I don't think unions are the answer, at least not for knowledge workers. The knowledge of the workers is the bargaining power in that case and AI makes the knowledge worth way less than it was before.

Ah, the shut up it’s too late gambit.

You are 'pro' an abstract, unrealized union, which is not 'pro union' at all.

You have abdicated your obligation to align your actions with your stated beliefs.

Do not give up before trying. Do not believe the hype that your labour power doesn't matter. Even Amazon couldn't stop their most exploited workers from unionizing, is your company bigger that that? Is your position weaker than theirs?

Worse that can happen is that you started talking with your fellow workers and they aren't interested.

Just because SV is run by several millenarian cults doesn't mean you should take their delusions about neo slavery and feudalism (Thiel/Yarvin; your doomerism stems from here) or apotheosis (anthropic, EA) as inevitable. You should assume they believe their own hype, but not assume they understand material reality outside their insular social bubbles.

Thiel's last 3 or 4? attempts at building his techo-utopia collapsed before even starting; They have no motion outside of what they can purchase.

Honestly, I think the only shot workers have is unionization plus really aggressive political action.

The problem is successful action will require setting aside pretty much all the culture war issues that are used to divide the working class, and I don't really see that happening. If anything culture-war polarization is getting worse. It will also require some formerly-privileged groups like software engineers to jettison their self-deceptive libertarian delusions, and properly understand their true role in society (software engineers should have unionized pre-2022 when we had more economic power, but economic comfort and those delusions prevented it).

Edit: fix typo pointed out in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50259693

But far away enough that we need to look at this again and get more time back to the workers.

I'm hoping we don't need another Great Depression this time, a collapsing economy brought about by mistaken belief by those on top that they should have the right to keep it all... but that might be exactly what we need. We'll see.

> Jobs get nice when employers are competing over the same pool of employees.

Maybe in high-paying jobs that require high qualifications. For most jobs, especially the low-wage sector, this is absolutely not the case. There is no competition between employees if applicants are desperate and need to take any job they can.

The first official Union was formed in 1794, for journeyman cordwainers, I believe in New York.

The national labor union was formed in 1866 and is the first official call to congress to regulate to an 8-hour workday.

The first example I know of on a national scale that voluntarily promoted an 8 hour day, 40 hour work week was Ford in 1914 and realistically, that is exactly what you stated, an attempt to undercut other automakers / factories of the time for labor. Not because he was being altruistic.

I’m sorry you’ve had bad experiences with unions. I am certainly biased, because I grew up in a Union household and have been apart of them myself, but I’ve only had good experiences. Yeah, there are some bad eggs, admittedly, but I think collectively they have benefited the working person.

Prior to industrialization the closest you got to this was feudalism.

During an all hands where quarterly earnings were presented for a very large American company, the live audience were obviously employees.

The CFO came on stage and was very enthusiastic about the labor market "loosening". Employees were clapping. Unsure if because they didn't understand the meaning of that statement or because just to appear supportive of leadership.

I was thinking: they're talking about us, turkeys.

I am with you on the competitive workforce groups though. Large corporations don’t need to feed you three meals a day and bus you in from hours away but they do to entice workers. There are some economics at play that probably are more effective for certain groups of workers. The less skilled and more replaceable the job though, the more a business can take advantage because it’s a race to the bottom.

Without laws and unions, I fully believe some industries would still have slaves, horrible unsafe conditions, etc. Laws are probably more vital than unions IMHO

But... You're cranking more right? I mean, she may give you the courtesy of not asking for more as you (and we collectively) figure this out, but it's getting quite clear that you can crank more, so why would she not expect it?

Sure there may be a union, but if you're the only person not cranking out more with AI, there can still be consequences.

the US gov has for almost all of its history been anti-unions

That globalism has made unions not-work is just Capitalist Inevitabilism. Yeah okay I’ll give up when the billionaires have fully autonomous robot brigades. But not over globalism.

For example waste management generally has very strong unions in the developed world because 1) capital intensity 2) operations immediately seize on labour withdrawal 3) consequences of strikes are in a golden zone of painful but not existential so are tolerated 4) extract a relatively small proportion of local gov funds, so don’t create that much powerful opposition 5) labour force is locally concentrated and highly socialised.

Those pillars of power don’t rely much on any particular legal or political system.

That's a pretty serious misconception unless by "medieval people" you mean the nobility. Common peasants had some hereditary title to the land they worked but the land itself was owned by the lord and the king. They were more like hereditary tenants but much worse off contractually than our modern interpretation of a tenant would suggest since they (and their progeny) were often obligated to remain on their land and work it without the option to go elsewhere. They paid their rent in labor and produce or sometimes money if they had any. They had parcels of land that are large by modern standards because they were farmers and they had to sustain themselves on what they grew on their land as well as give a portion of what they produced to the lord that actually owned the land.

They may have "owned" more of their time in that they weren't employed in the modern sense but they still had to put in as much work as it would take to feed themselves and pay their rent. They absolutely had to perform the work their lord demanded of them which might include additional agricultural labor on other plots of land or threshing grain.

It really wasn't a better system. Agricultural labor is gruelling without modern equipment. It's even worse when your life depends on it. Not being allowed to choose where to live or choose your occupation and having that apply to your children and your children's children is worse.

Imagine if you were permanently contracted with your landlord. You could never move to another apartment and your children were obligated to live in the same apartment. On top of that you had to do the maintenance work for the building whenever the landlord asked you to and you still had to pay him rent on top of that. You'd still be slightly better off than a peasant because you wouldn't have to be a subsistence farmer.