> I have a hard time squaring how you can be in a union with an adversarial relationship to management, whilst at the same time being an owner of the company. It's one or the other.
Unionized ESOP companies aren't uncommon.
You've got it a bit backwards about the adversarial relationship: having an ESOP and a union isn't some kind of organizational impossibility, and it can decrease the probability of a serious dispute between management and the union. [1]
Interesting, yeah those are good points. I can certainly see it reducing the severity of disputes in theory.
In practice though I'm skeptical. I've read a little about the history of UAW. They really seemed to view workers vs mgmt as an adversarial zero sum game. Meanwhile Toyota were developing their production system using the kaizen principle of bottom up continuous improvement. Unions played a huge role in making US autos uncompetitive against the Japanese brands for a long time.
I want to be pro-union but it's hard when you observe their real world behaviour. All too often they slowly strangle their company, making it less and less competitive and innovative and ultimately dooming it to defeat by new entrants who aren't yet encumbered by unions.
So it depends a bit on whether you talk about real world US unions like the UAW, or about what unions could be in theory and might be in other parts of the world.
Eg German unions have a reputation, at least compared to the US, of cooperating much more with their host companies. Similar also for Scandinavian unions.
It could also be the case that US unions operate in a country where power is held by a class of people who would really prefer their serfs to STFU and get back to whatever dangerous, ill-paid task they were assigned. When the most egregious wrongs are simply illegal and never happen then it is much easier for capital and labor to have a less adversarial relationship, but when you operate in a country like the US I would assume it is necessary for a union to be a bit more aggressive in its actions and objectives.
> It could also be the case that US unions operate in a country where power is held by a class of people who would really prefer their serfs to STFU and get back to whatever dangerous, ill-paid task they were assigned.
What makes you think European business owners are less greedy or evil? Capital is internationally mobile, and it's the same index funds owning a good chunk of all companies everywhere, too.
Business owners in Europe are not any less greedy or evil, they are simply constrained by laws and the political environment to be unable to commit the worst offenses.
Not sure. Workers in the US are better off than in Europe.
And within Europe, the places with the best off workers tend to be the ones with pro-business laws, like Switzerland (and in contrast to Greece or France).
It could also be the case that most people commenting do not have experience with very many unions and have adopted the portions of a goofy pro- vs anti-union argument that has existed in popular US culture since right-wing think tanks began poisoning public political dialogue in the seventies.
> They really seemed to view workers vs mgmt as an adversarial zero sum game.
That doesn't really affect the feasibility or otherwise of running an ESOP as a union shop. On the contrary, I imagine that if you view the entire thing as zero-sum, you might be more prone to think about what is going to happen to your stock's value if you strike, or take steps that negatively effect efficiency.
If you're not thinking zero-sum, you can use some pretty handwavey logic for thinking the next bonus you demand doesn't really negatively effect people like your coworkers or the shareholders, since you're merely being compensated for your inherent greatness that will inevitably lead to the company's greater success, blah blah... congratulations, you appear to be in senior management.
> Meanwhile Toyota were developing their production system using the kaizen principle of bottom up continuous improvement. Unions played a huge role in making US autos uncompetitive against the Japanese brands for a long time.
It doesn't seem unfathomable to me that a unionized company could develop something like the Toyota Production System. The German companies tout having learned from Toyota, and I don't know how true that is, but the successful, modern German car companies are all unionized. (in the greater context, Tesla is still nonunion and didn't appear to pay any attention to TPS when they brought their production online, which is maybe interesting)
And Ford gets GIANT markups on the F150s, they are super profitable for them and the best selling truck for many many years now. Toyota, Honda aren't even close to American truck and SUV sales.
So explain to me again how US autos aren't competitive with Japanese brands?
Unionized ESOP companies aren't uncommon.
You've got it a bit backwards about the adversarial relationship: having an ESOP and a union isn't some kind of organizational impossibility, and it can decrease the probability of a serious dispute between management and the union. [1]
[1] https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr347.html