Thomas Kwa's Shortform

Thomas Kwa

This is a special post for quick takes by Thomas Kwa. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

(Crossposted from Bountied Rationality Facebook group)

I am generally pro-union given unions' history of fighting exploitative labor practices, but in the dockworkers' strike that commenced today, the union seems to be firmly in the wrong. Harold Daggett, the head of the International Longshoremen’s Association, gleefully talks about holding the economy hostage in a strike. He opposes automation--"any technology that would replace a human worker’s job", and this is a major reason for the breakdown in talks.

For context, the automation of the global shipping industry, including containerization and reduction of ship crew sizes, is a miracle of today's economy that ensures that famines are rare outside of war, developing countries can climb the economic ladder to bring their citizens out of poverty, and the average working-class American can afford clothes, a car, winter vegetables, and smartphones. A failure to further automate the ports will almost surely destroy more livelihoods than keeping these hazardous and unnecessary jobs could ever gain. So while I think a 70% raise may be justified given the risk of automation and the union's negotiating position, the other core demand to block automation itself is a horribly value-destroying proposition.

In an ideal world we would come to some agreement without destroying value-- e.g. companies would subsidize the pensions of workers unemployed by automation. This has happened in the past, notably the 1960 Mechanization and Modernization Agreement, which guaranteed workers a share of the benefits and was funded by increased productivity. Unfortunately this is not being discussed, and the union is probably opposed. [1] [2]

Both presidential candidates appear pro-union, and it seems particularly unpopular and difficult to be a scab right now. They might also be in personal danger since the ILA has historical mob ties, even if the allegations against current leadership are false. Therefore as a symbolic gesture I will pay $5 to someone who is publicly documented to cross the picket line during an active strike, and $5 to the first commenter to find such a person, if the following conditions are true as of comment date:

The ILA continues to demand a ban on automation, and no reputable news outlet reports them making an counteroffer of some kind of profit-sharing fund protecting unemployed workers.
No agreement allowing automation (at least as much as previous contracts) or establishing a profit-sharing fund thing has been actually enacted.
I can pay them somewhere easily like Paypal, Venmo, or GoFundMe without additional effort.
It's before 11:59pm PT on October 15.

[1]: "USMX is trying to fool you with promises of workforce protections for semi-automation. Let me be clear: we don’t want any form of semi-automation or full automation. We want our jobs—the jobs we have historically done for over 132 years." https://ilaunion.org/letter-of-opposition-to-usmxs-misleading-statement

[2]: "Furthermore, the ILA is steadfastly against any form of automation—full or semi—that replaces jobs or historical work functions. We will not accept the loss of work and livelihood for our members due to automation. Our position is clear: the preservation of jobs and historical work functions is non-negotiable." https://ilaunion.org/ila-responds-to-usmxs-statement-that-distorts-the-facts-and-misleads-the-public/

Unions attempt to solve a coordination/governance issue. Unfortunately, if the union itself has bad governance, it just creates a new governance issue. Like trying to use a 'back fire' to control a forest fire, but then the back fire gets too big and now you have more problems!

I'm pro-union in the sense that they are attempting to solve a very real problem. I'm against them insofar as they have a tendency to create new problems once reaching a large enough power base.

The solution, in my eyes, is better governance within unions, and better governance over unions by governments.

4Thomas Kwa2y

In theory, unions fix the bargaining asymmetry where in certain trades, job loss is a much bigger cost to the employee than the company, giving the company unfair negotiating power. In historical case studies like coal mining in the early 20th century, conditions without unions were awful and union demands seem extremely reasonable. My knowledge of actual unions mostly come from such historical case studies plus personal experience of strikes not having huge negative externalities (2003 supermarket strike seemed justified, a teachers' strike seemed okay, a food workers' strike at my college seemed justified). It is possible I'm biased here and will change my views eventually. I do think some unions impose costs on society, e.g. the teachers' union also demanded pay based on seniority rather than competence, it seems reasonable for Reagan to break up the ATC union, and inefficient construction union demands are a big reason construction costs are so high for things like the 6-mile, $12 billion San Jose BART Extension. But on net the basic bargaining power argument just seems super compelling. I'm open to counterarguments both that unions don't achieve them in practice and that a "fair" negotiation between capital and labor isn't best for society.

6habryka2y

My sense is unions make sense, but legal protections where companies aren't allowed to route around unions are almost always quite bad. Basically whenever those were granted the unions quickly leveraged what basically amounts to a state-sponsored monopoly, but in ways that are even worse than normal state-sponsored monopolies, because state-sponsored monopolies at least tend to still try to maximize profit, whereas unions tend to basically actively sabotage almost anything that does not myopically give more resources to its members.

Thomas Kwa's Shortform

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Thomas Kwa's Shortform

12

Ω 7