Techdirt. Stories filed under "unions"

Techdirt. Stories filed under "unions" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "unions"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 14 May 2013 15:57:24 PDT Canadian Airline Files $4 Million Libel Suit Against 22 Striking Fuel Workers Over Twitter Account With ~200 Followers Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130505/16102022953/canadian-airline-files-4-million-libel-suit-against-22-striking-fuel-workers-over-twitter-account-with-200-followers.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130505/16102022953/canadian-airline-files-4-million-libel-suit-against-22-striking-fuel-workers-over-twitter-account-with-200-followers.shtml filed a $4 million libel lawsuit against some striking fuel workers based on tweets they sent out, which the airline claims involved "false and misleading information about safety protocols and training practices" by the airline. The strikers, who only just unionized last year, include just 22 workers who handle helping to fuel up the planes. Their twitter account, @PorterStrike, only had about 200 followers at the time (though it's now up to a whopping 400). The union quickly hit back, saying that the tweets were protected free speech, and no different than typical striking talk by union members:

“Before Twitter and social media, these things would have been said in a union hall and on a leaflet,” said COPE Ontario legal representative Glenn Wheeler. “The Charter of Rights provides for free expression, freedom of association. So we think we are in our constitutional rights to offer our version of the way we see things. That’s fair comment.”

That's an interesting choice of words, because he doesn't actually say that the statements were true, which would be the best defense to libel. However, even if the statements were questionable, one has to wonder how much actual "damage" they might do. One would like to expect that statements made by striking workers against their employer would already be viewed through a specific prism, and given how few Twitter followers there were, you'd have to imagine that Porter would have a difficult time showing any actual harm from the tweets in question. Separately, I wonder how much more of a reputational hit the company will take for suing less than two dozen striking workers for $4 million over some tweets...

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]]> seems-a-bit-extreme http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130505/16102022953 Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:24:37 PST Hollywood Unions: Now That You Lying Hacking Thieves Have Won, Can We Set A New Conciliatory Tone? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/16562717497/hollywood-unions-now-that-you-lying-hacking-thieves-have-won-can-we-set-new-conciliatory-tone.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/16562717497/hollywood-unions-now-that-you-lying-hacking-thieves-have-won-can-we-set-new-conciliatory-tone.shtml own members disagreed) have finally come out with their own statement on the whole PIPA/SOPA thing, and like the other supporters we've seen, it too, is totally tone deaf to what happened. Rather than recognizing the problems of the bill, it's obnoxious and condescending:

We recognize that we are currently part of a complex and important debate about the future, not just of the Internet but also of creativity, the American economy, free expression, and a civil society. We believe that the light should be being shined on every aspect of this discussion and on all of those who have a stake in it. We believe we should discuss what an unregulated ‘free’ Internet means for the future of content, just as we should also discuss the importance of an open Internet.

We welcome this debate. We hope a new tone can be set and it is not one that turns our advocacy for this legislation into an implication that we promote censorship. Our commitment to the First Amendment is decades old and long established – it is a matter of public record from long before the word ‘Internet’ was part of anyone’s vocabulary. If one truly embraces free expression, they do not take down the Library of Congress websites, the very symbol of our country’s belief in knowledge and learning. We would hope a new tone can be set that does not pit the creativity and innovation of our directors, actors, performers, craftspeople, and technicians against those innovators in other industries. We hope a new tone can be set that does not include website attacks, blacklists, blackouts, and lies. We believe an Internet that does not allow outright stealing has to be the Internet of the future or all the promises it holds will be unrealized.

First of all, the internet is not "unregulated" -- no matter how many times they insist it is. Second, given what we saw with Megaupload, it's pretty ridiculous to think that the US cannot (and does not) currently have the tools to go after foreign sites (in fact, there is some evidence that it has too many tools with too much power). But, really, what strikes me as ridiculous about this statement is that it attacks everyone whose opinion they totally ignored for over a year -- and then pretends that it wants to set a conciliatory tone? If you want "a new tone" to take place, let's start with you guys not calling people who raised legitimate concerns liars.

More importantly, if we're going to talk about "lies," let's start with the claims of "losses" that have widely been debunked, but which were used to put forth this legislation. Let's talk about the lies about the legislation being "narrowly targeted" when pretty much every legal analysis worried about its broad definitions. Let's talk about the lies that the legislation would not censor free speech -- when even the big First Amendment lawyer you presented to support this bill admitted that protected speech would be taken down under these laws.

