's time and a half rather than double time.

Re:That is okay

[RabidReindeer]

I'm an employee of a company. I provide a service, in exchange for compensation. That's it, and that's that.

You won't be an employee of MY company. I expect anyone who works to me to be invested in the company so that they will have motivation to help the company, not merely be a salaried drone. I'll bet that one of your standard auto-quacks about Why Unions Are Bad is that union workers are drones who have no motivation do do anything much because they cannot easily be fired.

You, on the other hand, don't belong to a union, and you're not invested in your employer. Drones like that are the first out the door. And since this is the Century of the Disposable Employee you will be. You may think you're a Special Snowflake now, but your attitude WILL negate that.

If I want to run a company, I'm free to start my own.

Then do so. You may discover it's not as easy as your think.

Re:That is okay

[RabidReindeer]

The best union is the threat of unionization.

Re:That is okay

[Serzen]

37.5 hours here, full-time, full benefits (medical, dental, life, vision, hearing, retirement match of 9%), extraordinary paid time away (medical, personal, vacation). I have the option to flex my hours to meet my own schedule instead of work's. But I work in higher education, so I know it's not the norm.

I know, 37.5 might as well be 40, but a lot of places in the area consider 37.5 to be full-time. Just pointing out that the 40-hour week is starting to be scaled back.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Obamacare got many people the 29.95 hour work week.

Re:That is okay

[mr.mctibbs]

Why is this modded funny, and not insightful? Putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalalala free market solves everything you guys are just luddites" won't stop what's coming.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

The Luddites are exactly what that comment was about.

Tell me, how well did their attempt to stop the Industrial Revolution work out? Did it prevent the programming of devices?

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

In short Unions are a quasi government entity. Sometimes in life you need more government (because you are underprotected and there is a high amount of lawlessness), sometimes you need less government (because the government is overprotecting and stifling innovation). "Unions" are bad, is essentially saying "All government is bad", which unfortunately some people believe as well.

Re:That is okay

[pnutjam]

Your whole comment is predicated that software guys should make more then bus drivers. Nobody is arguing that. It's true and it will continue to be true. These guys are making $27.50. If you make that much as a software dev in NorCal, you did something wrong. Maybe that fits the midwest, but even there you should be at least 30% higher.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple fact of the matter is that is wages had kept pace with productivity the current median wage would be ~140k/yr, and not the current anemic ~50k/yr.

That only counts actual cash wages (assuming your numbers are accurate). It doesn't count benefits. During the period when this occurred, benefit costs have been skyrocketing. Why are benefits more expensive? In part because mandates have required more benefits. In part because simple demographics have made benefits more expensive (people are living longer, so retirement costs are increasing). In part because many of them were funded like Ponzi schemes: new entrants are expected to pay for benefits for older participants.

Re:That is okay

[darkwing_bmf]

Every little bit helps I guess. Which area is that?

Re:That is okay

[srobert]

That's a hollow threat when the private sector is less than 8% unionized. Someone commented that decades ago, we were told that in future (that's now) the work week would be shorter and living standards higher. Yes, we said that in the 60's and 70's. So why didn't that happen? If we had kept the 35% unionization rate we had back then, it would have. Instead, we busted unions, outsourced labor, and allowed the billionaire class to accumulate nearly all the benefits of increased per worker productivity that arises out of new technology to themselves. I hope the drivers are smart enough to vote for this. I was in the Teamsters myself once. It made a huge difference.

Re:That is okay

[pnutjam]

I'm an employee of a company. I provide a service, in exchange for compensation. That's it, and that's that. I have no business whatsoever to tell the leadership how to run the company. If I want to run a company, I'm free to start my own.

That's partially true, but you are taking a risk by linking your employment to that company. You absolutely deserve some say in how it is run, even if it is just your department or your checkout line. Your confusing employment with contract work.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but it really seems some people have no idea what driving a bus is like. Ok, so some code crashes, av missed deadline, so what? A bus driver doesn't have the luxury of mistakes and lives depend upon them. Yet office people think they have stress? Sorry, but it just look like privileged people who don't really appreciate how good they have it compared to the average person. Just saying ...

Re:That is okay

[NeutronCowboy]

There is a simple way to prevent unions from gaining a foothold in your company: stop treating your employees like crap. Stop implementing life-sapping schedules that prevent workers from having meaningful relationships, give them solid healthcare that they don't want to trade away, give them a paycheck that allows them to live within a decent distance of their work, and don't treat them like meatbags whose sole purpose is to make you more money. If they still want to unionize after that? Fine, throw 'em to the wolves. But quite frankly, reading through the description of what the bus drivers get, the company had this coming.

That said, fuck the unions as well. No, a bus driver isn't the same thing as a programmer. Stop pandering to your audience and do something useful instead.

Re:That is okay

[cayenne8]

Sure, not everyone started off on the same footing, boo hoo...life is unfair.

BULLETIN: Live has always been unfair. I'm not 6'11", I can't play basketball and make millions of dollars.

Everyone is dealt some cards to start with, some start from the back, but if they work and learn to value an education..they can succeed, and many do.

But just because life is tough...you don't pull the playing field down to the lowest common denominator so that everyone can be "equal".

While I do like to give to charity and I try to help out my friends and family as best I can, I am NOT my brothers keeper. It is not upon me to make sure they can make a living or whatever, especially if they are stupid, and/or lazy.

I won't stand in anyone's way, but I certainly don't feel I need to go out of my way to help.

No...someone who picks up fucking garbage on the side of the road != someone who designs CPUs.

The world does now and always has needed its ditch diggers. If you fsck up your life so bad that that's all you can do? Well, you made your bed, now,sleep in it.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

as if the unemployed could afford cars ... sigh

Re:That is okay

[jcr]

Collective bargaining forms the basis for an intelligent, social civilisastion.

Bullshit.

Unions in the USA exist to steal money from workers to buy hookers and blow for mobsters and politicians. The teamsters in particular are as dirty as they come.

-jcr

Re:That is okay

[cayenne8]

You say it would be fair for them to make $35/h

That is waaaay too much for unskilled workers. Pushing boxes around is on the same level as flipping burgers. No wonder things are getting so expensive. We're paying far too much for unskilled labor.

If you've not tried to make something better of your life with education and life skills...then well, you get what you deserve.

What's next, I have to pay someone $40/hr to mow my fucking lawn?

Re:That is okay

[Serzen]

Central New York. Mind, most of my friends work in either academia or health care, so results can be skewed. Also, anecdotes aren't data, I know.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

the main reason this hasn't happened is because

The main reason it hasn't happened is because when someone is offered the option of working twice as long for twice the salary they jump on it.

Re:That is okay

[TooMuchToDo]

> You should visit France, Belgium or The Netherlands. Or the UK before the Thatcher governments.

Or what we call "First world countries".

Re:That is okay

[demonlapin]

Ah, but the problem isn't the idea of unions, it's unions as they exist in the US. Germany seems to have pretty good unions and labor law. American labor law was set up to build political machines more than to improve workers' lives.

Re:That is okay

[mvdwege]

That is waaaay too much for unskilled workers.

Who made you Grand Poobah in charge of the Market? What is wrong with employees negotiating a decent salary?

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, so you provide profit sharing to all the employees of your company?
Stock options for all employees?

If not, why should they be invested in, as you said, YOUR company.
You have made it clear in your post that it's your company and not theirs.
While demanding that they be loyal to the company, you've already told them extremely clearly that it is your company and not theirs.

You want brainwashed drones is what you want.
You are the worst kind of boss.

Re:That is okay

[blackomegax]

Do you earn more than 40/hr? Is that hour better spent doing other things? If YES, then yes, you value your time enough to compensate somebody else less than your own value to do you work for you.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who makes 100x what you do tells you to envy someone who makes 1.5x what you do, and you obey.

That you and most everyone else react this way when the rich pit us against each other is why wages suck for most everyone.

Re:That is okay

[blackomegax]

Citation needed.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a selfish, atrocious, shitbag, and none of your statements are backed up with any citations or statistics. You say many succeed, but you provide no evidence and no metric of success. Hell, your stupid comparison of a sanitation worker and an EE completely completely devalues the importance of garbage collection in society. I'd say the person that regularly picks up my garbage is more important than an EE that designs CPUs, as that EE isn't preventing the fucking plague or any other maladies that result from an accumulation of refuse.

Whatever, go off an live in your stupid every-man-is-an-island fantasy land. I just hope everyone shits all over you if you're ever down on your luck and it's no fault of your own.

Re:That is okay

[HornWumpus]

I pay people what they are worth, not what the time they are saving me is worth.

Re:That is okay

[HornWumpus]

You are only a wage slave if you NEED your next paycheck.

Stop being a moron, don't buy that useless crap. Pay some shit off and buy your freedom.

Re:That is okay

[bored]

When I think of Unions I think of all the corrupt Unions that litter the USA.

Union "corruption" in the US is a joke/talking point to distract people from the "corruption" of the oligarchs.

Re:That is okay

[sjames]

Perhaps uneducated, definitely working hard enough that they will accelerate arthritis and other damage to their bodies. They won't be able to keep working until whatever might pass for retirement age. Since you feel so strongly about it, why don't you go undercut their demand and do the job for $146K? That'll teach 'em!

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be pretty young to think that is a lot of money for labor or any kind. And seriously complaining that things are getting so expensive??? What's getting expensive? Have you seen the profit margins of corporations lately? I'll give you a hint, they are rising way faster than inflation. Yet you would hate on the vast majority of your fellow citizens who have to work for a living. What a class act.

Re:That is okay

[sjames]

Quit complaining and buy yourself a commercial mower!

Re:That is okay

[sjames]

Yet you seem more than willing to kick any of the people trying to climb out of the hole they were born in in the teeth to make sure they never get ion an equal footing with you.

You seem, in fact, to enjoy pissing in that hole from time to time to assert your odd sense of innate superiority.

You seem surprised that they aren't happy to be pissed on. Perhaps one day they'll tie you down and piss on you. You'll have it coming so I'll just watch and laugh.

Re:That is okay

[CaptSlaq]

Yeah... my experience in working along side with those in Academia indicates to me that the requirements and culture are VASTLY different from working in the private sector. YMMV.

Re:That is okay

[jcr]

Google "Jimmy Hoffa".

-jcr

Re:That is okay

[trout007]

If unions were just collective bargaining groups nobody would oppose them. The problem are the laws that give them extra rights and the fact they typically resort to violence to get their way.

Workers should absolutely have the right to bargain as a collective. But the employer should also have the right not to negotiate and to fire all of those employees and hire replacements. The reason people don't like unions is they will resort to violence to prevent willing people from taking the jobs they abandoned.

Re:That is okay

[cayenne8]

Yet you seem more than willing to kick any of the people trying to climb out of the hole they were born in in the teeth to make sure they never get ion an equal footing with you.

Actually, that's not true at all. I don't go out of my way to keep anyone down, and encourage anyone that actually puts forth effort and works hard to succeed.

But I don't think anyone or any group should have or get special consideration, or have the bar lowered for them just because they are of a certain group, sex or religion, or had a hard start in life.

It is pure results at the end.

I don't believe in quotas, or special helping funds for anyone out of the gov. coffers, that just isn't supposed to be the governments job.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't be an employee of MY company. I expect anyone who works to me to be invested in the company so that they will have motivation to help the company, not merely be a salaried drone.

The first week after I joined the company I currently work for, I purchased 1000 shares.

The point that I am trying to make is that I do not feel entitled to anything more than what we agreed when I joined. The company needed a resource with my skillset, and we agreed on a certain compensation package. I am not the founder of the company, nor am I a high level executive. And if you want to induce more motivation to help the company, you can consider alternative paths of compensation, like OTE. And for what it's worth, I'm on a 70/30 OTE plan. So besides my personal choice to purchase shares, my employer made sure I will do whatever I can to help the company by providing an incentive. If the company does well, I do well. If the company target is exceeded, accelerators kick in and I get even more buck for my bang. My Q4 OTE was paid out last month and we exceeded our target by a huge margin, resulting in a phenomenal paycheck. I was extremely happy with that, but I want to emphasize again, I did not feel entitled to it.

Then do so. You may discover it's not as easy as your think.

I did. Wasn't as successful as I hoped, but I still have it on the side. Which reminds me, my EDD forms are due.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot if you think that people are demanding equal compensation for bus drivers and engineers. Nobody is demanding that, that's not what the article said.

Re:That is okay

[ganjadude]

or detroit

Re:That is okay

[ganjadude]

you are right, they want to pay these particular bus drivers even more than I get paid!

Re:That is okay

[ganjadude]

you, you get tenure ;)

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

On a side note, there are professions that are grossly underpaid. Examples are teachers, nurses, and other healthcare workers who are expected to have a decent education but get barely enough money to drive a car. These are the type of people that should be earning $30 instead of the $12-15 they're getting right now. [glassdoor.com]

Don't feel bad for them. They don't have any excuses. They should just all drop their jobs, get a $12k degree, and hop on the gravy train.

Re:That is okay

[ganjadude]

being in a union doesnt make you care about the company you work for, it makes you care about the union you belong to. you dont care if you are a parasite on the company (in the case of the UAW anyway) as long as the union strong arms them into paying you more to do less.

Re:That is okay

[ganjadude]

. Someone commented that decades ago, we were told that in future (that's now) the work week would be shorter and living standards higher. Yes, we said that in the 60's and 70's. So why didn't that happen? If we had kept the 35% unionization rate we had back then, it would have.

OR is it because of the unions??

Re:That is okay

[ganjadude]

Moron, ya sure, slander companies, that's quite enlightened. Really, company bashing goes to show just how low the ignorant can go. Can't make money honestly, no problem, cheat your company and treat them force them into bankruptcy!*

FTFY



This is exactly what happened in detroit

Re:That is okay

[Whorhay]

"Really? I mean, really? Are you seriously expecting an employee without a high school diploma doing the most simple job in the world to earn the same income as someone with a Master's degree or PHD? Really? That's just plain nonsense. Remember that all they do is drive a vehicle from A to B. Something that all of us do on a very regular basis."

