Item — HN Reader

> Lots of research shows that generally places where unions exist have better work conditions and perform better over the long term.

Do you have any non-partisan sources for this? Genuinely curious. When you say perform better what do you mean specifically? And does better work conditions include better pay or just on-site conditions or something similar?

2 comments

https://www.nber.org/digest/202508/unpacking-union-wage-prem...

They earn more and are more productive. Here is one Canadian study but I’m sure you can find more if you’re interested.

Thanks for sharing. I’ll take a look!

The non partisan source is the history of the industrial revolution itself.

I am not saying that you are doing this, but I tend to find that people who think we don't need unions anymore are engaging with the status quo in the same way as people who say we don't need vaccines anymore.

We have gone a long way since industrial revolution.

e.g.

Child labor now outlawed.

There is a minimum wage. (You can argue it is still way to low, but going from zero to some is a huge change)

Some OSHA rules mandate employer provide safety equipment.

> Child labor now outlawed.

For now. Many US states are currently trying to roll back these laws though, aren't they?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/22/child-labor-...

https://www.justiceatwork.com/how-are-child-labor-laws-chang...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-several-states-are-pus...

Teens want summer jobs again and you act like they’re sending 8 year olds back to the coal breakers.

It's not teens pushing for it

Literally demonstrating the point in dofm's second paragraph right here...

Thank you. Almost all of the US discourse around unions seems to involve accepting the literally cartoonish framing that the US corporate right managed to force into popular culture.

The fact that union culture in the USA is broken is not a problem with the idea of unions. It's a problem with the USA.

Honestly it's hard to blame folks. The US (and Canada, where I'm from) has seen a 40+ year concerted effort to destroy unions and the propaganda runs deep. There's been a long-running cultural project to depict unions as purely lazy, corrupt, and self-dealing. That same project also involved demonizing social safety nets ("welfare queen") and public projects more broadly using the exact same rhetoric: some people might cheat so we must tear these systems down. It's a language that directs the anger of the aggrieved away from those in power toward those who are powerless, and for nearly a half a century it's been wildly successful.

What you described is the result of the government acting as one big, but very conservative, union.

I think working conditions have changed enough since then to make a request for non-biased studies a reasonable one. Most debates about unions seem to boil down to “I just know” or anecdotes. I would expect unions to fund research to show that working conditions are better in union shops, but not include the fact that some unionized shops can’t compete in a market with non union shops and might go out of business. (But have great working conditions until the last day) And vice-versa for pro industry research. Unions are adversarial, and feel necessary to people that view employment or employers through that lens. It’s possible that we can still credit unions with the status quo, but 1they have nowhere near the adoption of vaccines to make the analogy a good one. I’d rather debate “which employers/industries” need unions than debate whether they are objectively good in all circumstances.

Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government). Where would we be without them?

Smart unions are supposed to take business conditions into account. If the business is losing money, the union would recognize that and pull back a bit, because it needs to be a symbiotic relationship to last, not a parasitic one. However, businesses are rarely willing to share honest financial numbers with their unions.

> Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government).

That’s not at all what a union is. Why else would federal workers need their own unions? The point of a union is collective bargaining power for labor. Federal workers have little to no bargaining power when budgets are set by Congress. Especially when they can’t strike.

I can't parse this comment in relation to the context.

This is what I was arguing against:

> Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government).

They’re pointing out that calling the federal government “a big union” is inaccurate, and reasons why.

It's accurate. The constitution of the United States explicitly describes it as a union in the preamble.

> Note that government labor regulations are effectively just really one big union (called the government). Where would we be without them?

Playing devil's advocate:

- Having government functionally like one big union make individual union obsolete.

But the government isn't very good at it. The government also represents the owners of the companies, and it did the bare minimum to stop the workers from literally murdering the owners and setting their houses on fire, which used to happen regularly before the government guaranteed minimum worker rights.

> Where would we be without them?

Where will you be without them, you mean. The current trajectory of the US government is the opposite of strengthening the rights of labour.

