The work rules are the thing that gets me. The idea of paying employees more? Great. Protection from discrimination and unfair termination? Collective bargaining? Great. But I can't imagine how it's possible to get anything done with the work rules.
Companies that operate this way must be in slow paced industries. To innovate you must be able to just do stuff. As soon as you add a bunch of hoops and sign-offs you lose momentum.
My own hypothesis on this is that it's not just a matter of high overhead but of slowing things down to the point that it breaks the dopamine reinforcement loop for the human beings involved. Humans need to be able to see results or at least movement toward them in a reasonable amount of time or it becomes really difficult to stay focused and engaged.
The work rules and bureaucracy element is like 100% of my skepticism about unions. Get rid of that stuff and I'd be all for them.
That being said, unions aren't the only source of inane bureaucracy of course. Many organizations without unions manage to invent worthless tar pits of their own.
Companies that operate this way must be in slow paced industries. To innovate you must be able to just do stuff. As soon as you add a bunch of hoops and sign-offs you lose momentum.
My own hypothesis on this is that it's not just a matter of high overhead but of slowing things down to the point that it breaks the dopamine reinforcement loop for the human beings involved. Humans need to be able to see results or at least movement toward them in a reasonable amount of time or it becomes really difficult to stay focused and engaged.
The work rules and bureaucracy element is like 100% of my skepticism about unions. Get rid of that stuff and I'd be all for them.
That being said, unions aren't the only source of inane bureaucracy of course. Many organizations without unions manage to invent worthless tar pits of their own.