Don't accuse others of lying when your side has a much bigger, much longer, much more detailed history of lying. Did some of those against the bills misunderstand them and present false information? Yes. But these are people who aren't used to reading legislation and may have missed key points. On the side of you and your lobbyists, you knew exactly what you were doing. I find that a lot more pernicious.

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]]> which-lies http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120120/16562717497 Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:03:25 PST Hollywood Union Members Sign Petition Asking MPAA & Hollywood Unions To Stop Supporting PIPA/SOPA Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111230/23592317245/hollywood-union-members-sign-petition-asking-mpaa-hollywood-unions-to-stop-supporting-pipasopa.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111230/23592317245/hollywood-union-members-sign-petition-asking-mpaa-hollywood-unions-to-stop-supporting-pipasopa.shtml against their wishes. They've put together a petition urging the MPAA, IATSE, IBT, WGA, SAG, DGA, and AFTRA to formally oppose both SOPA and PIPA, noting that it would be a barrier to innovation that Hollywood desperately needs, wouldn't actually stop infringement, and would also be an online security nightmare. The groups listed in the petition are basically all of the groups that have been major supporters of the bill, but as some of the signatories note, they want no part of this. Just a few examples:

I'm a proud Local One and USA829 member, and am appalled to find my union supporting this act. While I agree that piracy is bad, this act is ill-designed by legislators with no clue how the internet works, and guided by greedy corporations who have ulterior motives, and who have a track record of abusing the DMCA the same way they'll abuse this.

It will do nothing to stop it, will give unfettered power prone to abuse to corporations who don't deserve it, will short circuit due process, and will have huge unintended negative effects on the internet as a whole.

And, another one from a studio grip:

Proud Local 80 Motion Picture Studio Grip and I'm signing because these bills go too far. I'd like to think that IATSE is just trying to do what's best for its members. But, I think once they dig past the surface they will see the same thing I did. And that is that these bills need to be quashed. We need another way to deal with piracy.

Once again, for all the talk of widespread "support" of SOPA and PIPA, it seems to be crumbling in every direction, including from within the groups who have acted as if these bills were absolutely necessary.

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]]> losing-your-own-members http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111230/23592317245 Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:02:00 PST Luddite Redux: Don't Kill The Robots Just Because They Replace Some Jobs Andrew Fong http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111123/13243316892/luddite-redux-dont-kill-robots-just-because-they-replace-some-jobs.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111123/13243316892/luddite-redux-dont-kill-robots-just-because-they-replace-some-jobs.shtml Fun fact #1: California prison guards are expensive.

Fun fact #2: South Korea's getting robot prison guards. I'm sure the prisoners welcome their new robot overlords, but I bet the prison guards union doesn't. Or any other union for that matter. And they're not alone. Over the past few weeks, tech industry commentators spent slightly more time than usual wringing their hands over whether technology was killing jobs. I think this video captures the debate pretty well. It might sound paradoxical, but this replacement of humans by machines is actually a good reason to limit secondary liability for the robotics industry. And I'm not just referring to secondary liability in the copyright sense, but to any liability incurred by robot manufacturers because of how others use their robots.

This isn't a theoretical issue. Automation and efficiency have always threatened certain jobs and industries -- and one of the standard reactions is to somehow blame the technology itself and seek to hinder it, quite frequently by over-regulation. Of course, the extreme version of this is where the term "luddite" came from -- an organized effort to attack more efficient technology. Of course, that resulted in violence against the machines. More typical were overly burdensome regulations, such as "red flag laws," that said automobiles could only be driven if someone walked in front of them waving a red flag to "warn people" of the coming automobile. Supporters of this law, like supporters of secondary liability laws for robots, can and will claim that there are "legitimate safety reasons" for such laws and that the impact on holding back the innovation and extending the lifetime of obsolete jobs is just a mere side benefit. But like those red flag laws, applying secondary liability to robotics would significantly hinder a key area of economic growth.

Techdirt has covered the question of a secondary liablity safe harbor for robots before, and Ryan Calo's written a great paper about the legal issues coming out of the robotics arena, but an even more important (and specific) point is exactly why these safe harbors matter for job creation -- even as some continue to argue the other way (that such safe harbors will destroy jobs).