Oh the lol's!
My wife has a Masters and maintains a state license and had an incredibly more demanding, challenging and stressful job than I did. Regardless with nothing but a few years experience and a high school diploma my first job offer was nearly double her pay. Seven years later and my pay is nearing triple what she earned. Now she stays at home and raises the kids, which again is still more work, challenge, and stress than I put up with. While higher education is a big leg up in the tech industry it isn't a requirement to succede and certainly doesn't set it apart from any other white collar job.

Besides all of that getting and keeping a CDL is much more challenging than you might think. Then there is the liabilities involved as well in operating a bus successfully in the bay area. I know I wouldn't consider doing it for less than their asking.

Re:That is okay

[sudon't]

A degree in "tech" is no proof against ignorance, is it? I have so little patience for this...
Not everyone who does well in school has the money to "invest" in higher education. Also, I like how you want us "uneducated box-pushers" to have a "living wage," but you begrudge us the means to get it, namely, by organizing, collective bargaining, and strikes. Your good wishes haven't helped much.
English major "doesn't count?" You know, not everyone views higher education as vocational training. Another thing to consider - not everyone can (or wants to be) be a "tech" worker. Some people have to make stuff. Others have to bring that stuff to you. Box pushing is as least as valuable as pixel pushing, don't you think?

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm required to pay property tax or the city will take my house away.

Without a house I have no where to live.

I have zero debt, no credit card and no mortgage. But without a steady income I do not have basic necessities like food, shelter and medical coverage.

I'm a wage slave, I may be a house slave and have a comfortable life. But my family is always some number of missed paychecks away from being out in the street. The number is higher for me than for someone who is below the poverty line, but it's still a finite number.

I don't have passive income sufficient to cover basic expenses of life. I view people who are able to stop working and maintain their preferred standard of living as rich. (yes, that's a really slippery definition)

Re:That is okay

[AuMatar]

You think being responsible for the literal lives of your passengers for 8 hours a day, needing to be alert the entire time is *less* responsibility and stress? You're out of your fucking mind.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Most full-time contracts are 36 or 38 hours. 40 is very rare. But why would a job need to be considered full-time if it isn't?

Re:That is okay

[HornWumpus]

You are using an insane definition of 'wage slave'.

Someone who cannot quit their job is a 'wage slave'. They have no choices. You have tons of choices.

You are like the people that keep defining down 'rape'. Stop it.

Slavery is not any state short of the life of Riley. It is a terrible thing and you are not even in the neighborhood. Now quit slacking off on /.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

then nobody is a slave, we can all walk away from our jobs and somehow it will all work itself out. nobody really needs shelter or medical care for their sick family members.

(if you didn't catch that, that's hyperbole. I really really need to work to stay afloat. I will have nothing if I stop working)

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

"wage slavery" is hyperbole created by anti-capitalist writers as a rhetorical device. It's not literal slavery.

Assuming you accept the commonly used definitions below.

slave -
        1. A person who is the property of another person and whose labor and also whose life often is subject to the owner's volition.
        2. A person who is legally obliged by prior contract (oral or written) to work for another, with contractually limited rights to bargain; an indentured servant.

wage slave -
        someone who feels compelled to work in return for wages in order to survive.

I don't agree that the earlier poster is "defining down" the term. I think the problem you are having is you don't know much of the origin or definition of the term. That's fine, I don't mind educating on the subject.

As for the AC's comments, I guess it hinges on what survival is. Would any of us die if we lost our jobs or homes, probably not. It's a bit dramatic to act as if being destitute is the worst possible situation to end up in, because you could be dead or a slave.

Re:That is okay

[Wycliffe]

You think being responsible for the literal lives of your passengers for 8 hours a day, needing to be alert the entire time is *less* responsibility and stress? You're out of your fucking mind.

Yes, I do. Driving is relaxing to me. And being able to clock out and go home would
be beyond awesome. To an introvert, being around a bunch of people is probably
stressful but people don't bother me. Crazy deadlines and work following me home
is what the main stresses of my job are. A typical bus driver has zero responsibility
once they go home. A programmer is on the hook if anything breaks after they clock
out (if they are even allowed to clock out)

Re:That is okay

[RabidReindeer]

being in a union doesnt make you care about the company you work for, it makes you care about the union you belong to.

Never said it did. However, a person who doesn't care about the company and doesn't have a union to protect his job is a loser both ways.

When it comes time to shed personnel, If you're in a union, I have to consider the union limitations on firing union members. If you're invested in my company, I would prefer to keep you over someone who's just pulling a paycheck. If you're neither - don't let the door slam.

Re:That is okay

[omfgnosis]

If unions were just collective bargaining groups nobody would oppose them.

Wisconsin.

resort to violence to get their way.

Are you serious?

Re:That is okay

[omfgnosis]

Luddites weren't/aren't oriented around opposition to technology, but around a particular vision for the intersection between technology and people's lives.

Re:That is okay

[RabidReindeer]

I don't know what 1000 shares in your employer is worth, but it doesn't sound like it's worth much if your financial investment isn't matched by your emotional investment.

And it certainly won't give you any extra job security unless management is hoping to persuade to to make further investments later.

Re:That is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the free market would say that if they could fire them and hire other people, they would have already.

Should probably read: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/02/what_do_longshore_workers_do_h.html

Google's master plan in action

[Anonymous Coward]

Google have an app for this...it's called the google car....

no unions for tech workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire those overpaid techies as soon as they get all uppity and entitled.

Slashdot

[ledow]

Anybody else's Slashdot break today?

I've gone to this top-menu-bar thing, with no left gap at all, with no comment button at all (only Reply To This, sorry!) without warning.

Also, the content is trapped in the left-hand half of the page and won't stretch across.

Not only that, by on the same screen where I have "Ads Disabled" checked, I see an ad.

Slashdot, seriously, without a comment button, I'm gone for good this time.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

> Anybody else's Slashdot break today?

With Javascript totally disabled (no, not your run-of-the-mill noscript. Since Firefox has killed the "disable Javascript" checkbox, I monkey-wrench about:config -- and stopped seeing Firefox as an ally) Slashdot looks pretty silly, but mostly harmless.

Re:Slashdot

[Cenan]

Yeah, intern #22451 pushed his amateur-hour changes and went home for the day. Testing is for pussies.

Re:Slashdot

[ledow]

No, I have Javascript enabled, have latest Chrome. It's just borked, and it only happened today (no updates to software between yesterday and today - same browser session still running in fact!) but the site now doesn't render at all nicely and it LOOKS deliberate, but I'm missing any kind of Post button at all.

Re:Slashdot

[ledow]

Confirmed in the Vivaldi browser too, fresh session.

"Want to see Slashdot on your mobile device?" - No, I want it to fecking work on my beast of a PC, thanks.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot must have unionized.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I have Javascript enabled, have latest Chrome. It's just borked, and it only happened today (no updates to software between yesterday and today - same browser session still running in fact!) but the site now doesn't render at all nicely and it LOOKS deliberate, but I'm missing any kind of Post button at all.

It is there on the far left side of the post rating bar but the colour of the text is hard to see.

On badly calibrated monitors it would be impossible to see.

Comes up a a full button when you hover over it though.

Basically a dumb idea, the text should be brighter.

Re:Slashdot

[nospam007]

"Anybody else's Slashdot break today?"

I had to click on every icon on the page, to try to log in.

Only when I clicked the icon with an arrow pointing to an exit door, I succeeded. (sic)

Also, why show me the crappy 'deals' stuff if I have a non-US IP, since you won't ship anything, even if I wanted it.

This has been the _worldwide_ web for a quarter of a century, assholes.

Re:Slashdot

[ledow]

+1.

Damn, that's stupidly impossible to see on a whole range of monitors that I have here. I've complained to support, but I doubt they'll do anything.

It's like the Metro Start hover all over again - you have to play some kind of pixel-hunting adventure game the first time you do anything to work out where to go next.

I was LOOKING for it and couldn't find it. And why would you ever want the button to be the same colour as the bar it's in? It's there for a reason - to be pressed. Don't hide it from me.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Post" button is there, but hidden in a green bar below TFS. You've gotta roll over it to get it to light up to be seen.

Re:Slashdot

[I'm New Around Here]

I just went looking for it, and took a minute to find it.

Maybe Classic Shell should have a Slashdot Release version available.

Re:Slashdot

[tompaulco]

Mine broke yesterday afternoon. If I go to my page, I can't see my individual comments anymore unless I manually add "\comments" to the url. Completely broken. Is this the "new" broken slashdot beta to replace the old broken slashdot beta?

Re:Slashdot

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, intern #22451 pushed his amateur-hour changes and went home for the day. Testing is for pussies.

The bell rang while he was working, and the union rep told him he had to go home because otherwise he would make everyone else look bad.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you choose to reply to a comment about monster-sized labias to make this statement? Inquiring minds want to know.

Re:Slashdot

[NotDrWho]

Anybody else's Slashdot break today?

Personally, I think it's very progressive of Dice to hire special needs students to do all their web design work. Special Peter did an excellent job with the Beta redesign and today's re-skin, and his mom is certainly VERY proud of him--probably even proud enough to bake that lasagna he likes so much. Good work, Peter! You keep achieving, just like your baseball cap says!

Re:Slashdot

[ledow]

I couldn't do anything but reply (could not create a new post), there were only four of five comments when I did, and that was the one most off-topic.

Re:Slashdot

[drew870mitchell]

I found the "Post" button! http://i.imgur.com/lqrwZbC.jpg

Re:Slashdot

[pipingguy]

Sorry, that was me. I modified the minimum text size in Chrome and I think I broke the CSS. I'll change it back, just let me know when things look better, K?

Sick

[symes]

I do not like unpaid sick leave in some industries - particularly nurses, healthcare workers and the like. It means people are more likely to work when they are ill, forced to by financial concerns. Not good when they are dealing with people who are vulnerable. Same is true, to some extent, for bus drivers. Driving a bunch of people around while suffering from fever, etc., is going to effect their ability to drive. There's probably a compromise, such that drivers get 50% pay when ill. But would still prefer to see someone not drive me around while suffering from poor health. So what is good for workers and unions can also be good for customers as well.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

It boggles my mind that in the richest country in the world, there is even debate over this. The rest of the world has already realized that of course someone shouldn't lose their house or their job because they got the flu.

Re:Sick

[Virtucon]

Richest by getting rid of basic things like paid sick leave and turning workers into temps or "contract workers." In this instance I wish the teamsters luck because having drivers sit all day as "down time" when then can't really do anything else except hang around the bus and not get paid is also pretty fucked up.

Re:Sick

[bickerdyke]

Oh, so you're from Norway?

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

s/effect/affect

Re:Sick

[Entrope]

The money to pay for benefits will come out of the employee's paycheck one way or another. If the employer has to pay employees when they're not working, it means the employee's per-working-hour salary will be lower than it would be otherwise.

Drivers who would get "50% pay when ill" are probably not that likely to stay home, and most companies that have policies like that require a doctor's note when someone takes advantage of the policy (to deter people from abusing it). Making your employer part of your relationship with your doctor should be an option for the employee, not a requirement.

Re:Sick

[dywolf]

actually no that doesn't automatically follow. but thanks for playing.

Re:Sick

[Joe_Dragon]

also if they want a doctors note they better pay for it and be willing to wait for the doctor to have a open time.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that but you risk getting fired if you call in sick.

Re:Sick

[tompaulco]

This is true in most industries, even tech. Most companies have changed their policy from the base two weeks vacation plus you call in sick when you are sick to two weeks paid time off including sick leave. They did not offer employees any additional remuneration when they took away their sick leave. Also, they still want to know in advance when you are going to use a PTO day, as if you know what days you are going to be sick.

Re:Sick

[tompaulco]

The money for paying for sick leave comes from the extra 10% that the company gets every year when they raise the prices of their product to beat inflation, but then do not give raises or cost of living increases to the employees.

Re:Sick

[hey!]

Well, this "richest country in the world" business is somewhat misleading. It means the country with the greatest aggregate economic power, not the country where people tend to be the best off. You need to look at several measures before you can begin to understand the thing that's mystifying you.

By total GDP the US is by far the wealthiest nation in the world. It has almost twice the total GDP of the second country on the list, China. By *per capita* GDP, the US is about 10th on the list, just below Switzerland; so by global standards the typical American is wealthy, but not the wealthiest. On the other hand the US ranks about 20th in cost of living, so the typical American has it pretty good.

Where things get interesting is if you look at GINI -- a measure of economic disparity. The most equal countries are of course the Scandinavians, with Denmark, Sweden and Norway topping the list. The US is far from the *least* equal (Seychelles, South Africa, and Comoros), but it is kind of surprising when you look at countries near the US on the list. Normally in most economic measures you see the US ranked near advanced industrialized countries in Europe, but it's neighbors on the GINI list are places like Turkmenistan, Qatar, and El Salvador.

What this means is that we have significant classes on either end of the scale: the *very* wealthy and an economic underclass. Now because of the total wealth sloshing around in the US, the US underclass has it pretty well compared to the underclass in, say, India. But what this doesn't buy is clout or respect. "Poor" households in the US usually have TVs and refrigerators -- a fact that seems to anger some people, who see the poor in the US as ungrateful people who are too lazy to improve themselves. But a study by the OECD suggests that they don't have the *time* to improve themselves. In a ranking of countries by time spend on leisure and self-care the US ranks 33rd, at 14.3 hours lagging almost two hours per day behind world leader Denmark (big surprise). But remember this is an average; it doesn't represent the time available for the poor.

Most Americans seem to think that poor people spend all their time sitting around waiting for handouts. This willfully ignores the phenomenon of the working poor. After selling my company, I volunteered on a lark at a charity which refurbishes old furniture and household stuff and furnishes the homes of poor people, and I found poor people to be neither lazy nor ungrateful. Let me tell you I have never met so many people who work two or sometimes more jobs. Particularly shocking were the number of women who took their children out of abusive relationships, and then have to work a full time job, raise three or four kids, without a car and in a neighborhood that doesn't have a grocery store. You don't know what gratitude is until you've given a poor, overtaxed mother beds when her children have been sleeping on the floor for months.

When some smug, ignorant and conspicuously well-fed media head starts whining about the poor having refrigerators, it makes me want to punch them in the mouth.

Re:Sick

[Half-pint HAL]

It boggles my mind that in the richest country in the world, there is even debate over this. The rest of the world has already realized that of course someone shouldn't lose their house or their job because they got the flu.