> The non partisan source is the history of the industrial revolution itself.

I think that’s less of a factor of unions existing themselves and more so the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws. Though certainly unions were advocating for stronger labor laws (as they should have been).

> I am not saying that you are doing this, but I tend to find that people who think we don't need unions anymore are engaging with the status quo in the same way as people who say we don't need vaccines anymore.

I wouldn’t think that, because that doesn’t make sense. Vaccines are a clear public good. Unions can be but aren’t necessarily. Or should I bring up public unions like police unions?

I don’t have a strong position on unions. I don’t care too much one way or the other. Folks should be able to freely organize, business should be able to freely fire. But I think the OP’s claims need more substance. If you look at “performance” well none of the Mag 7 have unions, all have insanely high pay, and great benefits to boot. Would it be better under a union? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I have additionally gone down a bit of a rabbit hole on this bit:

> the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws

To a meaningful extent, especially in 19th century Britain, the concept of the general public is the product of labour organisation, not the source of it.

It's a pretty new concept — the idea that the public have any single collective solidarity or consensus, can be consulted, have the ability to read newspapers etc.

A non-trivial part of that comes from the empowerment of labour, from the creation of commercial schools and universal education (which emerges from the social contract that grew as a result of organised labour interacting with the state etc.

Unions were powerful in the education of adults, they created unified leisure time, they furthered the idea of trade schools, they created a path to politics for the underclass, etc.; I don't think there would have been a general public without labour organisation. Just a rarified wealthy upper class.

I reject the notion that the public is the same thing as a union in the manner you are describing.

Again, I am literally not saying that they are. I very clearly say that, in some significant measure, the former is the product of the latter. That is the word I used. Not "the same thing".

Don't do these silly bad faith, straw man characterisations.

> Don't do these silly bad faith, straw man characterisations.

I reject the association literally or otherwise.

Labor laws came about because before there were labor laws, the employees would form an angry mob to burn down the boss's house and shoot his cat, and the boss would flee before he was next.

This is the same reason the government protects unions.

none of the Mag 7 have unions

They all recognise unions and have unionised employees in countries where unions are the default, with the exception of Tesla.

Not really. At least not in the way that matters.

Maybe you could explain what matters and what doesn’t?

Well if you have 50 employees in Ireland who are unionized or even, say some retail shops but the vast majority of your high-income and irreplaceable workers aren’t in a union and aren’t inclined to join or form one, I’d say some number of employees being unionized doesn’t really matter.

> I think that’s less of a factor of unions existing themselves and more so the public realizing the need for stronger labor laws. Though certainly unions were advocating for stronger labor laws (as they should have been).

> […]

> I wouldn’t think that, because that doesn’t make sense.

Then you don't really know history.

I know history better than you do, generally speaking.

You cherry-picked the wrong comment. Vaccines and vaccine adoption has nothing to do with unions nor are they even remotely comparable.

I literally did not say that vaccine and vaccine adoption has anything to do with unions. Why would you ever think I did? It's an analogy.

(Though as it goes, I suspect vaccine rollout and universal healthcare does, in fact, owe some of its ability to function to the products of the organised labour movement; national, universal healthcare in the UK literally sprang from the first Labour government)

If you can't understand why I am comparing anti-union with anti-vax, then I think you don't really understand the point I am making about history, or about culture.

> I literally did not say that vaccine and vaccine adoption has anything to do with unions. Why would you ever think I did? It's an analogy.

???

> we don't need unions anymore are engaging with the status quo in the same way as people who say we don't need vaccines anymore.

> If you can't understand why I am comparing anti-union with anti-vax, then I think you don't really understand the point I am making about history, or about culture.

If you want to remove vaccines and these analogies that's fine but you're clearly doing something you're claiming you are not.

It's an analogy. In that sentence I'm not saying that one has to do with the other.

I am talking there about the relationship of people arguing against a concept with the status quo for that respective concept.

The way those arguments are made is similarly ignorant of history, is the simple point.

It's not that difficult. Really. Other people grasped it.