Technology has been replacing human labor since humans invented, well, technology. But while technology may get rid of inefficient jobs, it eventually creates replacements. To cite one commonly-used example, the switched telephone network put operators out of a job, but it created plentiful new jobs for telemarketers (and other businesses that relied upon the packet-switched phone network... including everything built on and around the internet today). The problem is that while it was obvious how many operators would be out of a job, it wasn't immediately clear how lucrative (or annoying) telemarketing could be, let alone the eventual transformation of the phone lines into a vast global information sharing network, and the hundreds of millions of new jobs created because of it.

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee examine this problem in detail in their book, which I recommend. But much of it boils down to this. Technology creates jobs, yet it's not obvious where the new jobs are, so we need bold, persistent experimentation to find them:

Parallel experimentation by millions of entrepreneurs is the best and fastest way to do that. As Thomas Edison once said when trying to find the right combination of materials for a working lightbulb: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Multiply that by 10 million entrepreneurs and you can begin to see the scale of the economy's innovation potential.

This is especially important for robotics. It's obvious how robots make certain jobs obsolete -- e.g. driverless cars don't need drivers -- but it's less clear what new job opportunities they open up. We need to try different things.

Unfortunately, secondary liability creates problems for robot manufacturers who open up their products for experimentation. Ryan Calo explains this in more detail, but the basic problem is that, unlike computers, robots can easily cause physical harm. And under product liability law in most states, when there's physical harm to person or property, everyone involved in the manufacturing and distribution of that product is legally liable.

Ideally, we'd want something like a robot app store. But robot manufacturers would be unwilling to embrace commercial distribution of third-party apps if it increased their chances of being sued. There's evidence that Section 230's safe harbors (and, to some extent, the DMCA's safe harbors) play a key role in facilitating third-party content on the web. Absent a similar provision for robots, manufacturers are more likely to limit their liability by sticking to single-purpose robots or simply locking down key systems. That's fine, if we know exactly what we want our robots to do -- e.g. replace workers. But if we want robots to create jobs, it'd help to limit secondary liability for the robotics industry, open things up, and let widespread experiments happen freely.

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]]> first,-do-no-harm http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111123/13243316892 Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:28:00 PDT Teachers Union Thinks It Blocked Online Classes...But It Didn't Timothy Geigner http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111014/03461116360/cal-teachers-union-thinks-they-blocked-online-classesbut-they-didnt.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111014/03461116360/cal-teachers-union-thinks-they-blocked-online-classesbut-they-didnt.shtml history of employment in the early days of this country and how woefully employers treated their people. Early labor unions also had a heavy hand in social reforms for ideals like free public education. Yay, unions! On the other hand, we're all aware of the stories of waste and corruption among big union leadership, the inefficiencies they create in the workforce, and the potentially detrimental effects on the economic competitiveness of America in a global marketplace. Damn you, evil unions!

And so it's under this same conflicted backdrop that I read what SD sent in, a story about the University of California's teachers' union gleefully celebrating the blocking of online courses. More specifically, the union is saying the language in the contract would allow them to block any online course that would result in lessening employment statistics for the school's lecturers, which make up a hefty percentage of the teaching force. Let's tackle a couple of things relating to this story.

First, examine some words from Bob Samuels, President of the union and possible jerky-quote-producing-android-automaton:

“We feel that we could stop almost any online program through this contract. We feel we got something that the university didn’t really understand."

The article goes on to note:

"And stop it they would. Regardless of any data administrators trot out to argue that students learn just as well online as they do in the classroom, the union would do whatever it could to block the university from moving courses online if it decides the move would make life worse for lecturers, says Samuels."

Now, perhaps you're like me and any time you hear someone say something that so clearly dismisses anyone else's well-being aside from their own, your brain shuts down your ears for fear that your entire faith in the basic providence of humanity would be vanquished in an angry mind-fire. So let me break this down for you. Samuels, President of a union of teachers, is saying that they'll block online courses regardless of any evidence as to their efficacy if it results in even one less lecturer on campus. Learning? Rising costs in education for students? Technological progress? Unimportant, fools! This is where I think back to the union leaders of old, who pushed for social reforms effecting those outside their union members, and wonder where it all went wrong.

(Fun side note: Samuels recently wrote an article for the Huffington Post suggesting that we forgo Obama and the Tea Party in favor on an online activist party. WHAT!!??? And put all those businesses that spring up around both the Obama campaign and Tea Party rallies out of work!!?? You know who disagrees with Bob Samuels? Bob Samuels!)