Given the recent flap about it, I think the way to convince the USA to have paid sick leave is to scream "BUT WHAT IF HE HAS EBOLA?!?!?"

Re:Sick

[Half-pint HAL]

Paying for downtime is the elephant in the room in terms of "minimum wage". Cleaners, for instance, typically get minimum wage. But they work for two hours in the morning, then another two hours in the early evening. They're working part-time in a job that is as invasive as a full-time job.

Imagine your company was making cutbacks, and they asked you to cut your hours in half, at the same pro-rata salary. But your day was cut in two, with half your hours before 9:30 and half your hours from 4:30 pm onwards. Your days would be ruined by commuting etc, and you would be unhappy... and yet we force that on people whose hourly rate is already pitiful in comparison to ours.

Re:Sick

[RabidReindeer]

Sorry. Ebola is no excuse. You must present an actual death certificate.

Re:Sick

[RabidReindeer]

The money to pay for benefits will come out of the employee's paycheck one way or another. If the employer has to pay employees when they're not working, it means the employee's per-working-hour salary will be lower than it would be otherwise.

We can afford to pay CEOs 400 times what most of those employees make and reward them with millions when they tank the company.

I suspect if we really wanted to, we could find the money somewhere.

We already pay employees not to work in companies that have "no moonlighting" restrictions. If they cannot work during nights and weekends, then their compensation needs to be sufficient to earn a living at their primary job. At least if there's any sort of free market for labor where they can hold out for a living wage.

Re:Sick

[geoskd]

If I had mod points, I'd have modded you up.

I grew up as the only conservative in a family of upper middle class liberals. It always infuriated me that poor people were constantly getting free stuff, and I bought in to the whole poor people are lazy mentality. Once I graduated, I found myself working in a company that employs a great deal of the bottom of society. (I started there myself thanks to the collapse in '01). I was lucky enough to have a good family watching out for me, and I didn't stay on the bottom long, but I've been there. As a result of my experiences, I have moved much farther left on the spectrum, but I will note a few things here that need to be said.

First, I find far more lazy people in the middle classes than on the bottom or the top. Those on the top work hard because they are driven (this is what gets them to the top). Those on the bottom work hard because they have to in order to survive. They often have no hope, and no future because we have built the system in this country to virtually guarantee their continued failure. Those in the middle have the breathing room to be lazy, and some of them are. Unions historically protect all of their employees equally, which is mostly taken advantage of by the lazy members (definitely not the majority of union members, but a noticeable minority). It is this enabling power of unions that pisses people off about them. Unions need to stop protecting lazy workers. This is critical to their continued support from the rest of society. Unions have to take steps to ensure that their lazy members are compensated equitably to the effort they put in. A stupid lazy union member should not get paid the same as a motivated intelligent union member when all other factors are equal. That trait of unions is pretty much the only real reason anyone is opposed to unions in the first place. All other reasons are essentially window dressing around the real issue.

We need to stop giving money to the poor. They don't need money. What they need is a systematic, comprehensive, plan for how to get them off the bottom. The single biggest factor keeping poor people poor, is the responsibility for children. As noted, often times, a parent finds themselves as the sole caregiver for children, and they are consequently trapped, as the responsibilities of childrearing often conflict with the responsibilities that employers would place upon employees (such as reliable attendance, and schedule flexibility). The simplest solution to the problem would be to do away with welfare and unemployment benefits entirely and replace them with guaranteed services for their dependents such as 50 hours of weekly daycare, Free medical services for dependents, Three daily meals for dependents. All of those services combined would be cheaper than welfare and would provide far more benefit to society. Individuals, when freed from many of the responsibilities of dependent care, would be far more able to work the kinds of schedules that employers want/need. Being only financially responsible for themselves would allow them to choose better paths for their own career advancement (including continuing education), that would otherwise be impossible to manage while being primary caregiver.

Mind you I am not proposing making these options available only to the poor, I am proposing that society provide that level of service for all its citizens as a way to level the playing field for all parties. In the end, it will only help the next generation, when they don't have to grow up seeing their parent(s) trapped in poverty with no hope of escape, and no obvious way that the children can avoid the same fate.

Re:Sick

[PeeAitchPee]

I wonder if those Scandinavian countries with high GINI scores have a defacto policy of importing more poor people from neighboring countries like the United States does? No, they all have very tight immigration controls and immediately deport illegal and undocumented aliens. Wanting to reduce the number of poor people and seeking to ease the process of entry for poor migrants are mutually exclusive goals.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

Norwegians are much happier than Americans. ~ In 2013 the Scandinavian nation ranked 1st overall on the Legatum Institute's Prosperity Index for the fifth straight year, with leading scores in the Economy and Social Capital sub indexes.
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mef45mfgd/1-norway-2/

Re:Sick

[tlhIngan]

I do not like unpaid sick leave in some industries - particularly nurses, healthcare workers and the like. It means people are more likely to work when they are ill, forced to by financial concerns. Not good when they are dealing with people who are vulnerable. Same is true, to some extent, for bus drivers. Driving a bunch of people around while suffering from fever, etc., is going to effect their ability to drive. There's probably a compromise, such that drivers get 50% pay when ill. But would still prefer to see someone not drive me around while suffering from poor health. So what is good for workers and unions can also be good for customers as well.

The proper name is "Presenteeism" as in the opposite of absenteeism.

And no, it turns out stupid corporate policies often encourage people to come into work sick as well as unpaid sick leave.

Some policies such as requiring a doctor's note to take sick leave - which often incurs a charge as well as hours spent at the doctor's waiting room. Sure $30 might not be a lot, but that and the wait is sufficient discouragement from taking sick leave that even if you're clearly in no position to work, coughing up your lungs every couple of minutes and imitating Niagara falls with your sputum and whatnot, it's still easier to come into work and make the entire office miserable.

And no, doctor's don't want clearly sick patients in their waiting rooms either - they hate these policies too because it means they get exposed to the cold or flu and they don't appreciate having you spread it around their office, either. Some actually have gone so far that instead of billing the employee, they're billing the employer for it..

Hell, during the ebola epidemic, we basically had a joke that went around in the office - if anyone got it, the company would fold because everyone would have it by the end of the day.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

I like being a contract worker and would never want to be a direct.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points, I'd mod you up too. Thanks.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most thoughtful, intelligent, reasoned, 'conservative' leaning post on this topic I have ever seen on Slashdot.
What the hell are you doing on Slashdot?! :-)

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you've really bought into the protestant work ethic thing. It's pretty sad to hear people suggest that sole purpose of a persons time on earth is to work hard and be productive. Works out pretty well for those who live off others human capital though so I guess the idea isn't going away anytime soon.

Re:Sick

[Half-pint HAL]

I can't -- my doctor requires notice of at least two weeks for non-urgent appointments.

Re:Sick

[firewrought]

That trait of unions is pretty much the only real reason anyone is opposed to unions in the first place.

That and bad PR. I had to do a job at an industrial site in a room with very poor chairs. We wheeled in better ones from an adjacent conference room, but then had to put them back and suffer back pain for ~2 days until the union could be bothered to wheel some over from a storage facility. A woman I know got written up for moving debris out of the path of her cart... debris that had been placed there by union members to purposely bait her (as a somewhat dumpy, absent-minded individual she was a natural target for practical jokes). Another man had the audacity to plug in his own telephone at a new job, and had to lie-lie-lie about it to the union guy who showed up to do it ~3 days later.

I know that unions hold charity events and make other positive contributions to the workplace, but extreme nitpicking on trivial work and fraternalistic pranks won't help reverse America's trending negative sentiment toward them.

Re:Sick

[Solandri]

It's pretty sad to hear people suggest that sole purpose of a persons time on earth is to work hard and be productive.

Economic activity = sum of (productivity)

Productivity is the fundamental measure of economic output. The more productive the average individual is, the higher the standard of living is (everything produced is also everything consumed). If you're suggesting a person not be as productive as they can, you're advocating that the standard of living be lowered. That's really what all the economic development since the industrial revolution has been about. Leveraging machines and alternate energy sources (i.e. other than human and animal muscle power) to radically increase per-person productivity, which has proportionately increased the standard of living.

If you want to take a break and relax, that's fine. But you'd better be damned sure that your productivity while working is enough to "pay" for that relaxation time. The Germans are great at this (I've worked with them). They work super-hard when they are working and so are very productive. But once they're off work or if they're on vacation, they relax more than most people I've seen. It's ok though because their high productivity while working is more than enough to pay for it.

Money is actually just a (poor) representation of productivity, one whose value in terms of productivity isn't even constant. So thinking about economics in terms of money can result in very misleading conclusions. e.g. If you double everyone's pay, everyone becomes 2x as wealthy, right? Nope. If you double everyone's pay, then prices also double (prices of goods and services are what bring in revenue used to pay people). So in terms of income, it's a wash. Productivity hasn't changed, so fudging with the value of money doesn't change income or expenses. What does change is savings. The doubling of income and prices means the value of anything saved as money is halved. So anyone holding their savings as money (like poor and middle-class people do, instead of in non-monetary assets like real estate or stocks like rich people do) will find their wealth has been halved. Precisely the opposite of what you thought would happen when you doubled wages.

Re:Sick

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Look at Sweden for example. What you're stating simply isn't true. In 2013, 15.9% of the population was born outside of Sweden.
Anyone in the EU is free to settle in any other EU contry (Sweden is a EU country, just as Romania).
Anyone from outside the EU is free to work in Sweden provided that they can show an offer of employment with a monthly salary of at least 13000 sek
(about 1560 usd), and after four years they can apply for permanent residency.

The diffrence is a welfare state and unions.

Re:Sick

[Solandri]

I grew up as the only conservative in a family of upper middle class liberals. It always infuriated me that poor people were constantly getting free stuff, and I bought in to the whole poor people are lazy mentality.

Similar conservative here. I never really bought into the "poor people are lazy" meme. The hardest worker I've ever met was a poor Mexican who turned out to be an illegal alien. This guy was so dedicated to doing a good job I would've endorsed him for citizenship in an instant. (Likewise I haven't found the lazy, rich fat cat meme to be true either. The vast majority of rich people I know are some of the hardest working people I've met, frequently sleeping only 4-6 hours a night because they're working the other 18-20 hours. It's like they're always firing on all cylinders and don't know how to let up. Even when on vacation, they'll try to sneak off to get some work done.)

What I have noticed though is that poor people tend to make much worse financial decisions, moreso than not-poor people. e.g. A poor friend asked me for help buying a laptop. I knew he didn't have much money, he knew I knew, so I worked my butt off finding him a great deal. I eventually found him a refurb i3 laptop for $235 (when he sold it 2 years later, it was selling on eBay for $265). I felt satisfied that I'd done a good deed to help a poor person. Then the next week I learned that he'd bought a 64GB iPad for $800 (the extra $100 was to have his name engraved on it). ...

They don't need money. What they need is a systematic, comprehensive, plan for how to get them off the bottom. The single biggest factor keeping poor people poor, is the responsibility for children. As noted, often times, a parent finds themselves as the sole caregiver for children, and they are consequently trapped, as the responsibilities of childrearing often conflict with the responsibilities that employers would place upon employees (such as reliable attendance, and schedule flexibility). The simplest solution to the problem would be to do away with welfare and unemployment benefits entirely and replace them with guaranteed services for their dependents such as 50 hours of weekly daycare

That was exactly my conclusion too after managing a hotel with a lot of low-income employees. So many of them were single parents or were in families where both parents worked, that a good chunk of their income went to babysitting or daycare. Since the hotel usually had empty rooms that could be used for babysitting, I looked into what it would take to start up daycare services for our employees.

OMG. The legal liability and insurance requirements were crippling. Apparently parents are a sue-happy bunch when it comes to the tiniest scratch on their little darlings. Later I talked about it with a friend who ran a daycare center and he pretty much confirmed what I'd found. Liability insurance was his biggest expense, and he was always one lawsuit away from being put out of business. Eventually we just made it a policy where we would comp workers an empty room for a day for emergencies. What they did with the room was their business. If they couldn't find a babysitter and wanted to dump their kids in said room in front of a TV while they worked, and they and co-workers would check in on them every 10-15 minutes, we (management) would look the other way.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post, and well described about the unions. I work for an industry that employs unionized labor, the shipping terminals. Some aspects of the union really make sense for the conditions. For example, there are multiple terminals within a 'port' operated by different companies with varying capacities and ship schedules. A union or collective hiring pool helps normalize the labor force over multiple terminals and prevents massive turnover as shipping agreements at locations change. They also provide a central point of contact for more labor, and a central point for benefits and vacation for those guys. But you're right, its the protection of the lazy/seniority that infuriates people about it. There's a lot I could go into on the topic, but I'll leave that to the negotiators and news stories.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

We can afford to pay CEOs 400 times what most of those employees make and reward them with millions when they tank the company.

That does happen, but neither the 400x salary nor the tanking happen often enough to be significant.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if those Scandinavian countries with high GINI scores have a defacto policy of importing more poor people from neighboring countries like the United States does?

No, because there are not many poor people in their neighbouring countries. Instead, they import them from Eastern and Southern Europe and North Africa.

Re:Sick

[sjames]

It helps when those poor don't find a gadzillion employers happy to pay them sub-minimum wage for dangerous work off the books.

Those same employers lobby for a lack of immigration reform AND a lack of border control.

Re:Sick

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure parents are a sue-happy bunch? Couldn't it just be one or two bad eggs who ruin it for the other parents? Maybe laws need to be changed to make it more difficult to sue people over minor issues when it comes to daycare, perhaps?

Anyway, there needs to be some sort of social safety net. While perks like that might be helpful, without any "welfare and unemployment benefits" people can and will become homeless if it gets bad enough. I think the gp, geoskd, is still somewhat in the dark when it comes to poor people.

Without going into too much detail, either a negative-income tax or a universal basic income.
I think a negative-income tax is more reasonable. Something like...
(Poverty Level - AGI) / 2 = Credit
Must be 22+ years old in order to receive it as a taxpayer.
Goes by dependents and spouse listed on tax return.
Assuming no more than 60 million are below the poverty level, and assuming no more than $5k/person as a very generous over-estimate, this shouldn't cost more than $300 billion per year.

If we go the UBI route, I'd say something like...
$500/month for 22+; $750/month for married coupons
$250/month for 21 and younger
$200/month more per individual if we eliminate SNAP.

