by GreenWatermelon on 5/28/25, 4:55 PM with 133 comments
by droopyEyelids on 5/31/25, 12:42 AM
Our laws ban: sector unionization, sympathy and general strikes, and secondary boycotts.
On top of that, we have a very narrow definition of employee, an employers can permanently replace striking workers. The right to strike can even be taken away with a mandated cooling off period.
Even having one of those factors can hamstring unionization in a country, so they’re pretty much never going to “come back with a vengance” here
by kragen on 5/31/25, 2:04 PM
It's a disturbingly prescient read, and unfortunately I don't find the optimistic ending plausible.
by GreenWatermelon on 5/28/25, 4:57 PM
> In labor circles, “chickenization” refers to exploitative working arrangements that resemble the plight of the American poultry farmer. The U.S. poultry industry has been taken over by three monopolistic packers, who have divided the nation up into exclusive territories, so that each chicken farmer has only one buyer for their birds.
> Farmers are “independent small businesspeople” who nominally run their own operations, but because all their products must be sold through a single poultry processor, that processor is able to exercise enormous control over the operation. The processor tells the farmer which birds to raise, as well as what the birds are to be fed, how much, and on what schedule. The processor tells the farmer how to build their coops and when the lights are to go on and off. The processor tells the farmer which vets to use, and tells the vets which medicines to prescribe.
> The processor tells the farmer everything…except how much they’ll be able to sell their birds for. That is determined unilaterally when the farmer brings their birds to market, and the payout is titrated to the cent, to represent exactly enough money for the farmer to buy birds and feed and vet services through the processor’s preferred suppliers, and to service the debts on the coops and light and land, but not one penny more.
This amount of scumminess is mind boggling.
by theptip on 5/31/25, 5:16 PM
It’s by no means certain though, and i think the article takes an over-pessimistic take.
It’s true that uber drivers and doordashers get bid down, but this is the bottom rung of the ladder of unskilled labor; there is currently massive demand for this job.
If you look at restaurants I believe post-covid you see a different story, where workers are not racing to the bottom and instead employers need to offer way above minimum wage to fill roles. Trades would be an even better example, where skilled carpenters and mechanics are so in demand that it’s a comfortable six-figure job.
Personally I think all these low-skilled jobs are quite likely to be automated soon. How society responds to the influx of unemployed unskilled workers will be the crux. And of course the skill bar for automation will increase; in the long term many (most?) jobs are going to be automatable.
UBI or similar is the obvious solution, but Capital will of course oppose this vigorously. A new social contract will be needed; the slippery slope that the US is currently on does not end in a pretty place.
by euroderf on 5/31/25, 6:29 AM
by Animats on 5/31/25, 7:32 PM
There's a bill to provide some relief for poultry processors, but despite bipartisan support the bill hasn't gone anywhere.[1]
The dairy industry in the Northeast has managed to get into a strange situation. The dairy operators are suing their own cooperative for creating a monopsony and holding down raw milk prices. Milk is a shrinking market, but dairy farmers have a lot of political clout, which leads to some very strange situations.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/150...
[2] mhttps://vtdigger.org/2022/08/02/lawsuit-accuses-dairy-farmer...
by scotty79 on 5/31/25, 8:51 PM
That's what means to replace a manager with few lines of java (or with AI).
by bitwize on 5/31/25, 9:33 PM
by cosmicgadget on 5/31/25, 2:28 PM
by ses1984 on 5/31/25, 2:52 PM
by motoboi on 5/30/25, 10:33 PM
The ideia that a chess IA needs a human to be able to win is laughable. No human being even close to be capable of playing chess in the level of alpha zero.
by MichaelZuo on 5/31/25, 4:18 AM
Customers will vote with their wallets, assuming there are any durable net advantage to the customer base, so the cumulative effect would be far more penetrating and enduring than millions of written arguments.