alt Hacker News> HR has a reputation for claiming that they are here to help employees but actually only prioritizing the desires of the corpos
Unions were the institutions that actually helped employees. It's a shame they had their reputations smeared and many were busted, leaving workers out in the cold. The worst run union probably does more for employees than the best HR department.
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The problem with Unions is its just the labor. Its the people who do the work. They don't have the money or the political power.
The Bosses and Owners have the money, the property, the machines, and political connections.
And power/money builds more power/money. And because its a boss vs worker arrangement, the worker's power will invariably get whittled down year by year.
The real solution here isnt socialism or communism. Its Worker Cooperatives. This makes the worker = the boss. And the previous conflict between the 2 go away. And the workers can make better decisions with all the information.
For example, when a dictatorial company announces layoffs, it just happens. But losing people also loses knowledge of the company, which is bad long term. In those cases, a worker cooperative could explain the situation, and make a decision together to temporarily cut wages INSTEAD of laying people off.
Disagree with the last one. Back when unions were more common in my country, union officials were the gatekeepers of career progress or even entering the profession, and they were taking bribes. I've never seen an HR department half as bad as an average union from that era (when was the last time you heard someone bring $1000 in cash to a job interview?).
That said, in the USA the pendulum has swinged too far the other way so as of now, unions don't have any capacity to be this bad. Unionizing would be a huge improvement for every employee in pretty much every situation.