I also would like to see single-payer UHC, but with prescription drug patent reform. Also, bargaining power for costs.
Something that could be paid for by higher income taxes, but also in part a tax on all wages.

I'd like to see colleges and universities abide by certain rules when it comes to administrative spending as a percentage of qualified tuition rates. In other words, if it goes over a certain amount (for moderately sized schools and higher), they could lose the ability to accept federal monies in the forms of grants, and yes, loans. If something like this passed, it'd probably need to have a 10 year grace period before it kicked in, as to not disadvantage current students who could otherwise see their funding dropped.
Probably also a cap on what administrative employees can receive if their school is to receive federal aid in the form of grants, loans, etc.

Too long, didn't read... Social safety nets in the terms of health care and money for those who earn less than poverty.

In related news...

[tlambert]

In related news... Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga will decide whether or not they will contract their transportation services from someone other than Compass Transportation Monday.

Welcome to an "at will" state, Teamsters!

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

its more a problem of being employed by a company that relies upon lucrative contracts with a few select companies.. those companies will just choose to find a cheaper vendor for shuttle transportation services... remember, they are predominately or entirely non-union companies, so they will have absolutely no problems choosing a different vendor.. their loyalties are with their bottom line only... they have no union employees to piss off.

Re:In related news...

[Virtucon]

Well if I worked for any of those companies and utilized these buses, I'd want to make sure that the guys at the wheel were at least satisfied with what they were doing and not ill nor overworked; especially if I had to put my life in their hands.

Re:In related news...

[tlambert]

Well if I worked for any of those companies and utilized these buses, I'd want to make sure that the guys at the wheel were at least satisfied with what they were doing and not ill nor overworked; especially if I had to put my life in their hands.

Obviously, they should not be ill.

One of their primary complaints is that they are *underworked*, not *overworked*; specifically, they only have work in the morning and evening.

If *the rest of us* don't get to be satisfied, why should *they* get to be satisfied?

Re:In related news...

[Virtucon]

Well being not paid to hang around a bus most of the day isn't a state idleness, it's indentured servitude.

Re:In related news...

[sjames]

And either those drivers join Teamsters before the cutoff date or the next news item is about how Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga were shut down for two weeks when their employee buses couldn't get through the picket line. I wonder how much that downtime will cost?

Re:In related news...

[tlambert]

Well being not paid to hang around a bus most of the day isn't a state idleness, it's indentured servitude.

They only "have to hang around" while they are driving.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

And either those drivers join Teamsters before the cutoff date or the next news item is about how Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga were shut down for two weeks when their employee buses couldn't get through the picket line. I wonder how much that downtime will cost?

About a day, until the Blackwater troops arrive to clear out the picketers. They don't hire Pinkertons any more, and you don't fuck with the most valuable company on the planet, nor do you fuck with the people who make genetically engineered organisms.

Yahoo, eBay, and Zynga are probably on their own.

Re:In related news...

[Virtucon]

I don't think you understand the problem. They only get paid while on duty. So they drive from San Francisco to San Jose, let's say 2 hours from start to finish, then you're "off duty" but miles away from you home for at least 8 hours then you get to drive back for 2 hours. During those 8 hours you're essentially a hostage to being near that bus. Sadly, that's the nature of the role and the company will take full advantage of it. That leaves the driver to either find another job at the destination location to fill in but now he's working 12 hours a day instead of 8. They can't really take another driving job because there are mileage limits that are applied daily and weekly with mandatory rest periods. This is not where part time employment works and it does create questions about safety. If these buses were doing other charters then certainly the driver could do that while another bus/driver does the return leg but no these are dedicated to these customers. That's why in this case I do agree that union representation would be the best thing for these folks, the downside is yeah another company can come in and take the contracts but the same problems would remain.

Re:In related news...

[tlambert]

I don't think you understand the problem. They only get paid while on duty. So they drive from San Francisco to San Jose, let's say 2 hours from start to finish, then you're "off duty" but miles away from you home for at least 8 hours then you get to drive back for 2 hours. During those 8 hours you're essentially a hostage to being near that bus.

I think I would likely keep a car at the parking plaza where the bus ends up sitting. Probably one with a pink mustache.

As far as the Google busses, they basically round trip all day, every day, or when they cycle out, they park at shoreline Amphitheater. The drivers definitely do not "hang out" with the busses, which you can verify just by walking down there. Typically they dead-head back up to wherever by catching a ride on one of the less populated intermediate busses. I know at least one of them has a day job at the Great Mall, and only drives the bus to make some extra cash.

Apple is similar to Google with regard to their busses, but they tend to take charters in the mean time to keep busy.

As far as Facebook is concerned... I haven't worked there, like I have at Apple and Google, so yeah, they might be screwing over the bus drivers, but I think they are likely in exactly the same position that the Apple and Google drivers are in.

... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

This is perhaps one of the most stupid places the teamsters could possibly make a push.

Nothing is going to inspire the likes of google and apple to build driveless cars faster than getting dicked around with by these retrograde knuckle dragging union goons.

The teamsters have lots of union works across the country that drive things. Most of their customers don't own design teams working on driverless cars. If they poke a stick in google and apple's eye over this issue they're just going to redouble their efforts.

And what happens when they succeed? Not only will the teamsters lose Silicon Valley which will have all its people driven around by robots... but their other union members all over the country will probably start losing their jobs as well. Because the various companies that employ them won't have to pay union scale anymore. They can pay robot scale. Which is low. No healthcare. No overtime. No paid vacations. No pensions.

And THAT is the company you want to piss off? This is straight up idiocy. Whomever is running the teamsters is a fucktard.

Which isn't surprising to me. My father had to negotiate with them once. Company he worked for assigned him to talk to a teamster negociator that the union had brought in to talk to the company. My dad didn't really have authority to do anything. He was just listening to the proposal so he could relay it back to management.

Anyway, the teamster guy was a giant red faced baboon that basically tried to physically intimidate my dad. My dad is not a large or physical man. He's an intellectual type guy... quiet, reasonable, believes in being nice just because. And this asshole teamster in a simple query of terms thought it was reasonable to imply he was going to beat my father up. I mean... what the fuck?

Anyway... management responded by giving the union everything they asked for. Literally everything. They just said yes down the line. Win for the teamsters right? Well, management was also massively pissed off. So they immediately started setting up an alternative operation. Takes years to set up. But the new contract would be in force for years. When the contract expired, the union sent the same asshole to ask for even more stuff. The company responded by firing them all and relocating the operation to the new site.

Does that suck? Yep. Ideally it would be nice if differences could have been resolved. But the teamsters don't negotiate. They make demands. And if you don't give them what they want, then they go into full primate mode... turning tables over, beating their chest, humping various things, throwing their poop around... and basically doing everything they can to burn all their bridges.

They're terrible at their jobs. They're really good at getting what they want TODAY. But they piss people off and no one wants to do business with them in the long term. Their whole business model is to monopolize labor so that you can't do business with anyone else. And using that as leverage they just make fucking rediculious demands. You're left with two options... either give them what they want or you have no labor period. Well... that's not fucking acceptable. If I could do business with a dozen different unions and none of them wanted to give me my price that would be one thing. But if I can only deal with ONE union then its the same as dealing with one corporation. They're under no pressure to be reasonable because you have no options.

And that just inspires companies to think of ways to get away from that bullshit. The big drive to outsource everything to asia is in large part a consequence of the unions. They drove labor over seas. And once the unions in the US are no longer a factor, we should see a significant return of that manufacturing etc to the US. It is already starting. We're seeing a lot of manufacturing growth in the South East and South West... specifically in states where the unions are weak. The unions killed the rust belt. The reason it went to rust in the first place is because they gave themselves

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Phillip2]

As the article points out, this is not a big cost for the companies involved. Unionisation of the buses is not going to make the slightest bit of difference whatsoever to Google's desire to generate a self-driving vehicle. The market is enormous, so they have all the incentive in the world.

What is going to make a difference to these companies is some degree of collective action. We know that many SV companies have been involved in collection action in the past, with non-compete agreements to keep wages of high-skilled workers low. It is a good thing if the shoe is on the other foot for a while. The only real sad thing is that this is unlikely to spread to where it is really needed -- in the third world sweat shop supply chains.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Jack Griffin]

Thanks for the rant. I hate the modern incarnation of the Unions as much as the next guy, but don't think for one moment that Google or Apple is the hero of the story that will come and save the day with their flying/driverless/superinvincibility car. That shit will never work, and if they could fuck you over just as bad they would.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[bickerdyke]

As the article points out, this is not a big cost for the companies involved. Unionisation of the buses is not going to make the slightest bit of difference whatsoever to Google's desire to generate a self-driving vehicle.

Please note that Google is not listed among those 5 companies that contracted their busses out to that other company. I don't know about their transportation, but espescially Google has a lot of their service done by their own staff instead of outsourcing to the cheapest bidder:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2014/10/06/google-brings-security-staff-in-house-a-new-trend/

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Like so many of the movies, tv shows, and books that are coming out these days there isn't some old silver screen good guy and an evil guy with a black hat and a big mustache on the opposite side.

Its all a gray area.

I'll agree that google etc aren't good guys so long as you admit there aren't any good guys left on any side.

They don't exist. There are just people with interests.

The modern unions as you've admitted are stupid assholes. Google and apple aren't stupid assholes. They might do some self serving shit with regularity but at least they're not intentionally trying to be assholes and at least they're not stupid.

Readjust your white balance. You know how your camera finds the closest thing to white and then just defines that as white and readjusts the whole image on that basis? Do that. You're not going to find true textbook good anywhere on this planet and certainly not in the hands of anyone with the power to change anything.

You find the closest thing you can and thank your deity of choice that it was even that close. Hold out for perfect and you're going to see the closest thing burn for lack of allies while the greater evils eat everything alive.

I'll support google and apple for this reason... They are effective, rational, and productive. The unions are not. They frequently work against their own interests, are batshit insane with regularity, and seem to be happiest when they're doing fucking nothing.

So... fuck em. They're bad for my society. I wish they weren't. I wish the unions lived up to their ideals. But they stopped even trying long before I was born. So fuck em. I'm sure there are some good unions that have made a point of not being assholes. I believe I know of a few that have great relations with their industry partners and generally have done very well for a very long time because they've gone out of their way to be reasonable. Those can survive. Nothing is wrong with those. The militant unions that like to shit all over everything? They can choke horse semen.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Of course not. When big national unions come in to take over labor its all roses and rainbows. The flayed men and pyres of burning bodies come later.

I judge the teamsters by their previous conduct and their reputation in other markets. As any rational person should when judging such an organization. They have a long standing reputation which people I personally know can attest to of intimidation, unreasonable demands, and basically leveraging any bargaining position past the point of breakage.

They're the sort of union that if they don't get what they want they sometimes break equipment, throw bricks through windows with murder threats on them, and other fucking insane bullshit.

Were this a union group without that reputation then I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. But this is the teamsters. They've a reputation of being rough with people that don't give them what they want. And the reality is that no one has patience for that shit anymore. These old unions still think it is the 1930s. It isn't. And if they try to start slapping around the likes of Google/Apple with this shit... they're going to get replaced with robots.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

It doesn't even matter. Google shares a community with those companies. Find a need - Fill a need. If their neighbors start getting pissed at the teamsters then engineers from google will go over there and say "hey guys, want to try out our new automated buses?"...

If I were the teamsters, I would give that whole area a wide berth. They piss off anyone in that area and they're liable to create a test case for some start up or google or someone building an AI driver to replace them.

And the first time one of those experiments actually works well enough to replace a human driver... its over. Not just in some small part of california but across the whole country. They're going to start losing long haul trucking contracts. All of it.

In the end, its gone anyway. that's just the future and you can't fight it. But pissing off people that can make it happen faster is what a complete fool does. And the teamsters are certainly going to do that because that is their culture. They get control and then start slapping people around to get what they want. slapping people around that are building the machines that will replace them... is moronic. And that is apparently their little brainchild.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[bickerdyke]

>

In the end, its gone anyway. that's just the future and you can't fight it. But pissing off people that can make it happen faster is what a complete fool does. [...] slapping people around that are building the machines that will replace them... is moronic. And that is apparently their little brainchild.

Is it really moronic? If the end of your business line is forseeable within the next few years, it might be the better idea to go all in and grab as much as you can, as long as the "machine that will replace you" has NOT been constructed yet.

Yes, It may speed up the end a year or two, but is that really such a big difference? Grab what you can get as long as you still have the chance.

I think that's called "exit strategy".

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Krishnoid]

They're the sort of union that if they don't get what they want they sometimes break equipment, throw bricks through windows with murder threats on them, and other fucking insane bullshit.

Were this a union group without that reputation then I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. But this is the teamsters. They've a reputation of being rough with people that don't give them what they want. And the reality is that no one has patience for that shit anymore.

Or the anonymity, for that matter -- approaching a Google Street View car from any direction, probably results in enough images being captured of you from enough angles to turn your vandalism attempt into a scene from the Matrix. If they haven't matured out of that old-school kind of approach even today, a little technology may not be sufficient to get them to change their ways fast enough.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

They're going to turn a little project these people are doing because they think its neat into something they do to get even.

It will not only happen faster if they slap these people around... it will happen in a manner designed to twist the knife... and possibly a bit of salt and lemon juice might get sprinkled in there just followed by an ironic kiss kiss.

But you know what... go full Leroy Jinken's on that bitch. I can't think of anything more fitting then these fucktards going out in a blaze of self destructive half baked/half cocked idiocy. They will die as they have lived.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Jack Griffin]

Unions actually save people's lives. Get back to me GoogleAdCorp does that. Sure there's a lot of corruption, but there is actually some life saving going on there too. And you missed a bit in your overlong explanation of human morality. The short version is that everyone always acts in their own interests. Whether Evil or Altruistic, people do what they because it makes them feel good to do it. Never forget that.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another poster who thinks there were some sort of "good old days" when unions helped people, then they turned bad. I've got news for you. In the "good old days" unions were criticized more harshly than you are doing here, and strikes were even broken by calling out the National Guard to shoot people.

As for the argument that developing robotic cars and buses solely to compete with union companies produce have any ROI, it doesn't even merit discussion.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

They used to save lives. Like a lot of things that had a point once... their time has past.

