Comments by "marinus18" (@MrMarinus18) on "Workers Are About To Get Way More Power. Here's How." video.

One of the biggest obstacles is the ban on secondary strikes. It keeps unions isolated from one another and while they can strike individually and gain some benefits they can never seriously gain any ground.
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Just taxing the rich won't get you anywhere. You need good social programs of wealth redistribution. Also it's time for us to just admit that some sectors of society like healthcare just are ran better by the public sector.
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But also there needs to be harder laws to gain more workplace democracy. I actually think the right to organize needs to be enshrined in the constitution.
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I think one important thing to consider is that today executives really don't have that much power. They are merely just servants to the shareholders who really control the company. The massive bonuses they get should be thought about more like political bribes.
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Unions usually help workers up even those not part of them and IBM is a good example of that. They might not have unions but the threat of unionization kept wages up.
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@mw4507 It's why "free trade" is such a bad thing and why a certain level of protectionism is needed. Also there need to be found other solutions like a larger public sector. Using that as an argument to be a slave is a pretty weak one.
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@JohnT.4321 You could be right, I'm not sure. All I care about is to break through the defeatism that has taken hold. But making a new constitution likely will have to be the end goal.
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I think one change that would make a big difference is a relative corporate fine. The fixed corporate fines mainly serve to punish small business who can be destroyed on a whim for making 1 mistake and protect big business which has so much money they can easily absorb the fines. I think corporate fines should be relative to their stock value. This not only would make fines more fair but it also would be a powerful incentive not to manipulate stocks to artificially inflate prices.
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But we also have to keep in mind human nature. Some companies spend far more on union busting than they would ever have to pay by just giving into demand. It's a feeling of control and power that is just as if not more important than the actual financial reality of the company.
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@PvblivsAelivs Given how easily they give in and how unionized workers work just fine I find that assertion baseless. It's kind of the same as saying welfare is a spiral of spending even though there is no evidence of that.
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@PvblivsAelivs You also assume that workers don't want to work. There is this strange distrust of workers as if they aren't people. I have no idea what system would compel workers to endlessly ask more. The only thing that comes to mind is inflation but that has been the case for a long time and never been a problem.
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@PvblivsAelivs There will indeed be a handful of people who for a while will take it easier, especially if they have been exploited for weeks. Yet with rich people what you see over and over is that they actively seek out work. You also see it with middle class woman who's children left the house. (Like what happened with my mom). There is a human need to be meaningful to society. So the idea that this will spin out of control is a claim I find very dubious. You again make a very big claim that doesn't have much logic behind it. A living wage means a dignified life that you can feel secure in. Poverty brings social stigma and anxiety which a living wage is meant to prevent. One of the best quotes explaining this actually comes from Adam Smith who explained that a linnen shirt (as opposed to one of wool) is an essential item for an English man. Not because he would freeze if he were wearing wool but because that's expected of a man worthy of respect. But again you assert that giving in will spiral out of control and I have seen no real example of that.
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@PvblivsAelivs I also find it remarkable how the suspected slothfulness of workers is used as a bigger argument than the obvious greed of capitalists. Aren't both equally sinful?
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@PvblivsAelivs And the peak of unionization and union power was the 1940's. I don't think unions brought laziness at all if the war successes of the US are anything to go by.
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@PvblivsAelivs When it's comparing the greed of corporations with the greed of workers I'm more worried about the greed of corporations since they have far more power and rely on their wealth rather than their labor for that power.
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@CyphDragon True but I still think it goes beyond that. Past to the point where it's rational.
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@CyphDragon Humans are not completely rational beings. The feeling of power matters a lot.
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