| ▲ | e63f67dd-065b 3 hours ago |
| The original impetus was more about banning robotaxis in Boston/MA than it is about the actual bargaining, from what I've heard. Just as the teamsters tried to ban cars to protect horse carriage drivers (that's what teamsters were, that's why they're called teamsters), they're back to ban the next mode of transportation. If you were at any of the city council meetings where this topic was brought up it was a circus show with people repeating 'boston is a union town' and grilling waymo execs. |
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| ▲ | bwestergard 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Do you have a citation for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (today's "Teamsters") ever trying to ban automobiles? That doesn't really make sense to me chronologically. It is not mentioned in "Fighting Traffic", which would be quite an oversight! https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ |
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| ▲ | achatham 23 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | No idea about them trying to ban automobiles, but oil pipelines were invented to get around their friction. From _The Prize_, referencing the mid-1800s: "From the first discoveries, teamsters, lashing their horses, had clogged the roads of the Oil Regions with their loads of barrels. They were more than just a physical bottleneck. Holding a monopoly position, they charged exorbitant rates; it cost more to move a barrel over a few miles of muddy road to a railway stop than to transport it by rail from western Pennsylvania all the way to New York. The teamsters’ stranglehold on transportation led to an ingenious effort to develop an alternative—transportation by pipeline." | |
| ▲ | BoggleOhYeah 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They don’t have a citation because they made it up. |
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| ▲ | satvikpendem 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Same for the longshoremen union, much is still done by hand whereas in other countries the shipping infrastructure is largely automated and much more efficient. |
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| ▲ | pibaker 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think it is fascinating that HN thinks it is bad for workers in other professions to protest against things that take away their earning abilities, and then proceed to protest against things that take away the earning abilities of tech workers — AI, immigration, outsourcing, non necessary layoffs, you name it. |
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| ▲ | dantillberg an hour ago | parent [-] | | There are multiple different people that post comments here, each with their own divergent opinions. | | |
| ▲ | xg15 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You do see some obviously popular opinions on many threads though. | |
| ▲ | gchamonlive an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | You'd be surprised how much of a bubble HN actually is compared to the general public. |
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| ▲ | cbdevidal 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Doesn’t appear they were successful, seems self driving taxis are still allowed. From my understanding, they have better bargaining rights for companies intending to switch to automation, but nothing preventing a scrappy upstart with only driverless taxis from coming in and eating their lunch. |
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| ▲ | eamag 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Exactly, there's an episode covering it on Freakonomics Radio: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/in-a-driverless-world-who-l... |
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| ▲ | criddell 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Just as the teamsters tried to ban cars to protect horse carriage drivers Is that true? |
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| ▲ | asdfasvea 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | So a random poster makes an assertion and rather than Google it and verify it yourself you throw out a request for another random poster to concur? And that concurrence you will take at face value and then believe the original assertion? | | |
| ▲ | wmeredith 30 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I think it's reasonable to request the person making the assertion to back it up. It's not on the audience to either only debunk or accept the assertion. It can just be rejected. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. | | |
| ▲ | DoneWithAllThat 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Why is an anodyne factual claim an “extraordinary claim”? What makes that particular claim extraordinary? They didn’t claim to have discovered perpetual motion or something you can’t prove or disprove yourself, just shared a historical fact you can easily just check up on if you choose not to believe them. |
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| ▲ | Forgeties79 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No. Quite the opposite if these first search results I'm reading are any indicator. |
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| ▲ | Forgeties79 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You need to check your facts on that one just fyi. A cursory google search proves this is definitely not true. |
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| ▲ | beastman82 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Well yeah they're presenting an irrational argument to benefit the few. |
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| ▲ | palmotea 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Well yeah they're presenting an irrational argument to benefit the few. The only few that should benefit are the owners. If a few workers try to benefit, they're greedy bastards who would be pounded down. | | |
| ▲ | whimsicalism 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I would also be opposed to laws making it illegal for anyone to compete with the owners. | |
| ▲ | xp84 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Unions are great and all, but they cannot solve all problems purely by maximizing their demands. If the resulting business (with the unions and the costs of satisfying them) is no longer able to offer a compelling marketplace offering then all the unions accomplish is destroy their own jobs. This is actually nuanced (meaning there is probably an ideal balance where both parties can enjoy benefits, but too far in either direction is either toxic to the workers or kills the business) but unfortunately the discussion is generally conducted with this kind of flippant emotional appeal. I think that’s why unions are in massive decline. A ton of unionized jobs died because the businesses couldn’t compete, and businesses work to avoid unions at all costs because of that reputation. A lose-lose for workers. | | |
| ▲ | gopher_space 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | A key thing to understand about unions is that they're a lot of effort to set up and manage, and the time spent on it is in addition to your normal work hours. They don't just spring up out of nowhere. If you're looking at a union there's a specific reason it formed, and probably a specific person in management behind that reason. > A lose-lose for workers. There's an ancient saying in labor: "the only thing worse than a union is no union." | |
| ▲ | GolfPopper 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >A ton of unionized jobs died because the businesses couldn’t compete, and businesses work to avoid unions at all costs because of that reputation. Do you have a source for any of this beyond "a corporate spokesmouth said so"? |
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| ▲ | ETH_start 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When owners try to lock down industries with government restrictions, we also oppose that. In this case, society as a whole is harmed by what the unions are demanding. It means everybody, including other workers, get less affordable goods and services. Greater affordability through automation is the sole means by which wages and purchasing power increase over time. | |
| ▲ | dominotw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | ok hope you stick to this stance when ai comes for your job | | |
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