I mentioned several times that unions have done some really good things in the past. And really, I have no problem with unions in principle. However, there are bad unions that need to just die. And the teamsters are on that list.

The teamsters, the dock workers, the auto workers union, and a couple others are not helping anyone besides the union leadership. Pissing off the companies or making it unprofitable to operate in various areas doesn't help the workers. It costs jobs and closes factories and encourages outsourcing.

If the unions stuck to making sure work environments were safe they wouldn't have the reputation they've earned.

You're going to have to deal with that reputation. Is google full of angels? Nope... but they're not full of retarded assholes either. And the teamsters is that.

Again... they have a rep. And my father personally dealt with them and confirms it.

My father just so you understand probably one of the most peaceful kind quiet men you'll ever meet in your life. As I said above, the company he was working for sent him to get the teamster's terms from their negotiator and the guy basically suggested he was going to beat my father up... In the conference room.

They're fucking baboons. You want to tell me about the good things unions do? I'm not talking about all unions. I'm talking about THAT union and any union like them. There are a bunch of unions that have a bad reputation of intimidation, vandalism, extortion, and general thuggery. Not all unions have that reputation. There are lots of unions that are on great terms with their industry partners and always have been. These are the unions that understand that the only way they get paid is if the company makes money and if business happens. They go to negotiating tables and understand they're not going to get everything they want.

Look at the shit the dock workers union is pulling RIGHT NOW. Its going to cost the US economy around 30 or so billion dollars and that was as of the last time I checked. And why? Because the wages they're getting paid that lots of people would fucking kill for aren't enough.

And here is my big problem with unions like that... often there is no alternative. It is a monopoly on labor.

If at the very least a given company could bargain between a few competing unions then at least they might be able to have a REAL negotiation. But when only ONE organization controls ALL the labor... you're fucked. The union knows you're fucked. And so the stupid ones fuck you. And companies don't like to get fucked. You fuck them enough and they start to think of ANY way what so ever out of that situation.

And while it might take some time... they tend to find a way out. The Unions that have been losing membership for generations are largely doing so because they over played their hands. There are several unions that haven't lost that much membership. Oh yes. Unions that are roughly as strong as they ever were... and they tend to have much better relationships with everyone because they don't play power games. Most of these unions represent skilled labor and the unions tend to restrict themselves to setting safety policy or working conditions. They actually tend to avoid involving themselves in wage negotiations leaving that up their members to work out individually. I know, that seems odd. But such unions exist.

And they do what you said... they save lives. That is where they start and that is where they stop. If the teamsters did that, they'd have a much different reputation. But they don't... and they have the rep they have.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Entrope]

Jimmy Hoffa was unavailable to comment for this story about the Teamsters' violent behavior and links to organized crime.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Your comment doesn't make sense. I didn't say there was a by gone era when unions were not controversial and no one had a problem with them. Just because the Pinkertons got called on the unions or the president was literally called in to break a strike doesn't mean they weren't doing something genuinely good.

And just because they're pissing people off today doesn't mean they're doing anything useful what so ever.

Pissing people off is not a measure of one's value to society.

Sometimes really good people that are doing really good things piss a lot of people off. And sometimes you're just an asshole.

My statement was that at one time they were doing something good... then they took those good things that had been done and thought they were an eternal license to be jackasses for the rest of time. And as a result, there are quite a few unions that no one likes.

Find me someone that likes the dockworker's union for example. They're universal assholes.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[dontbgay]

I say good, let them automate everything. There's going to be a hard choice coming when automation of labor goes to that level. When people don't have jobs anymore, and there's no capital in the consumer market to drive demand; either markets are going to collapse, or we're going to have to go to a new way of doing things. I hope I'm alive to watch it happen. Hopefully the outcome will be beneficial to everyone

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

The answer to your little riddle is already in evidence in the past and present.

First, we're transitioning out of the industrial era. And just as the transition out of the agricultural era there are going to be people that can't adapt. Their children will but they will not. In the past transition these people generally starved, were forced into petty crime, begged, etc. We have welfare now. So... they can drink beer, live in a mobile home, and be bitter. Its vastly more then they had the last time and society can afford it so long as the new economy continues to provide.

Second, it is a TRANSITION... industrial jobs are going to get automated in the same way that agricultural jobs were automated before. About 80 percent of the labor force was in agriculture before the industrial revolution. What happened to all those jobs? Today less then 5 percent of the labor force is in agriculture and we are a net exporter of food. There is no reason we couldn't be an industrial power house while only 5 percent of our population works in what were traditionally thought of as industrial jobs.

You can't just assume that because your existing paradigm is collapsing that the only alternative is death. Paradigms have collapsed for thousands of years and it is generally better for everyone after people have adapted. Would you prefer to go back to being a hunter gatherer? The transition to sedentary farmers was not an easy one. Our hunter gatherer ancestors were roughly the size we are today. They were well fed, physically more fit then we are today... spent their time roaming the world... and frankly lived quite well. When they transitioned to farmers they were terrible at it as evidenced by the fossil record. They were smaller, malnourished, disease ridden, and generally a great deal less healthy. But they stuck at it and over varying lengths of time got better at it. But it is not until modern times that our nutrition has improved enough that we have achieved our hunter gather stature. That's thousands of years of time.

Now the industrial revolution was painful as well... but it only took us about a generation or two to really adapt to it. The computer revolution is upon us for lack of a better term... and a great many people are not going to be able to adapt. We have infrastructure in place to keep them comfortable. The transition might take a generation or two to fully process. And then we can move forward. God knows what comes after... I assume the genetic or some sort of bioegineering innovation that could change everything.

We are marching towards the singularity. No one said there wouldn't be causalities.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

Cite?

I think you're applying their reputation from the 30s. I'm not a fan of unions in general, but I see a little of the modern Teamsters though my brother, a UPS driver. UPS is a union shop. Other than their strict enforcement of a seniority system, I frankly don't really see any problem. I think they do a lot of good for the UPS drivers, and see no evidence that they believe it's still 1930.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Ian A. Shill]

And if you're really good, Master will let you work in the house instead of the fields.

It doesn't even matter. Google shares a community with those companies. Find a need - Fill a need. If their neighbors start getting pissed at the teamsters then engineers from google will go over there and say "hey guys, want to try out our new automated buses?"...

If I were the teamsters, I would give that whole area a wide berth. They piss off anyone in that area and they're liable to create a test case for some start up or google or someone building an AI driver to replace them.

And the first time one of those experiments actually works well enough to replace a human driver... its over. Not just in some small part of california but across the whole country. They're going to start losing long haul trucking contracts. All of it.

In the end, its gone anyway. that's just the future and you can't fight it. But pissing off people that can make it happen faster is what a complete fool does. And the teamsters are certainly going to do that because that is their culture. They get control and then start slapping people around to get what they want. slapping people around that are building the machines that will replace them... is moronic. And that is apparently their little brainchild.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Yes because anything short of your very narrow interpretation of how economics worked mostly in the 1920s and then briefly in the 1950s is slavery.

Get real.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

That's fine... if they behave themselves then maybe everything will be fine. We'll see.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

That's fine... if they behave themselves then maybe everything will be fine. We'll see.

So, does that response mean you are applying their reputation from the 30s, rather than basing your comment on recent behavior?

Re:... Driverless cars?

[PPalmgren]

Unions generally don't mature from their inception, its kind of a self-selective process. The goal of union leadership is more bodies, more pay, and more dues. As a result, they are inherently anti-progress, anti-tech, and anti-change. If they tried to align more with the companies they work with in setting production goals instead of man-hour quotas, I think the relationships would be much more amicable. Another poster got it right that the problem is with 'monopoly unions' or unions that control the labor force of an entire industry with no competition and sometimes no competition/advancement allowed (forced via contracts). In those situations, the most high-profile being the Teamsters, UAW, and the two coastwide Longshore unions, its about the union and the union only, industry be damned. Then people wonder why GM and Chrysler had to be bailed out, hostess crashes and burns, and several shipping terminals go bankrupt.

On another note, I feel the adversarial process is the bane of the 20th/21st centuries. It has turned prosecution/defense into a farce, it creates uncooperative industry issues like the unions/companies mentioned above, and it has turned congress into a wasted existence. Too many lawyers are bringing the adversarial process into places where it doesn't belong and ruining any chance of cooperation and advancement.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[PPalmgren]

Mod parent up. On the discussion of safety regarding dock workers, you are correct in that they have actually gone so far that they make it less safe. The unions are so terrified of any kind of automation removing jobs that they refuse tech advancements that take the workers off the dock and put them in offices operating remotely, which takes them out of harm's way. It is very common in Europe but doesn't happen in the US.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

and again karmashock inspires us with his ignorance.

he really reminds me of this guy I knew back in Nevada long ago.
dude was confined to a wheelchair, and relied on social security disability to not die.
and further, he moved to California, just across the stateline, just because their public state benefits were better than Nevada's.

but he is the most rabid, anti-government stooge I've ever met.
which candidate is the craziest, whichever pledges to destroy the most public benefits, that's the guy he votes for. consistently.

while himself being utterly dependent on those benefits to not be crawling in the street, homeless and dying.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Their reputation extends well beyond the fucking 1930s and anyone that thinks their name is clean is deluded. They show up at a negotiation table and everyone on the other side tenses up as a result. Take it from people that have been there and not from the fucking 1930s.

But I'm not interested in arguing this with you. Just the fact that you're trying to pretend that this all stopped in the 1930s means I have no more patience for this tangent. Believe what you like.

If they behave themselves then maybe everything will be fine. I hope things work out well... I really do.

Good day.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[dywolf]

you don't know the first thing about unions beyond the BS you've been spoonfed and taught to regurgitate.
but hey, at least youre consistent.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[dywolf]

it only doesn't make sense because you don't know the first thing about labor history in this country, and that is evident from every word you've ever posted on this topic.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Ian A. Shill]

Meh. Cowards don't stick up for themselves and make excuses for allowing themselves to be pushed around. Film at eleven.

Yes because anything short of your very narrow interpretation of how economics worked mostly in the 1920s and then briefly in the 1950s is slavery.

Get real.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[I'm New Around Here]

Considering his original post was about their dealings with his father, I doubt he based it on their reputation from 80 years ago.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

So says another AC troll that throws out a lot of baseless insults backed up by nothing.

Eat a chainsaw in your mangina sideways. ;-)

Re:... Driverless cars?

[MitchDev]

dywolf's message brought to you and paid for by Unions

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

More non falsifiable arguments.

Contradiction is not an argument, you ignorant waste of oxygen.

Here's a funny primer on how to make a rational argument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Have fun with that, and then try again.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Indeed... which is why when some union goon shows up with an effective labor monopoly, puts his shoes on your desk... and then presumes to tell you how it is going to be... you might sit there with a twinkle in your eye and say "yes yes... everything you want."... and then as the barbarian leaves... to very deliberately annihilate his position in a manner that he has no defense against.

It is the "oh really?!" response. You go too far and you there are consequences. The Unions with bad reps got them by crossing that line repeatedly with impunity.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[hendrips]

You are damning them with faint praise, I think. I've worked at a place with "strict enforcement of a seniority system" before, and it was a nightmare. I will not work at any company with such a strict seniority policy if I can help it at all.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Half-pint HAL]

When the odds are stacked against you, you have to play hardball (and mix your metaphors like the plague).

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Half-pint HAL]

If his dad was a multi-millionaire, he could have got himself a nice little trophy 3rd/4th wife and had some kids when he was about 80. Then at 90, he could have told his young son, preparing to go to high school, about the dark days of his early career...

Re:... Driverless cars?

[hey!]

I wonder how much direct or even second-hand knowledge of unions you have.

In my family we've been on both sides of this issue. My sister, who is an RN, just recently led a successful but bitterly contested unionization drive of her hospital. The impetus for bringing in the union was that after privatization the hospital cut staff so much the nurses feared for patient safety. Nurses don't just administer medicine and make beds; one of the most important things they do is catch mistakes. When a surgeon starts prepping the wrong limb for amputation or an internist accidentally prescribes a medication that will kill the patient. It's nurse's job to catch that. It was unequivocally fear of making mistakes that drove the nurses at that hospital to unionize.

Did she piss off the hospital's new owners? You bet she did. But would you rather go to a hospital where the nurses *lost* that fight? How would you feel about the nurse checking your medications had worked back-to-back weeks of double shifts caring for more patients than she (or he) can keep track of?

On the other hand my brother is a senior executive at a large food service company. He told me about a meeting he had with a local African-American union representative where she played the race card with the first words out of her mouth. This was pointlessly antagonistic, in part because while my brother is a conservative he's open-minded and has a good track record of working with the unions. But mostly pointless because we're not white. We can pass, but as the genealogist in the family recently figured out we have only about 1/3 European ancestry. Fortunately he could laugh that off but if he'd been white and thinner-skinned that might have driven the negotiations into a ditch.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

Yeah, no shit. If an entrepreneur rakes in the cash on a technology with a set end date, he is, "leveraging the current needs of the market". If a working stiff does it, they are, "being shortsighted".

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

Well, it certainly worked out well for all those unions that just rolled over for management. Your anecdote just shows how good some people are at creating a narrative to justify their actions.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Sir_Eptishous]

I have a good friend whom I've known for years who is a Teamster. To be honest, I feel your ridiculous and long winded account of Teamsters is quite off the mark.
Perhaps if you saw and heard things from the other side you might change your opinion. But I doubt it. It appears you already know everything their is to know about what it's like to be a Teamster, and what they put up with. Thanks for that shower of wisdom.

Again, my knowledge about their job isn't first person, just coming from what my very good friend has told me for the last twenty years or so. I can tell you this though, your 1970's era opinions of unions being all powerful are about as anachronistic as holding up your lighter during Freebird at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.

My friend has described in detail how they continue to "get fucked" everytime their new contracts come up. And yes, he tells me the details of thier contracts, what has changed, how it used to be, etc; He actually doesn't like telling me most of it, but I'm quite interested in how that process works, how they negotiate, etc;

The Teamsters don't get their cake and eat it to, as those with a Mussoliniesque political bent would have everyone believe.
Unioins, and especially the Teamsters are a pale shadow of their former selves.