And here's the really fun part. The University reviewed the langauge Samuels is referring to and promptly chuckled something close to, "what the duck is he talking about?"

“They do not have the power to block the university from implementing new online programs,” says Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for the Office of the President. The most the [union’s] bargaining unit could do,” Klein says, “is provide written notice saying, ‘We don’t like this.’ ”

I think what's most amazing to me in all of this is that apparently there aren't any Public Relations teachers willing to give Samuels a hand. If you want to gain public support for limiting online classes, it's possible. You come out with some kind of study or research suggesting the benefit of lecturers to the actual education process, you make your argument to the school and the public, and we find out who wins. What you don't do is misinterpret legal language in a contract as saying you have power you don't and then gleefully provide quotes in articles that essentially amount to, "We got one over on a higher education institution and now they can kiss our collectively bargaining asses."

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]]> acted-like-assclowns-to-boot http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111014/03461116360 Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:06:00 PDT Contract Dispute Reveals That Intellectual Ventures Paid Consultant To Get Unions To Fight Patent Reform Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110316/23442113522/contract-dispute-reveals-that-intellectual-ventures-paid-consultant-to-get-unions-to-fight-patent-reform.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110316/23442113522/contract-dispute-reveals-that-intellectual-ventures-paid-consultant-to-get-unions-to-fight-patent-reform.shtml against patent reform. As we pointed out at the time, their arguments made no sense at all. Of course, also notable at the time was the fact that frequent Techdirt commenter and "all patents are perfect" supporter Ronald J. Riley claimed credit for getting the unions to come out against patent reform. This left us scratching our heads a bit, but perhaps it was true.

Turns out there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, and it wasn't Riley's tortured logic after all, but giant patent hoarder Intellectual Ventures throwing its weight (and cash) around. Joe Mullin points us to a blog post from the "Gametime IP" blog, which discusses a lawsuit filed against Intellectual Ventures by Pat Choate, who worked for Intellectual Ventures on a contractual basis -- and who also was on the "advisory board" of one of Riley's many "organizations." The full filing is embedded below.

Choate had written a book all about how lovely and wonderful the patent system is, and so Intellectual Ventures started chatting with him. Eventually, they asked him to head a project to stop patent reform, with part of the strategy being: get unions to oppose patent reform. As part of this, Choate was to be paid $30,000 a month. They also asked him to try to keep Intellectual Venture's involvement in derailing patent reform quiet, since top investors in IV, such as Bill Gates, supported patent reform.

The filing reveals that Choate took part in Congressional briefings organized by Intellectual Ventures, though it's unclear if those he met with knew whose payroll he was on. However, a big part of the strategy, dubbed "Plan B," was for Choate to use his influence with unions to have them oppose patent reform, even though the current patent system hurts the American economy and makes us less competitive (thereby hurting unions):

As agreed by Choate and Harter, Choate's role was to devise strategy and tactics, perform analysis, serve as an expert witness, and educate opponents of the legislation about its nuances. Because of Choate's long-standing relationship with organized labor, Harter and Choate agreed that a primary focus of Choate's efforts on behalf of Plan B was to work with organized labor to educate union leadership about the legislation and its harmful impact on job creation, and to facilitate union opposition against it.

That was in May of 2007. The union announcement was in August of 2007. So, basically, IV paid this consultant $30,000 a month to get unions (who really should know better) to oppose patent reform, and he succeeded. The dispute, by the way, is because Choate claims that IV promised to pay him for two more years at one point, and after Congress watered down the Patent Reform Act to make it less than worthless, IV changed its position and began supporting the current bill (as if you needed any more evidence that the Patent Reform Act won't improve the system...). Choate wants all the money he believes is owed to him. I'm indifferent on the actual dispute, but interesting to see a bit of the cigar chomping backroom dealings come out in the sunlight.

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]]> well-look-at-that http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110316/23442113522 Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:10:00 PDT RIAA Gets AFL-CIO To Support Performance Tax: Payments In Perpetuity For A Small Amount Of Work Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100428/0210449211.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100428/0210449211.shtml officially signed on to support the RIAA's highly questionable performance tax. This is a bogus attempt to boost RIAA revenue by taxing radio stations for promoting their music. The RIAA has been going around claiming that radio promoting its music is a "kind of piracy", while at the same time claiming it's somehow illegal for radio stations not to play RIAA music. Yeah. Logic is not the RIAA's strong suit. Even worse, of course, is that the RIAA has blatantly demonstrated that it knows there's tremendous value in getting its music on the air. It's been involved in payola scams for decades. To basically get the government to mandate reverse payola is the height of obnoxiousness.

