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Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
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Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#22Unionizing tech workers will not save tech jobs. It'll only create an additional costs to the employees. We saw similar trends in the 80s when the PC started to displace the mainframe developers/users. The pool of available mainframe jobs shrank somewhat, while the demand for PC developers exploded. Every major technology change creates these displacements. The answer isn't to look for unions to save your job. It's t…
People who think unions don't benefit workers are the flat earthers of the 21st century.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#23My team was recently laid off, myself included. Before formal termination my employer had to negotiate with my union and run everything past them - from a potential exit deal (which I opted not to take) to the whole layoff procedure and new organizational structure. This is to make sure it was all by the books and I was getting everything I was entitled to. We have no collective agreement, but any employee who is individually part of a union has this right.
Some employers (completely non-maliciously, I should add!) simply don't know all the relevant labor law either, like summertime vacation entitlements, how the employee is allowed to search for other work during the notice period, unemployment insurance stuff, etc. It made a stressful situation much better for me knowing I have someone who knows this checking everything and advocating for me.
I keep seeing people say "unions won't work" in other countries. Who knows, maybe they're right. I'm just glad I don't live in one of those, I guess.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#24Unionizing tech workers will not save tech jobs. It'll only create an additional costs to the employees. We saw similar trends in the 80s when the PC started to displace the mainframe developers/users. The pool of available mainframe jobs shrank somewhat, while the demand for PC developers exploded. Every major technology change creates these displacements. The answer isn't to look for unions to save your job. It's t…
People who think unions don't benefit workers are the flat earthers of the 21st century.
And those that believe unions benefit workers, particularly in the tech space, are the same people that think life would be better under a collectivist form of government and that the minimum wage needs to be raised continuously. Unions had their place in early 20th century. Those conditions are in the past. If your "conditions" in a tech job needs improvement, get a new job. Anyone that went into tech expecting it to be like a 7-3 manufacturing job, went into the wrong business. I spent years working 60+ hours a week and loved it. If you don't, change careers.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#25Unionizing tech workers will not save tech jobs. It'll only create an additional costs to the employees. We saw similar trends in the 80s when the PC started to displace the mainframe developers/users. The pool of available mainframe jobs shrank somewhat, while the demand for PC developers exploded. Every major technology change creates these displacements. The answer isn't to look for unions to save your job. It's t…
Do you have any data to back up your claims? Because from what I understand, unions were the backbone of the recovering US labor market following the Great Depression, which punctuated a period of extreme speculation and inequality (the Gilded Age) similar to what we're seeing today. The data I've seen largely show that union membership is highly correlated with better pay, benefits, and working conditions. It seems…
I'm not advocating for not having unions, but the idea some people have and corporations push is based on a hypothesis that companies will try their best to minimize costs.
Unions do have these real benefits for the workers who are a part of them, and these benefits come at the cost of the corporations who have to pay more and implement better practices.
This increases the cost of human labor, so when doing a purely greedy analysis of costs vs revenue, the costs go up for processes which requires human labor, which drives down the profit, disincentivizing investment or even the continuation of processes that require unionized labor. Overall, there winds up being less demand for human labor and more demand for automation.
I'm not here to speak on the truth of this, I think of it from this perspective: Information asymmetry (not understanding the opposing argument) benefits the party who has the information, so understanding their argument is necessary if you want to counter it.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#26Unionizing tech workers will not save tech jobs. It'll only create an additional costs to the employees. We saw similar trends in the 80s when the PC started to displace the mainframe developers/users. The pool of available mainframe jobs shrank somewhat, while the demand for PC developers exploded. Every major technology change creates these displacements. The answer isn't to look for unions to save your job. It's t…
Unions aren't just about protecting jobs. They play a critical role in job conditions as well. The most obvious example is the unpaid overtime we all are forced to provide (on call, weekend work to meet crazy exec deadlines etc) simply because we are classified as 'exempt' employees. Also, classic factory unions are not the only kind possible. The SAG is a good example of a union representing (often) highly paid work…
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Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#27Unionizing tech workers will not save tech jobs. It'll only create an additional costs to the employees. We saw similar trends in the 80s when the PC started to displace the mainframe developers/users. The pool of available mainframe jobs shrank somewhat, while the demand for PC developers exploded. Every major technology change creates these displacements. The answer isn't to look for unions to save your job. It's t…
Unions aren't just about protecting jobs. They play a critical role in job conditions as well. The most obvious example is the unpaid overtime we all are forced to provide (on call, weekend work to meet crazy exec deadlines etc) simply because we are classified as 'exempt' employees. Also, classic factory unions are not the only kind possible. The SAG is a good example of a union representing (often) highly paid work…
This isn't new however. We've always been subject to these cycles. Expecting a union to mitigate cycles is a fantasy. All it can do is protect the mediocre that are displaced by the AI. We saw the same reaction when companies began to employ more contractors and offshore more work. The mistake is to believe that we are somehow experiencing something new. We're not. If you've ever worked in an environment where the management supported "top-ranking", it's similar, except it occurred once or twice a year. No one is guaranteed a job. What I see here are concerns from people whose primary job seems to be coding, likely most on the web based applications. These were always commodity jobs as Amazon told me a decade ago. The value that tech people bring are understanding the business, the problem, and proposing solutions. As of now, AI cannot do that effectively. Instead of hoping for unions to mitigate the displacement or shorten the work week, a better strategy is to figure out how to be irreplaceable. If you're slinging code for 40+ hours a week, you have ALWAYS been disposable.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#28I currently am mid 30s and 10 years into my career. I have no interest in joining a union right now, simply because I am confident in my skill and my ability to increase my earnings and career progression without being a member of a union.
Maybe when I hit peak earnings and no longer get a sizeable raise when hopping jobs every 3-4 years and the personal progression is no longer satisfying, I'd be interested in a union.
Notably, I have never been laid off and I have enough savings/investments to keep my family fed and housed for years if I am without work.
When I stop caring about career progression, about learning and growing, and just want to receive a paycheck for minimal effort until I can't be bothered showing up at work anymore, I'd be more than happy to join a union to ride it out. Until then, for purely selfish and individualistic reasons, I'd rather be solo.
Likely what would happen is by the time I want to join a union, it's no longer feasible for one reason or another, but I'll have enough savings by then (or we're all screwed anyway) to be fine.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
People who think unions don't benefit workers are the flat earthers of the 21st century.
And those that believe unions benefit workers, particularly in the tech space, are the same people that think life would be better under a collectivist form of government and that the minimum wage needs to be raised continuously. Unions had their place in early 20th century. Those conditions are in the past. If your "conditions" in a tech job needs improvement, get a new job. Anyone that went into tech expecting it t…
Working 60+ hours a week for years is nothing to brag about. It just means your projects were mismanaged, done poorly and you were absolutely taken advantage of. You also mentioned in another comment that you are disposable if you are "slinging code" 40+ hours a week.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any serious efforts to organize tech labor now?
#30my understanding is google in australia was quite successful at unionising after quite a few layoffs. don’t know if anyone can confirm