Now to the real point.
Yes, we will have driverless vehicles in the not too distant future.
Yes, most if not all of the driving professions will disappear quite rapidly after that happens.
Yes, that will put even more people out of work, with no or little hope of a future profession now that their livelihood has disappeared.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

So on the one hand, drivers are no-skilled workers who should not make as much as a skilled worker. On the other hand a seniority system is unfair. How would you judge identical widgets? Seniority seems pretty fair to me.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

The teamsters won't let driverless cars happen unless there is something like an in situ vehicle monitoring supervisor present at all times.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

You haven't made an argument yourself. You just spouted an anecdote and made some hostile statements.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh ... every workplace improvement started with people fighting for that human right. You, and others, it seems are willfully riding on their coat tails; all the while ignoring the truth about those who are doing the ethical work of furthering the interests of the people.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[HornWumpus]

They are drivers not coders. We can build a metric to rank them. (Packages/hour - (SafetyWeight * accidents/year)) would work for drivers with similar routes.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if he was doing unskilled valueless labor, hendrips would still be better at it than anyone else, ever.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

They are drivers not coders. We can build a metric to rank them. (Packages/hour - (SafetyWeight * accidents/year)) would work for drivers with similar routes.

At UPS they incent performance for drivers in ways that don't interfere with the seniority system.

Accident handling is pretty simple: If you have one, barring really, really clear evidence that it's not only not your fault but there is no possible way you could have avoided it, you're fired. The Teamsters lawyer will fight to get you a decent severance package, but that's it. Even with said evidence, you'd better not ever have another.

As for packages/per hour, UPS has a system that calculates the time required for a given route, including driving and deliveries. Drivers get paid max(route_time, actual_time), so if they can get the route done in less than the estimated time they get to go home early without losing pay. Experienced drivers can always beat the estimated time, usually by large margins, and even in the event of breakdowns, etc.

Further, habitually beating your route time gives you the opportunity to take on longer routes. So, many good UPS drivers habitually do 12-hour routes in 7 hours, which means they get paid for 14 hours (the last four of the 12 are time and a half) for working 7. Meanwhile, drivers who habitually take longer than their estimated times get assigned shorter and shorter routes, and, of course, there is a point at which drivers are taking so much longer than the estimate, that they can be fired for cause.

BTW, if you have the perception that UPS drivers are well-paid, you're both wrong and right. Their nominal hourly wages are decent, maxing out at around $20 per hour or a bit above, but those who work hard can easily earn lots of "fake" overtime, as in my example of 14 hours' pay for 7 hours' work. That plus massive amounts of real overtime around the holidays means that UPS drivers' incomes can approach six figures -- but only if they work hard.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

So... you still have nothing to cite.

Just the fact that you're trying to pretend that this all stopped in the 1930s means I have no more patience for this tangent.

I said no such thing. You were the one who brought up the 30s, I just used your era.

And I really have no dog in this fight, and would be interested to hear about examples of the Teamsters behaving badly in recent years. So I asked if you had any evidence that they still behave this way. You apparently don't.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

On average, what do your nonunion blue collar friends make an hour? What about the union ones?

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

That's the real reason people are conservative. They think they are the best, they can't imagine things better, and they're doing pretty good under the current system.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are drivers not coders. We can build a metric to rank them. (Packages/hour - (SafetyWeight * accidents/year)) would work for drivers with similar routes.

At UPS they incent performance for drivers in ways that don't interfere with the seniority system.

Accident handling is pretty simple: If you have one, barring really, really clear evidence that it's not only not your fault but there is no possible way you could have avoided it, you're fired. The Teamsters lawyer will fight to get you a decent severance package, but that's it. Even with said evidence, you'd better not ever have another.

As for packages/per hour, UPS has a system that calculates the time required for a given route, including driving and deliveries. Drivers get paid max(route_time, actual_time), so if they can get the route done in less than the estimated time they get to go home early without losing pay. Experienced drivers can always beat the estimated time, usually by large margins, and even in the event of breakdowns, etc.

Further, habitually beating your route time gives you the opportunity to take on longer routes. So, many good UPS drivers habitually do 12-hour routes in 7 hours, which means they get paid for 14 hours (the last four of the 12 are time and a half) for working 7. Meanwhile, drivers who habitually take longer than their estimated times get assigned shorter and shorter routes, and, of course, there is a point at which drivers are taking so much longer than the estimate, that they can be fired for cause.

BTW, if you have the perception that UPS drivers are well-paid, you're both wrong and right. Their nominal hourly wages are decent, maxing out at around $20 per hour or a bit above, but those who work hard can easily earn lots of "fake" overtime, as in my example of 14 hours' pay for 7 hours' work. That plus massive amounts of real overtime around the holidays means that UPS drivers' incomes can approach six figures -- but only if they work hard.

So THAT'S why my package is dropkicked to my porch...

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hostess crashes and burns due to unions? Really? Not the CEO's getting TRIPLE their salaries, while trying to cripple the workers pensions and wages forcing them into a strike? Not the vulture capitalists who bought the company, sold off assets, filed for bankruptcy in 2004 to sidestep financial obligations and blundered a product line so simple that a fourth grade class could have successfully run the company? Lets not forget that McKee Foods (Little Debbie) is growing hand over fist during the same time so it's not that people don't like snacks. Yeah, let's blame the middle class workers for complaining that their retirement and wage structure is being gutted so the top can TRIPLE their salary.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[tlambert]

Yeah, no shit. If an entrepreneur rakes in the cash on a technology with a set end date, he is, "leveraging the current needs of the market". If a working stiff does it, they are, "being shortsighted".

I believe Karmashock's point is that the end date on Teamster labor, unlike the end date on, say, a patent, is *NOT* set.

You would be right, if the company had an extremely long term contract with the Teamsters, and could provide them with work, due to having an extremely long term contract with Yahoo, et. al., but those contracts are generally not on the order of 20 years because the companies contracting their transportation services are not stupid.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[tlambert]

Well, it certainly worked out well for all those unions that just rolled over for management. Your anecdote just shows how good some people are at creating a narrative to justify their actions.

Do you honestly believe that the labor/management collaboration is a zero sum game, and that there is no possible win-win scenario, and the only choices are "labor loses" OR "management loses"?

Because if you do, I'd like to know what business you are in so that I can take the margin on a "win-win" to turn one of the "wins" into a "lose", and you will happily just eat it, because you believe that's how things have to be in what is actually, essentially, a positive sum game.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

So THAT'S why my package is dropkicked to my porch...

If that happens you should complain. Customer complaints aren't addressed quite as strongly as accidents, but getting many complaints is pretty bad for a driver.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[sjames]

Yeah, they'll have those automated buses ready to go and have state and federal approval in a week or two, tops!

Back here on Earth, it'll be several years before they can get approval for an automated bus on public streets, another few years until they get people to trust them rather than protest them as a safety hazard, and perhaps another year or two to get them to pay for themselves before they break down (driver salary and all), especially for a shuttle bus that isn't running 24/7.

So I guess the Teamsters kids might need to do something different.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[sjames]

And the people they apply that leverage to have been known to put families out in the streets at the drop of a hat, so not all sunshine and roses on that side either.

If you think the teamsters are a problem, just think of them as revolution lite. The concessions unions have gained are a good bit of what kept a worker's revolution from happening in the U.S.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The unions are so terrified of any kind of automation removing jobs that they refuse tech advancements that take the workers off the dock and put them in offices operating remotely"

They do so because they live in the shittiest country in the world for worker protections: America. America and americans are some of the most deluded and ignorant people on the planet. So workers have every right to be scared when their fellow americans are extremely predatory and hateful and classist to the extreme, all the while worshipping CEO's.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Nothing is going to inspire the likes of google and apple to build driveless cars faster than getting dicked around

They don't even need to solve the tremendously difficult problem of a driverless car that can handle a parking lot. Apple and Google and the other companies could pay for a Personal Rapid Transit system with lunch money. And it might even be possible to get the city's notoriously ridiculous approval system to buy in to that idea. It's Green. It's Safe. It's Electric. It's basically a Buzzword Bingo for the Bay Area. Done with a little thought and planning, it could be a boon to tourism, too.

Antagonizing the (at times) most valuable corporation in the world, with by far the largest cash reserve in the world, doesn't seem to be a very good idea. It doesn't take a magical driverless car to eliminate drivers in transportation. All it takes is rails.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

It doesn't matter how short the horizon is, the most "efficient" economical outcome is to get the most possible while you can. Unless your saying economics is junk science? (hint, it is)

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

No, but it is suspicious that this company decided to move overseas, at a time that many companies were doing the same, and it was only because the union guy was a jerk. That sounds like the straight up truth to you?

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Hmmm... the personal rapid transit system has more problems actually. If you're saying rails then the cost of doing that nationally is not feasible. What is more you have to appreciate that there are egos to feed. They're going to want to solve the problem in a way that puts their stamp on it. Also... they're already doing the driverless car... so... yeah.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Well, yeah but we're not all desiring a communist revolution, sport. I hear your talk of revolutions and worker's this and lite that... and I'm pretty sure if I keep talking to you that you're going to use the word "proletariat" at some point.

That's just communist nonsense from my perspective.

To which I can only respond with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

No doubt the teamsters can run wild for a few years. I didn't say they'd solve it tomorrow. But this is the WORST place to start pissing companies off with this dried up union nonsense.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

They're employed. Unlike the union workers which aren't.

So... how do you compare a pay check with a welfare check?

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

You seem to think these guys are always on the right side of anything. As if all you need to be right is for someone you don't like for no reason to not be happy about it.

That's circular tribal thinking.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Sure I did. I said that if the teamsters put a stick in Apple and Google's eye those companies will be more inclined to accelerate their driverless car programs which strategically threaten the teamsters.

My argument was that it is not in the strategic interests of their members to annoy companies that sooner or later will INEVITABLY make many of their jobs obsolete. Annoying them simply makes something that WILL happen eventually happen sooner.

That is my argument. It was entirely clear and obvious to anyone that actually knows how to take apart natural language and reconstruct "words" into informal symbolic logic. Which logical people have been doing for thousands of years if often unconsciously.

Now... kindly piss off. You're officially too stupid to have an adult conversation.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

And what magical powers would they use to stop such a thing? Their lobbying power is directly proportional to their ability to deliver votes and campaign contributions. Since their relevance TO politicians has been falling exponentially for years... good luck with that little plan.

Remember how NAFTA happened despite their personal hatred of the idea? Remember how the Keystone pipeline was shut down despite most of the labor unions actually wanting it because it meant jobs?

Their power in Washington at this point has dried up. Live by the bribe and die by the bribe. Their ability to bribe politicians into doing what they want as eroded massively. While the ability of these tech companies to get what they want has expanded MASSIVELY over the last few years. Mostly because they realized they needed to send money to washington or they'd get fucked over by rivals or anyone. Its something of an extortion racket by the politicians. Contribute to my campaign or I'll pass some regulation that will fuck up everything for you. So the tech companies pay with everyone else.

So... if you want to make threats of power politics... you can't back them up.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

You're confusing the membership with the leadership. That's like confusing the average american with the american government.

Can you see why that's dumb? I hope so.

The union membership are just normal people and I don't bare any ill will to any of them. Their leadership is about as crazy as a bag of greased weasels.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[sjames]

I honestly doubt it will affect the timeline even one iota.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

The price of organizing labor between industries to create national movements is that you'll create a national labor environment that is largely synchronized between many different industries. And as a result, it shouldn't surprise you that your collective action has a collective response.

If you cause a problem at lots of different companies why would it surprise you that lots of companies would seek to solve those problems in similar ways.

As to the teamster negociator being a jerk... NO.

He was not a jerk. If he showed up and JUST acted like an asshole that would be one thing. Companies deal with assholes all the time and while they don't like it... it isn't especially a business problem. You just suck it up and deal with him until the deal is signed and then you don't have to talk to him again for a few years. No big deal.

The problem was not that he was an asshole or rude. The problem was that he was implying illegal threats of violence, sabotage, vandalism, and quite legal but ultimately unacceptable extortion. In the case of the illegal things he implied that was basically a declaration that they wouldn't follow their contract if they wanted leverage. That means the contract itself loses value. The work slowdowns for example are done because they're not technically strikes and they have agreed not to do strikes in most cases. So they do a work slow down instead. From the perspective of the company, a slow down and a strike isn't that different. Deadlines are not met as a result. And any union that does a slowdown is basically failing to live up to their agreements. All the rabid unions love their strikes and slow downs. And the non-rabid unions don't do them ever. Because they know it poisons the relationship between the union and management. Its dumb.

The last thing you want to do as an employee or provider of anything is to spoil the relationship between you the seller of labor or service or goods and your customer which is buying your labor or service or goods. A union pissing all over management makes about as much sense as as the place I go to buy my food every so often calling me personally an asshole. I mean... I don't have to buy food there.

And the union gets away with that situation only so long as they do because they have labor monopolies. So its like me going to the store to buy food and there is ONLY one store to buy food at... so I just have to deal with the assholes at the company calling me names or otherwise treating me poorly.

Your belief that it makes sense for the union to adopt an adversarial relationship with the companies is rooted in a general misunderstanding as to the relationship between sellers of labor and buyers of labor. You want to ask for a higher price? Okay. That's fine. But don't try to take away my ability to shop around and try to get a lower price. No one deserves a monopoly. And that includes labor. If I want to ask around and try and get a better price then don't call the people that take my offer "Scabs" or whatever. That's fucked up. Yeah, their taking my offer undermines your bargaining position but your monopolistic leverage on a company isn't reasonable. You don't deserve a monopoly. No one does.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

In regards to your statement that unions sometimes do good things, I didn't argue otherwise. Since you are suggesting that is my argument, you are attempting a strawman of my argument. That is either a misunderstanding on your part or a pointless rhetorical deception. Strawmanning works when you're debating before idiots or you're a politician arguing something for voters... which is sort of the same thing. But strawmanning doesn't work one on one which is what this is right now. I know what i said and I know what my argument is so there's no value in strawmanning me. Don't do it. It only serves to irritate me while poisoning the rhetorical well. I'm going to be less likely to extend you common courtesy if you behave that way.

As to your citation about some silly person playing the race card inappropriately... that is closer to what I'm talking about. You don't want to poison the relationship.