Of course, what does the AFL-CIO have to do with any of this? Absolutely nothing. It's pure politicking on the part of the RIAA and its offshoot lobbying group musicFIRST. The main point is to get more Congressional folks on board with the tax by saying "the unions support it!" Somewhere down the line, I'm sure the RIAA will come to the support of the AFL-CIO on some other random bill as well.

But what's really ridiculous is the statement made by the AFL-CIO explaining why they support this:

"The labor movement was founded on the principle that a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay. That's the principle at stake in the fight for the Performance Rights Act."

But that's not even close to true. The Performance Rights Act is about the opposite of a fair day's pay for a hard day's work. It's about getting paid over and over and over and over and over again for a bit of work done years ago. And, it's not a "fair day's pay" either. A fair day's pay is a contractually agreed upon wage between two parties. This is about the gov't forcing a totally unnecessary and nonsensical tax on radio stations for promoting RIAA music. In what world is it fair to tax someone who helps promote your work?

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]]> hard-day's-work? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100428/0210449211 Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:42:00 PDT Wal-Mart Abusing Trademark Law To Try To Shut Down Union Website Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090809/1048395817.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090809/1048395817.shtml finally starting to recognize that suing gripes sites was not a good idea. First, you would almost certainly lose. But more importantly, you'd end up drawing a lot more attention to the gripes sites. However, it certainly looks like there are a bunch of folks who have not gotten the message. Soon after that article, we saw Goldman Sachs go after a gripes site, and the same story played out again. Lots more attention to the gripes site, and the all-powerful Goldman Sachs eventually forced to back down.

And yet, it keeps happening.

The latest such story takes place up in Canada, and rather than a traditional disgruntled customer or ex-employee, the gripes site in question is from a union.Michael Scott points us to the news that Wal-Mart is trying to shut down a union website using quite a creative interpretation of trademark law, to suggest it blocks out all sorts of stuff it does not:

They want the court to order the union:

to refrain from using the names Wal-Mart or Walmart as a trademark alone, or with other indicia, in any form or format

not to use the expressions "Walmart Workers Canada" or "Union for Walmart Workers" in any form or format

not to use the expression "Get respect. Live better." or any other expression which constitutes a play on Wal-Mart's trademarked slogan "Save money. Live better"

not to use photos or images of WalMart employees or people purporting to be such employees

not to use an oval, circular or semi-circular design similar to the Spark Design that includes spokes or figures in association with trademark Walmart in any form or format

to take down the website www.walmartworkerscanada.ca

Pretty much all of those requests seem like very questionable attempts to censor and silence organizing workers, rather than any legitimate attempt to protect trademarks against confusing use in commerce. And, of course, in doing so, all Wal-Mart is doing is drawing a lot more attention to these union claims... and to the fact that Wal-Mart appears to be acting like a big bully.

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]]> not-a-fan-of-free-speech-apparently http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090809/1048395817 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:13:00 PDT The Problems Of A Legacy Business: Verizon's Union Freaks Out That Verizon Wants To Look Forward Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090713/1916365532.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090713/1916365532.shtml flips out and accuses the company of trying to undermine the union by helping Verizon get out of the landline business, so it can get rid of those workers. Seriously. First of all, there's little evidence to suggest that's true. Like most traditional telcos, Verizon still sees its basic landline business as a useful cash cow that I'm sure it intends to milk for as long as possible. Chances are, since VZW is a separate company, the marketing plan had nothing to do with the parent's marketing efforts. But, either way, at some point the company should be pushing customers to ditch landlines and other older technologies and embrace better solutions. Not because it puts old union guys out of work, but because it's where the market is headed.

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]]> what-a-shame http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090713/1916365532 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:16:00 PDT Tech Companies Worried About Unions Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090317/0247554148.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090317/0247554148.shtml happened back in 2000 when the tech bubble collapsed, and it's happening again today, in part due to recently proposed legislation that would make it easier to unionize. Apparently, the tech industry is especially worried about this -- and they should be. I'm very much a student of the economics of unions (I do have a degree in labor relations, after all, which included more classes than I'd care to remember on both labor history and labor economics) and while I recognize the tremendous value that collective bargaining provided a century ago to workers who were helpless to fight back against abusive management, that's not the situation we're in today. Unionizing the tech industry would be a disaster for the economy and innovation.

