That sounds like the employers have far too much power there. If only there was something workers could do about that...

I understand what you mean because of the country where you live.

The principle of Unions or Syndicates (Not sure if there is any difference in terminology depending the country) differs between USA and Europe. And just for the record, USA was the former one in those kind of movements.

In USA you have a federal right for those kind of worker's organizations but the Unions are specifically for sectors if not individual companies and the hardest part, with the law in your side or not, is create it from scratch (pression, fear to lose your job etc). Afterwards any merging, colaboration and federaton of movements will exist between them

What any Union achieves in their fight/strike/demand and subsequent conversations with the company will benefit those who were syndicated, those who paid their Union tax

On Europe taxes are paid too, also it is free for the worker to decide if enter the club or not but the syndicates are wider, three or four big ones. they occupy general sectors in society and by law a company is obligued to accept any syndicate and syndicate delegate if there is any demand. The delegate will be the middleman, the speaker between the workers and the company. In very big companies where all is very burocratic by nature that is very important. Microproblems, legal doubts, doubtly firings etc....

And what a Sindicate achieves in their fight is for all the workers. Not only for those paying the taxes or into the Union. I believe that is the main difference.

Greetings

Wasn't it Great Britain? They called it "trade union" back then.

Well, you are right. And even before that in the XVIII there were movements of self help and solidarity of that kind, but the first proper sindicate in USA was from 1866, so like everything is a matter of few years. :)

Anyways in the first years of the XX century USA rocketed in their industrial power and things happened. The workers day has its origin in a drama happened to some women workers around that era
And it is well known how the growing working movemet was treated when on strike.

Maybe that was the reason I was thinking of USA as some of the firsts in that things.

But you are right. UK the first, Belgium the second

As a self-employed provider of personal servies, we make sure the customers are as happy as the owner is. It's good for business and employee morale.((;--))

And as a Self employed people you should not really be interested in this discussion, but it is not true

Under my point of view a self employed or a worker is the same hardworking guy, but when I proposed changes in laws when talking with people and administration via political parties, just to leverage unconsistencies between both, were the self employed guys those who where more reticent and hostile to that kind of advantages. Why?

Because a self employed is a potential company in every sense depending the country laws and they do no want to lose any advantage by default. But when they lose because of any crisis, they demand help. And the circle continues :D

EDIT typos and bit more

#paladin181, you have been missing some info:

https://apnews.com/article/uwa-strike-gm-ford-stellantis-pay-dacdfe9ec0736f4fbf3ce7ee38b4bcf4

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/24/ceos-100-low-wage-companies-income

https://twitter.com/kerrblimey/status/1702043696672235670

And I might find some related to the SAG-AFTRA if needed.

On Europe or in USA people will mobilize when they consider they are not paid accordingly to their work.

When a terrible pandemic ocurred and in good faith a lot of workers of any industries decided to freeze or be payed less to keep their companies running, they saw, later, that the profit of some bosses or big guys wasn't accordingly balanced with their own one. Well. Then it was moment to demand a bit of justice, and balance.

1848, Germany: Buchdruckerverband
1865, Germany: ADCAV (was a unification of several smaller worker groups spread over different regions, it was the first 'big' one). The same year the Cigarrenarbeiter was formed.

Let's just say that it was a natural development in several countries at the same time.

Yeah, worker protection in the US is not the same as we know from other countries. But it's already a lot better than it was.
My father worked for german company which in the 80s also created production facilities in New Hampshire. He was sent there install the machines and train people. The CEO of that company introduced many improvements to work life. One of the funnier changes was that the payment was not given in form of checks, but transferred directly to bank accounts, seeing that often wives would wait on weekends outside the facility to grab the checks from their husbands so they don't do something stupid with it :D

Olé!, Olé!, Olé!

I worked (and am still working) too darn hard ramping up my knowledge to pretty impressive levels on my own time and most unions are not flexible enough to compensate me properly for that.

Unions tend toward a somewhat flattish wage structure that increment in a predictable manner with seniority which is great for people who do their 9-5 and then go home which to be clear is, and should be, most people.

But for the minority of people going above and beyond who expect to be paid a reasonable amount more for their troubles (maybe not the 10x+ they have in unconstrained corporate structures, but a good 1.5x-2x I'd say), unions suck. I work for a non-profit and am already been paid a good 40k less than I'd make in the for-profit sector. If I was unionized on top of that, I'd probably be making another 40k less. There are unionized people doing roughly what I do and I see how they work and let me tell you there is a world of difference between us. I've kept up to date with all the latest tools and methodologies in the last 20 years or so and they haven't and it really shows. Given that the difference is largely due to me investing my own personal time to keep up, I think it would be unfair that we earn the same.

You might have misunderstood me: I was not suggesting working for a union, but joining one as just another unionized worker. A worker that can have a really big impact on their employer when they join their comrades in a strike.

Yes, that is what I meant. I think unions are favourable either in professions where the differentiation between workers is not great or otherwise for employees who are not exceptional.

But the rigidity of unions (which could be argued as necessary for employers not to find loopholes to bypass the union) means that exceptional employees don't have much incentive to work extra hard to be exceptional (which in IT is very much needed, you won't be great if you don't put in a significant number of hours outside your 9 to 5 to rampup your skills).

To be clear, I think unions are warranted as the overwhelming majority benefits from them, but as long as we live in a for-profit society, profit will remain a motivator and people will always be asking "everyone seem to be looking for theirs, so where is mine?" and right now for highly talented motivated people willing to put in the time to really excel in software, that means working outside of a union.

To be fair, I don't think it is warranted that some people earn 10x+ the regular salary, but to go from that to a mostly flat wage structure increasing on seniority... I sacrifice a lot of personal time to be a "good worker" and someone else coasting his job on a 9-to-5 might invest the time on a personal for-profit project to be a millionaire or otherwise invest time I don't have on the stock market to increase their savings, plus current home owners (which I'm not) just got a good 200k-300k networth boost (for doing basically nothing) based on the increasing price of real-estate post-covid where I live, so yeah while I'm willing to take a pay cut to work for a non-profit and am investing a lot of personal time on open-source projects for free (the only marketable benefit for that being to up my skill and increase my desirability to potential employers), ultimately, I think I'm entitled to ask "where is mine?". And I can tell you, I won't get it working under a union unfortunately. Maybe in a better society, I would.