In the case of your hospital, it sounds like management was incompetent. And incompetence is generally problematic. To a large extent, I am arguing that the teamsters have a history of incompetence in negotiations BECAUSE they poison worker management relations unnecessarily. They have a history of it. And doing that with Google and Apple is poking dragons with sticks.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

So far it couldn't have because they haven't done anything yet. If they don't then it won't effect anything.

If they try any of their typical shenanigans then of course it could effect a LOT of things.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[sjames]

Tie your knees down and read it again. I said that the concessions forced by unions PREVENTED a communist revolution and that it's a GOOD thing that they did.

If you WANT a communist revolution, by all means take back all that the unions have gained and ban them. Give a few years for the pressure to build up (plus or minus a few cities being burned) and BAM you'll have your revolution.

I prefer that we keep the relief valve in place maintaining a reasonable balance so we can avoid all that nonsense. Even better would be enlightened management recognizing that tightening the screws causes unions and union problems and adopting a more balanced approach, but given the quality of MBAs these days I'm not holding my breath.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[sjames]

But it won't. The DOT doesn't give a damn about Google's union trouble and they're the ones who will ultimately have to sign off on automated vehicles.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

You're playing stupid rhetorical games instead of honestly trying to discuss the issue. Sophistry is obvious and you're not especially good at it.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

As to unions stopping a communist revolution... I find that argument lacking in credibility. Especially since in places where the unions were the strongest they seem the most inclined to communism while places where they are the weakest are the least inclined to communism.

This strikes me as a bug being rebranded as a feature. Come on. You can do better.

One of the things that is especially amusing about the communist revolution theory that marx threw out is that it doesn't make any sense in the context of history.

Marx was quite good at analyzing EXISTING economic models but his grasp of human psychology, anthropology, culture, history, etc was not terribly good. Those that believe in a more communal life style would do well to start from scratch ideally with some people at the center of your group that understand what they're talking about a bit better. Marx and Marxist theory is generally not very credible if you analyze it with a clear eye.

This notion for example that you'll get some great uprising of workers forgets that workers have been abused far worse than that over time and while there are rebellions they don't ever lead to some communal state.

What is more, communal social arrangements have been tried repeatedly. Famously in one of the first English colonies it was tried. The name of the colony slips my mind at this moment, but they tried to go fully communal. They had a universal commons that everyone could work as much or as little as they wanted. Property rights were pretty lose. Sounded nice... only the colony nearly starved to death because there was no incentive to work. You got the same share of food whether you worked or not so why work?

Anyway, they shifted to a more traditional relationship where people owned property, worked that property, and traded for whatever else they wanted. If you didn't work... then you didn't eat. The colony was saved and ultimately became quite prosperous.

The whole communist/marxist system is at best ignorant. And so I don't especially fear it beyond being subjected to it by force by either ignorant people or tyrants exploiting the ignorance of people to build armies and subjugate people for their own profit.

Doubtless you disagree... that's super. We'll probably have to agree to disagree on that one, chum.

good day.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

They're already doing quite well in those government committees... and really all it takes to grease your way through most of those is some votes and some campaign contributions... that or sound arguments if they're not already bribed or looking for one.

Either way... I wouldn't count on it. Its coming. You can try to fight the future if you like... but its a bit like trying to stop the tide by slapping at it with your open hand.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[swillden]

So... still nothing to back up your claim. I get it already.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

Which claim would you liked backed up and with what sort of evidence?

See, this is where I'm going to stand firm... I have had a lot of discussions on the internet where someone will ask for evidence not to honestly discuss the issue but as a rhetorical device to basically wear the opposition out. The idea being to get the opposition to work really hard, get them running around in circles, and then when all is provided... reject all the evidence arbitrarily.

So since I don't know you, I don't know what your intentions are with that request. My default assumption is that I assume people are trolling if they're not constructive and generally rude. In my opinion you've been neither constructive nor especially polite. And that being the case I'm simply being cautious about wasting my time providing evidence in a discussion you probably aren't honestly engaging in in the first place.

So here is what I want... I want you to tell me specifically what you want proof of and the form of that proof. That way, if I deliver... you'll have little rhetorical ground to reject it given that it will have met your own stated standards.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[sjames]

Again, read carefully. I didn't say it won't happen. I said it won't happen for a while. Personally, I would like to have an autonomous vehicle. I just want to see provisions made for the general welfare before we go much further down the path.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

... then you read again. I said pissing off these companies will make those things happen faster.

And we're done. Just enough.

Good day, sir.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[sjames]

As to unions stopping a communist revolution... I find that argument lacking in credibility. Especially since in places where the unions were the strongest they seem the most inclined to communism while places where they are the weakest are the least inclined to communism.

You should really delve more into history then. There was a real movement for it. The red flags weren't a coincidence. Remember, the red scare hadn't happened yet. 'The Russians' were still good guys. The cold war was over a decade in the future.

Communism wasn't a dirty word at all except among the wealthy.

As for the rest about Marx, that's all irrelevant. It doesn't matter what actually was or how that came out, all that matters is what the people contemplating revolution at that time believed. Had they not been placated by positive changes, they would have pressed on to a revolution for better or worse. They didn't have the benefit of the rear view mirror that we have on the Russian revolution.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

You're making a chicken and egg argument. You're implying the unions saved us from a communist revolution when often as not the unions had communist alliances and actively spread communist dogma. Several of the unions far from stopping a communist revolution seemed to want one.

So that's fine.

The most apt thing I can say here is to tell you something they used to say about Soviet Russia:

"The future is always the same. It is the past that keeps changing."

From my perspective you're changing how you remember history to keep your ideology's image of self perfection intact. While of course the future is likely whatever your ideal society happens to be...

Am I wrong, comrade? Neither of us will ever know. If I'm right then you're so twisted by your own cognitive dissonance that you wouldn't know yourself. And if I'm wrong then perhaps I am... either way... we can't resolve this issue outside of a psych-lab.

So... Good day.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

Do you understand what inevitable means? If inevitable is coming down the pike I'm not worried about being adversarial. Any attempt to change the dynamic is valid.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

inevitable
[ inËevitÉ(TM)bÉ(TM)l ]
ADJECTIVE

        certain to happen; unavoidable

And who said that a chance had come along to change the dynamic? No such chance has happened here. What they found was a way to make it happen sooner which is AGAINST their interests.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[pnutjam]

That's where we disagree. It's inevitable, but I don't think you can speed it up. It's already the holy grail of transportation, with numerous real world and regulatory hurdles. It might even end up like the flying cars of the 50's, unworkable without drastic infrastructure changes. This sort of negotiations are a drop in the bucket to all but the most rabid anti-union types, and they'll be pissed no matter what, right?

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

No, it is a pet project by companies with lots of money and lots of very smart people... and no real idea how to use either at the moment which is why they're flailing around looking for a purpose.

Kick them in the nuts and call their mothers whores... see if they don't focus on you with a glint in their eye.

Saying they can't go faster presumes they're already going as fast as they can possibly can and are investing as much as they possibly can. That is... at best naive.

Re:... Driverless cars?

[Karmashock]

as an additional datum... consider the android operating system. Google created that simply to put Steve Jobs on notice. He was trying to extort payments and concessions out of google in exchange for making google the default search engine for iPhones. Google responded to that move by creating a rival smartphone for no reason besides protecting their ability to keep google a relevant search engine in the mobile space. They don't even make money on the handsets. They just gave it all away to ensure broad adoption.

My point with my post was to say that the teamsters are playing with a live high voltage line.

If they are careful and don't act like jackasses then they should be fine. If they don't respect the voltage... They're going to get bug zapped.

Wait..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get this voting thing. Does it mean that all drivers have to join a certain union if the majority votes in favour? Is that legal in the U.S.? How about employees who don't agree with the union?

Re:Wait..

[thaylin]

You dont have to join the union just because the unions organizes there, however typically there is a vote that needs a majority of the members to vote yes before the union can setup shop, read about the VW plant in Tennessee.

Re:Wait..

[Entrope]

Unless a state passes a right-to-work law (California has not), "closed shops" are allowed under Federal law and typically required by union contracts. A "closed shop" agreement means that employees must be union members at the time of hire, or must join the union within a certain period. To conform with the First Amendment, employees who do not wish to pay for the union's "extra" activities (beyond collective negotiation for their bargaining unit that the employee belongs to) can opt out of full union membership and pay a reduced rate for the union's representation. The reduction is almost never a big reduction, which might surprise people who know how much unions spend on political activity. Also, people who do opt out can no longer vote on what the union should negotiate for, and unions like to make them social outcasts, so there are strong incentives to not opt out.

Re:Wait..

[Anonymous Coward]

In Pennsylvania a carpenter has to join the union to work at a union job. But in order to join the union you need to show your voter registration card proving you are a Democrat. Saw the same thing with state prison employees; not a registered Democrat, no union membership (and no job) for you.

Split Shifts

[timmyf2371]

The best solution to union meddling concerning the split shifts is to employ half of the drivers in the morning and the other half in the evening.

No more split shifts and half the pay. Hooray for unions?

Re:Split Shifts

[jpapon]

The best solution to union meddling concerning the split shifts is to employ half of the drivers in the morning and the other half in the evening.

This has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read.

Tell me genius, how are you going to drive the same amount of buses with half the employees on a shift? Or are you under the impression that people can drive two buses at once?

Re: Split Shifts

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in Sacramento, I can tell you that there are absolutely no unemployed guys living on my street who would jump on a chance for 20 hours a week at $25/hr ... Except the guy across the street from me and the guy two houses down. That $250 a week extra after the commute and taxes, and a chance to be in the city during the day to look for work. Win win for everyone but the teamsters.

Or, what will really happen is that the bus company will lose the contract, the teamsters unemployed, and the next bus company will get the contract with non-union drivers. My only question is if the management stays the same. Odds are high that it will actually be the same drivers with lower pay.

Re:Split Shifts

[I'm New Around Here]

I'm pretty sure he meant to have twice as many drivers as they currently have, and split them into two groups. GroupA drives in the morning then goes home, or to a second job. GroupB comes in for the afternoon.

Re:Split Shifts

[CanHasDIY]

Actually, the best method for avoiding union interference is to not treat employees like shit, thus removing incentive to join a union.

On the other hand, I hear Walmart does quite well with their "burn anyone who so much as mentions the word 'union' alive" policy, so I could be way off base.

Re: Split Shifts

[pnutjam]

So your solution is to hire a never ending stream of short timers who want to be in the city to look for work? Not make this job desirable to cut down on training and retention costs while insuring you will have a consistent experience for your customers? You honestly don't see how short sighted your proposal is?

Re: Split Shifts

[HornWumpus]

You can't commute to the Bay on $50/day. Maybe with a geo metro and 5 hours a day driving. Amtrack is $40 one way. BART is about $12 round trip.

Such a shit job wouldn't be worth it.

Re:Split Shifts

[jpapon]

Yes, so his "simple" solution was to have the company literally double their workforce. I'm sure it's just *so* easy to find that many reliable people with commercial drivers licences.

Debt is hard

[emj]

Government debt is only one part of it..

Re:Debt is hard

[bickerdyke]

Of course. debt in percent of GDP is probably a better indicator. But whatever indicator you use, you can't ignore debts. And if you can afford to LOAN more money that you have to borrow yourself (negative debt) that's definitly a sign of being "rich".

Re:Debt is hard

[dryeo]

Wish someone could explain that to my right wing government. They originally got voted in by complaining the other party was paying off the debt instead of lowering taxes more and since they've been in they've ran a deficit for 8 years while bragging that being conservative means they're good money managers. Now that they claim to have rebalanced the budget thanks to the oil revenues, they're once again cutting taxes for the rich rather then paying off the debt. Our debt to GDP ratio is horrible.

Fairness

[Anonymous Coward]

The rich in Silicon Valley need to pay their fair share.

Samzenpus reminding you to hate the unions!

[damn_registrars]

Because it would, of course, be a terrible thing if drivers were well qualified, reasonably paid, and respected by their employers. Really, who doesn't wish they could work 70+ hours a week for 35 hours of pay? And job stability is so 1950s...

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

> It takes 16+ years of education to get a Master's degree. It takes less than 16 months to get a commercial driver's license. That fact is embedded in tech workers wages.

Someone with education of a Master's degree messes up work: sorry for the bug, we'll release a hotfix patch or a service pack soon, we thank you for your patience in the while!

Someone with commercial driver's license messes up work: CNN breaking news, schoolbus careens into river, two dozen kids missing. In other news, 18-wheeler carrying barrels of concentrated fluoric acid explodes upon collision with town hall, 20 dead, 750 citizens evacuated, national guard mobilized, FEMA sets up local command centre.

It is also not OK that LGBT hairdressers earn seven figures a year, while garbage collectors earn 15 USD / hour. No garbage collection => megacity soon depopulated by diseases. No LBGT hairdresser => put a pot over your head and cut off what sticks out! The free world / western / americanized capitalist society is totally fsck'ed up when it comes to moral values and labour relations. The managers become little divine kings in their palaces and luxury sedans and flying chariot, while many common people become more and more like peasants or even serfs. The decadent and hedonistic first world is heading to a crash soon, one which will eclipse that of ancient Roman Empire.

After that comes a new Dark Age, where the equally insane asian-despotic, planned economy regime principle will be the celebrated leitmotif and China or Putinistan will act as role models for most of the world. Is there a need for history to repeat itself over and over again, as if mandated by a natural law? Isn't it possible create stable and just societies everywhere, like Scandinavia, where respect for the common good makes everybody's life for the better?

Nothing to do with your Dad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway... management responded by giving the union everything they asked for. Literally everything. They just said yes down the line. Win for the teamsters right? Well, management was also massively pissed off. So they immediately started setting up an alternative operation. Takes years to set up. But the new contract would be in force for years. When the contract expired, the union sent the same asshole to ask for even more stuff. The company responded by firing them all and relocating the operation to the new site.

Management sent your Dad because he was a nobody - they just wanted a body for the union guy to get all big and tough with.

Management was intending to move the plant long before your Dad ever talked to the union. I know this because many many companies did the same thing and some are using it for future negotiations: see Boeing and their opening of their N. Carolina plant.

Labor has been losing power for decades. First Northern factories sent labor down to the non-union South. Then - especially with NAFTA, started sending it down to Mexico and overseas.

And it isn't just blue-collar workers. IBM, for example, has been closing down local offices and sending jobs - including development and engineering jobs - overseas.