Collective bargaining is one thing, but unions tend to be more focused on protectionism, rather than just getting workers together to bargain a deal. And much of our innovative environment is encouraged by a dynamic workforce with increased job mobility, allowing for a cross-pollination of ideas, as opposed to a stagnant and limited workforce. Unionization takes away the necessary flexibility of both workers and employers, greatly slowing down the pace of innovation. It could make sense in a static, totally mature environment, but it's difficult to think of many of those. These days, almost every industry needs to be innovating, and you don't do that with a unionized structure. Just the very nature of building a structure that encourages an antagonistic relationship between "workers" and "management" misses the point, these days. A friend mentioned the other day that workers today are more likely to be shareholders than union members, so perhaps they'll recognize this and not go down a bad path that leads to fewer jobs, less innovation and more economic toil. Unions are the last thing that the tech industry needs right now.

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]]> recession-time... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090317/0247554148 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:41:00 PDT Spectacularly Bad Ideas In Response To The Financial Crisis Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081022/0327382617.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081022/0327382617.shtml
The first is apparently in the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review, where two business school professors suggest that business managers should be licensed, similar to doctors and lawyers. That's a fantastic idea if you want to basically destroy business growth. In fact, we've already examined how these sorts of "professional unions" often are really designed to simply inflate prices for services by limiting the supply of service providers. These sorts of licensing systems often do little to actually "protect" consumers, but do plenty to make them pay more. If you added the same situation to business managers, you'd make running any kind of business significantly more expensive, while removing from the pool of potential managers plenty of people who would excel at the job. While you can at least understand some of the reasoning for licensing some professions, management is one where it's hard to see any rationale, as creativity and out-of-the-box thinking is often what managers need the most.

The second also seems to come from the medical profession, and it would be to purposely slow down innovation by forcing all new financial instruments to go through a complex approval process similar to what it takes for drugs to be approved. I can't think of a better way to kill the economy than that. I've been meaning to dig into some of the problems with the health care system for a few months (though, the whole financial crisis has pushed that back), and one of the biggest problems with it right now is the process for approving drugs, which often does more harm than good. Extending that broken process to other businesses, such as the financial industry, would basically ensure that money would quickly flow out of the US and into other countries that have more reasonable financial systems.

I can understand the desire to come up with big solutions to "fix" the problems that created this financial mess, but suggestions like these are simply scary overreactions by people who don't seem to understand what really caused the problems. Both of these suggestions would make things significantly worse, based on the false belief that you can somehow have some body (government or licensing body) that can decide what's "good" and what's "bad" for business.

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]]> wow http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081022/0327382617 Tue, 9 Sep 2008 19:09:00 PDT Like Clockwork: Question Raised About Techies Unionizing Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080908/0349222203.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080908/0349222203.shtml 2000, then again in 2002. We must have missed the 2004 one, but there was yet another in 2006. And, now that it's 2008, we've got another one, asking if techies should unionize.

It's all a bit silly. The reason for organizing labor is because the employers have unchecked power to set working conditions and wages -- meaning that there's not enough bargaining power by the employees as individuals. However, that's hardly the case in the tech industry, where there's tons of competition, and good tech employees have many options for where to work and under what conditions. It seems like all of the stories about unionizing seem to be planted by unions themselves looking to boost ranks, but without offering any serious reason why tech workers should even think about organizing.

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]]> yeah,-it's-not-gonna-happen http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080908/0349222203 Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:41:00 PST How Professional Licensing Groups Distort The Market Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080213/123847248.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080213/123847248.shtml a new type of anti-competitive union, hidden beneath the veneer of public interest. I should be clear up front, as someone who actually has a degree in this stuff, and spent plenty of time with unions that I have no problem with the concept of collective bargaining. The problem is that many union activities are less about collective bargaining and more about anti-competitiveness. It appears that Forbes has now stepped up to the plate with a very similar article to ours, noting that professional organizations are the new unions, not only hiding behind bogus claims of public interest, but also doing a lot more harm than good in many cases. As the article notes, these professional licensing organizations raise fees, shrink the labor pool and often make things less safe -- by encouraging people to do dangerous things they might otherwise hire a professional to do, if that professional weren't kept artificially expensive. In effect, the arguments in favor of these types of licenses are similar to the arguments in favor of DRM or other limitations on a market. While they may sound good upfront to those in a position to leverage the monopoly power granted by them, the unintended consequences over the long term harm everyone.

