Hacker News
points by spacechild1 3 days ago | 0 comments
I don't know enough about the US, but for Europe this is 100% false! The first unions date back to the 18th century and they were an important part of the worker's movement in the 19th century. They absolutely played a crucial part in improving worker conditions during the industrial revolution and beyond.

> 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.

[–] howunfortunate 2 days ago
This is not what economists believe about Europe either! A couple good sources:

1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-...

2.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144...

[–] spacechild1 2 days ago
I don't have time to read these papers. What I can say for sure is that your first sentence

> The "cushiness" of jobs such as fewer work hours, more benefits, etc. preceded the formation of unions and then slowed down (overall) once unions became popular.

is demonstrably false.

Sure, unions are not the only reason for better working conditions, but they certainly played a very important role.

The legal restrictions on the max. number of hours people are allowed to work per day or week are only in place because of the worker's movement and the power of unions. Companies certainly didn't lobby for these laws. In fact, certain industries are constantly trying to soften or undermine it.

BTW, in my country, unions are part of the annual negotations between employers and employees ("Kollektivvertrag"), which most notably includes the minimum wages and annual pay raises.

[–] howunfortunate 2 days ago
If you don't have time to read the papers, you could at least hand them to your favorite LLM and ask them to summarize the strength of evidence for broader macroeconomic factors vs. unions as the primary drivers of work hours, benefits, pay, unemployment etc.
[–] spacechild1 2 days ago
No, thanks. You should have done more research before making your initial ridiculous claim. Don't throw economy papers at me when it's very clear you don't know what you're talking about.
[–] howunfortunate 2 days ago
It makes me sad that you're not willing to do even the bare minimum of research to check if what you've written is well-founded or not.
[–] spacechild1 2 days ago
That's pretty rich coming from you.