Bank of America's IT/development/data processing is over-seas; so it's not just tech companies.

Re:Nothing to do with your Dad.

[Karmashock]

I have personal insight in that specific company. They wanted to stay in the area. The union's behavior pissed management off and scared them. They moved the whole operation to Korea as a result. It was sad. But it could have been avoided to at least limited in scope.

They shouldn't have sent a teamster goon to push them around.

It was what I like to call an "oh really?!" moment. That slap to the face that questions whether your mother was a whore and you like to fuck goats. You either respond or are diminished by your lack of response.

To moving plants down to the south... yep... and their manufacturing base is growing while the manufacturing base in the north continues to crumble.

Adapt or die.

Re:Nothing to do with your Dad.

[pnutjam]

I know the owners of that specific company, so I only attribute good things to them and I've included a healthy dose of confirmation bias in this anecdote.
FTFY

Re:Nothing to do with your Dad.

[Karmashock]

To the contrary I think they're jackasses. There were well known to be greedy, sometimes illegal, massively egomanical, and petty.

You don't know me.

The company for all that had deep roots where it was and shifting production like that was a huge risk.

Anyway, I have no patience for fucktards that presume to mind read someone through a few posts.

You don't know me and you never will.

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone with education of a Master's degree messes up work: sorry for the bug, we'll release a hotfix patch or a service pack soon, we thank you for your patience in the while! Someone with commercial driver's license messes up work: CNN breaking news, schoolbus careens into river, two dozen kids missing. In other news, 18-wheeler carrying barrels of concentrated fluoric acid explodes upon collision with town hall, 20 dead, 750 citizens evacuated, national guard mobilized, FEMA sets up local command centre.

Fair point, but you compare a minor coding incident with a major traffic incident. Now look at this:

Bus driver messes up work: gets a $350 speeding ticket for doing 75 on a 65mph freeway.

Coder messes up work: CNN breaking news, Fox News breaking news. $500,000,000 lost., and all it took was one line of code: if (1 + 2 + payload + 16 > s->s3->rrec.length) return 0;

Big difference.

Union membership is a good idea

[badzilla]

Some people have an irrational and emotional dislike of trade unions and are not afraid to show it, with words such as fools, idiots, morons, and so on. Crispin Odey the president of a 12-billion-dollar hedge fund would like to disagree with you: “... there is huge value in being in a union at the moment.” http://moneyweek.com/merryns-b...

Re:Union membership is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever work for a union? By your post I think it's clear you haven't. I know I was personally screwed by one as a worker. There are some good unions. Very very few. Even rabid union relatives I knew from the 1980s, they can't say anything good about their unions now. They also admit I was right and they should have listened. Let's review:

1) Moved jobs form the North to the South (gone south). "Trust us, they won't close the plant."
2) Moved jobs from the South to overseas. "Trust us, they won't close the plant."
3) Industry after industry - textiles, shoes, steel, rubber... well you get the idea. Long long list of industries they've ruined.
4) Corruption. Strong arm businesses, politicians. They are a big part in why we have Obamacare today. They brought in union thugs from out of state. Saw it with my own eyes - NY License plates even in back woods Maryland or West Virginia. Why were they even there, other than to threaten.
5) Way overpaid. I'm familiar with the BS in Baltimore MD. Jobs passed from father to son, they do NOTHING. Their job was eliminated decades ago, yet still get paid because of the union. I end up paying more so they have a cushy job. Somehow this is good?
6) Look at a union boss' house sometime. You'll get mad.

So it's not irrational fear, it's a well founded fear. They had a good history, 100 years ago. Today they're just added wasted baggage to our society.

Unions kill jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Unions today have shrunk to record levels. The only way Unions survive is to prey on low wage earners and promise big wages if they join. Many times this forces a unreasonable wage onto the business who either cannot or will not pay it. Just because you think your job is worthy of a higher wage. Does not mean the business is capable of supporting that wage. For example I have seen countless times where employee's become unionized only to find that they have priced themselves out of jobs. This is the same issue WalMart employee's face wanting higher wages. How can you have much leverage on asking for and getting higher wages when the requirements for many of these jobs is a GED or high school diploma? This leaves open countless of eligible people capable of doing the job and prevents any real legitimate reason for WalMart or any business to pay such wages. If you look at the non union auto industry many workers have representation with their companies. They manage to negotiate benefits and wages without Unions. The end result, is companies are willing to bargain when possible. But I think asking $27 to drive a bus is not going to happen for very long. Some company will come along and price those workers right out of a job.

Driverless busses anyone?

[ammorris]

Are Google's employees being driven to work in driver-less buses yet?

Really?

[MitchDev]

"Union leaders say they want to bring the drivers into the fold so they can negotiate better pay and benefits"

More like they want more people paying union dues until the companies just drop the shuttles entirely because they would no longer be affordable under union demands...

Sure, Blame The Unions

[Greyfox]

Short sighted leadership making cars no one wanted had nothing to do with it.

Re:Sure, Blame The Unions

[Anonymous Coward]

Short sighted leadership paying the UAW workers to make cars no one wanted because they couldn't afford to pay them to make better cars had nothing to do with it.

FTFY.

Union is school of Communizm!

[user.aaaaa]

... you know it if you are ex-USSR h1b worker

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know.. a bunch of money is worth so much more than a bunch of useless lives right?

Don't do it...

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll be sorry. We finally got tired of their BS and voted them out. They will not stand behind you when there's problems unless there is money in it for them. You'll get better benefits and treatment without them. All they do is collect your money to pay for their BMWs and MBZs and sit behind a desk porking out on your dollar.

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get off the internet, racist shitstain.

Re:That is okay-it's too late

[Anonymous Coward]

the time for unionizing was BEFORE Silicon Valley was decimated my H1Bs who have replaced 10's of thousands (literally) of QUALIFIED American tech workers, who have been aced out of theur long-standing occupations. This is a national disgrace, made even more disgraceful by the Depart of Homeland Security's recent (approved by Obama Administration) decision to let 150,000 spouses of H1Bs - many with computer background (or so many of their phony degrees and certificates say) - into the workforce, with another 55,000 per year following.

This is an outrage almost beyond comprehension to those outside the tech sector. Try getting a tech job in Silicon Valley, almost every recruiter is South Asian Indian. I have nothing against these people, they are trying to better themselves - but the egregious and cynical strategy by top American tech executives (Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, etc.) who blatantly LIE about shortages of STEM workers in their incessant attempt to drive down tech wages - along with the Congresspersons who do their bidding is disgraceful.

This is California, not the South.

[sethstorm]

They'd just rinse and repeat until every bus service is Teamster-organized.

This isn't the South where even the companies get intimidated for showing support towards unionization.

I don't have to imagine it

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 90's when I was a software integration tester working for IBM, my boss assigned me a daily schedule of noon-4pm and midnight-4am and had the gall to say "What are you complaining about? It's only 40 hours..."

Ah, the standard Southern argument.

[sethstorm]

They're terrible at their jobs. They're really good at getting what they want TODAY. But they piss people off and no one wants to do business with them in the long term. Their whole business model is to monopolize labor so that you can't do business with anyone else. And using that as leverage they just make fucking rediculious demands. You're left with two options... either give them what they want or you have no labor period. Well... that's not fucking acceptable. If I could do business with a dozen different unions and none of them wanted to give me my price that would be one thing. But if I can only deal with ONE union then its the same as dealing with one corporation. They're under no pressure to be reasonable because you have no options.

That applies to staffing agencies, which are no more different than labor unions - yet don't get crushed. Same bad representation for the staff under them, bad contracts for the larger part, and nobody really gets a good deal in the process.

Why do staffing agencies, temporary labor and the like get a pass despite being a union in every function save for being an employer's tool of evasion? Perhaps they need their PATCO moment so that they finally die or evolve beyond benefits-evasion.

And that just inspires companies to think of ways to get away from that bullshit. The big drive to outsource everything to asia is in large part a consequence of the unions. They drove labor over seas. And once the unions in the US are no longer a factor, we should see a significant return of that manufacturing etc to the US. It is already starting. We're seeing a lot of manufacturing theft in the South East and South West... specifically in states where the unions are weak.

You're wrong. Unions are strong in the South, just that they're the ones that represent employers and only employers that abide by the South's playbook.

For example, Volkswagen talks about setting up workers councils, and the entire South's political interests go into an apoplectic fit. The Tennessee state legislature and various political groups intimidated them near instantly; if they unionized, Volkswagen risked losing economic preferences along with other forms of intimidation towards workers. If Volkswagen succeeded, everything and the kitchen sink would be thrown at them to financially fail, as done in the 19th and early 20th Century.

Theft from the South killed the rust belt. The reason it went to rust in the first place is because the South built its economy on theft of Northern business.

Fixed that you to correct for fact.

[automation argument]

Someone has to do the maintenance for the buses.

Re:Ah, the standard Southern argument.

[Karmashock]

Staffing agencies don't insist on labor monopolies. They're totally different.

Re:Ah, the standard Southern argument.

[sethstorm]

As an industry, they don't need monopoly power. Their main competitor, labor unions, has less market share due to regulations that only apply to labor unions.

In addition, the staffing industry lives off the idea of regulatory evasion, which has a favorable side effect of increased disposability. Both of these negate the need to pursue specific monopoly power.

If there's freedom in RTW, it can be found by applying it to all forms of third-party/indirect representation.

Re:Ah, the standard Southern argument.

[Karmashock]

If they don't need monopoly power then why do they seek it so fervently?

You don't hear unions competing with each other. They either have informal or formal non-competition agreements which in industry is generally considered illegal... or they have actual monopolies where it is literally impossible to get labor in a given part of the country in a given industry without going through a specific union organization to negotiate the terms and buy that labor.

And you know what... that's fucked. What protection do I have as a company against the price you offer for labor being unreasonable? Because if you have a monopoly, my options are to pay the extortionate fee or pound sand. And if a union does that... they deserve to be outsourced/off shored/whatever.

If the unions operated in a more competitive environment where anyone could walk off the street and take a job they would otherwise be offering THEN I'd feel better about their prices. If the price of labor is high because no one will work for less then that, then that is a good price. if the price of labor is that because some monopoly set the prices high because they can... then that's fucked up.

On the contrary.

[sethstorm]

It doesn't even matter. Google shares a community with those companies. Find a need - Fill a need. If their neighbors start getting pissed at the teamsters then engineers from google will go over there and say "hey guys, want to try out our new automated buses?"...

On the contrary, Google should give the Teamsters a wide berth since "interesting things" tend to happen to entities that oppose them (which are legitimized by a Supreme Court decision). Such engineers would find themselves on the wrong end of things when their buses have otherwise unexplained low reliability.

Re:On the contrary.

[Karmashock]

If people at the top of the corporate world learn anything it is that you don't let yourself be intimidated. Someone growls at you and you either render them a non-entity to your business or meet them in an entirely legal combat of some kind... legal, financial, or social... and you burn them to the ground, salt their fields, erase their language, kill their gods, and write then rewrite their history in your favor.

Look at what happened with that group of eco activists tried to scam Chevron? They went to Eduador, bribed local people to sign documents saying Chevron polluted the land by giving them free medicine and bicycles. Bribed public officials, and engaged in a smear campaign in the US.

What happened?

Chevron just took it as the usual eco activism nonsense at first and ignored it. But then they figured out that it was an elaborate scam they were being set up to take the fall for... and they went to war. They hired legions of investigators, found out who was bribed and either exposed it so they were discredited, and engaged the FBI in the US to go after the law firm in the US that was behind the whole thing.

For all the talk people make about the evil corporations very few understand what they're capable of if you cross the line from just having an opinion to going to war with them. Totally different response.

The teamsters will be fine so long as they're reasonable and don't act true to their historical form. IF they over play their hand and go to war with Google or Apple... God help them because short of Thor or Sobek showing up to save them they're toast.

Re:On the contrary.

[sethstorm]

That kind of action is how labor unions ended up gaining power in the early 20th Century. If similar happens in the 21st, expect a similar swing.

It is also why Northern companies figured out that being reasonable to their own would get rid of 90% of such threats. By "winning the hearts and minds" of the population, it inoculates the company from many threats, without the financial or PR expenses of litigative hit-teams. Unfortunately, the lesson has been lost on the South.

The day that Google or Apple tries that stuff is when their competitors start winning significant market share from both.

Re:On the contrary.

[Karmashock]

Go with that theory. This is like watching a Loony Tunes episode with Wily E Coyote and his various schemes from the Acme catalog. Just run with your plan. I'm going to get some popcorn and wait for the inevitable punchline.

Volkswagen was intimidated.

[sethstorm]

The VW effort was met with intimidation by various Southern political interests, along with the Tennessee state legislature.

Only if it's not a staffing agency.

[sethstorm]

If it's a labor union, then yes.
If it's an employers' union (such as a staffing agency, temporary labor service, or the like), then it can be a condition of employment.

...which don't apply to employers' unions

[sethstorm]

On the other hand, RTW overlooks the employers' union (which can be a staffing agency, temporary labor service, or similar).

Walmart is a Southern, "know thy place" company

[sethstorm]

Actually, the best method for avoiding union interference is to not treat employees like shit, thus removing incentive to join a union.

Agreed. Companies of Northern/Midwestern states figured that treating their employees with respect was the best and cheapest way to limit (and prevent) unionization.

Unfortunately, most of those states, save Ohio in the Midwest, have been overtaken by political interests that ramrodded the Southern way of business. To undo that will be like Hercules cleaning the Augean stables.

On the other hand, I hear Walmart does quite well with their "burn anyone who so much as mentions the word 'union' alive" policy, so I could be way off base.

That's not so much Wal-Mart but a prevalent Southern mindset for any company wishing to do business in the South (or in sufficiently Southernized states like Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin). Volkswagen's intent to form works councils was met with political interests that intimidated enough people to vote against it - out of fear. Similar unionization efforts with other employers have received the same "kill it with fire, no matter how much it costs!" philosophy.

The Southern idea is that every resource on Earth and above must be expended to kill off unionization, then follow it up with an employers' union - like a staffing agency or temporary labor service.

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Rich0]

A better example of a coding error might be this one.

Re:That is okay, the end is nigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Isn't it possible create stable and just societies everywhere, like Scandinavia, where respect for the common good makes everybody's life for the better?"

Nothing short of genetic engineering.