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]]> the-new-unions http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080213/123847248 Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:33:53 PST I Wonder If The Blogger's Union Will Deem Me A 'Workhorse' Timothy Lee http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080117/222225.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080117/222225.shtml proposal for unionizing bloggers is pretty silly to begin with. There are absolutely no barriers to entry for blogging, so if a writer feels he's not being fairly compensated, he always has the option to jump to a new blog, or to start one of his own. And because a lot of bloggers work out of their homes, some common union concerns, such as workplace safety, just don't apply. But the thing that really irritates me about Mooney's proposal is the idea that the bloggers' union will "set up a structure that separates the workhorse bloggers from the pure hobbyists." It seems to me that this totally misses the point of blogging. Bloggers blog first and foremost because they enjoy it and are passionate about the subjects they're writing about. Some of us are lucky enough to make some money in the process. Many of us are not. But nobody is entitled to be paid for blogging. And we certainly don't need an official bureaucracy in charge of deciding whose blogging is "professional" enough to merit compensation. There's no reason to think that union's process for determining who gets a paycheck would be any less arbitrary than the system we've got now, but it would be guaranteed to generate a lot of needless bitterness and resentment.

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]]> silly-ideas http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080117/222225 Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:55:32 PDT Unions Make Ridiculous Arguments Against Patent Reform Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070824/170344.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070824/170344.shtml argue with us in the comments, but his arguments are based on the faulty assumption that pretty much all patents are good and anyone accused of patent infringement has clearly "stolen" the hard work of someone else. The fact is that that's very rarely the case. As we've seen repeatedly, many patents should never have been issued as they don't qualify as non-obvious or they're too broad. In those cases, patents are clearly an economic hardship, and there's plenty of research to back that up. Also, most cases of patent infringement occur when multiple companies come up with the same type of solution independently, which is hardly "stealing." No matter though. By focusing on the false idea that all patent infringement is stealing, it can be a very compelling case for those who don't delve into the details.

The latest news is that Riley has convinced the AFL-CIO to come out against the latest attempt at patent reform. Now there's a lot to dislike in the latest attempt at patent reform, and we'd be upset if it passed as is. But the two specific things that the unions are complaining about are the two most reasonable things in the reform package. The first would change how damages are calculated, so that if the infringing component is only a small piece of a larger product, the damages shouldn't be based on the value of the larger product, but the value of that small piece. That seems completely fair. Why shouldn't the damages be reflective of the actual value? It's hard to see why that's controversial, but it is if you hold completely irrelevant patents and you want to hold up those companies that are actually making useful technologies. The second complaint is with making it easier to contest a patent after it's been issued. This is also a no-brainer. Given how little review goes into a current patent, along with the fact that patent examiners are given incentives to approve, rather than reject -- combined with the length of time it currently takes to get a patent reviewed, the incredibly arcane rules that everyone is required to go through to contest a patent and the quick draw of some courts who refuse to wait for the patent office to review patents, it makes sense to have a better system to make sure a patent is valid. Why would anyone be opposed to improving the quality of patents... unless they hold questionable patents?

Unfortunately, Riley's organization appears to have blinded the AFL-CIO to what's really happening. In convincing them that this is about stopping theft, he apparently left out all the economic research showing that it would actually do plenty of harm to the industries that most employ AFL-CIO workers. That's because it would limit their ability to innovate, make it more expensive to do research, and open up opportunities for foreign companies to do a much better job innovating and beating us in the market. Of course, given the history of the AFL-CIO, they must be used to that kind of effect, because that's been the result of previous policies in previous decades. In the meantime, Riley is hoping that by getting the support of unions, Democrats will feel compelled to vote against patent reform -- and, in fact, a Wall Street Journal article on this same subject suggests that the AFL-CIO's letter has been effective in slowing the reform effort. Hopefully, though, someone will explain to both the unions and the politicians the basic economics of monopolies and how they slow competition and innovation. If the folks at the AFL-CIO would like a detailed explanation for why their letter actually goes against the best interests of the people they supposedly represent, they should give us a call.

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]]> a-little-economics-would-be-good-here http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070824/170344