1. Because most people aren't treated that badly.
2. Because Americans have been systematically brainwashed to think Unions are awful things. Everyone has horror stories of Unions, Unions will take away your "right to work", etc...
Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
41–50 of 153 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on where you're at, right? You'll find tons of developers on Upwork willing to work for less. Isn't that the future for most of us? We're tomorrow's factory workers. Corporations have already shown that they'll work to suppress wages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... The long game is to promote STEM fields and increase supply - pushing down wages and benefits.
So not teaching more people engineering is a good thing? Are you really advocating ignorance to artificially constrain the supply in the market of competent engineers? Non-competes, no-poaching, etc and illegal acts to constrain salaries are deplorable, yes, but are you going to be able to change the profit motive of business? Nope. What you can change is how you market yourself and seeking other opportunities for in…
There is a quota on doctors why not on engineers? We're already OK with the former.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#43Two big reasons. #1 Abundant labor, meaning buyers market, so developers don't have leverage. This has a pretty good primer on the topic: Democracy At Work https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/... #2 I'm as pinko commie liberal socialist as they come, and I can't imagine how even the most well intentioned (least alt-factual neo-reactionary libertarian) group of developers can coordinate collect…
Wow you and I live in alternate universes. In my experience, and having been without work at various times, and freelancing... I believe developers are scarce. You need an aptitude and some (self?) training to take part and a lot of people can't be bothered.
That being said, I see you describe yourself as a "pinko commie" and as a business owner who was at one time a union administrator in a past life I would never hire you, so perhaps that explains the bubble you are living in.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#44Because developers don't see any advantage in unionizing.
It's like asking why cats don't herd.
Also many of the issues that matter to you don't matter to developers, or aren't convincingly argued.
If you want developers to unionize the first step is consulting them on what changes they'd like to see and then creating an organization to effect those changes, treat the union like a lean startup creating an MVP and I bet you may have success.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#45No thanks. I prefer to negotiate on my own and represent myself. I don't trust unions and I think they lead to massive inefficiency.
I would support a professional organization however that performs some amount of accreditation and peer review especially if it led to better hiring decisions throughout the industry and higher quality software.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#46"Why am I getting reprimanded?" "Because you ran a unit test..." "What is wrong with that?" "It's Brian's job to press that key, not yours. You violated Union rules"
You know unions can make and not make whatever rules they want, right? There's nothing intrinsic about unions that would cause that rule to exist.
Yeah, but Brian really wanted that rule.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#47Two big reasons. #1 Abundant labor, meaning buyers market, so developers don't have leverage. This has a pretty good primer on the topic: Democracy At Work https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/... #2 I'm as pinko commie liberal socialist as they come, and I can't imagine how even the most well intentioned (least alt-factual neo-reactionary libertarian) group of developers can coordinate collect…
Wow you and I live in alternate universes. In my experience, and having been without work at various times, and freelancing... I believe developers are scarce. You need an aptitude and some (self?) training to take part and a lot of people can't be bothered. That being said, I see you describe yourself as a "pinko commie" and as a business owner who was at one time a union administrator in a past life I would never h…
Good developers are scarce, bad ones aren't.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#48Collective action is hard, particularly when tech companies form and dissolve very quickly and turnover is high. In addition to unions, worker ownership through cooperatives is another avenue for better conditions. In worker cooperatives, workers own the business, so business objectives are much more aligned with labor. Cooperatives don't have to worry about management union-busting or moving production elsewhere.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#49I can only speak for myself, but I will never join a union. It's a political thing for me. I know not everyone feels that way, but I also know that I'm not the only one strongly opposed to unionization.
Scab!
I wish you weren't being downvoted! If you join an organization that is union you should almost certainly join. Otherwise... You're a scab. That's how it goes. Sorry HN doesn't see reality.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?
#50If it wasn't for Steve Jobs we might have agents like Hollywood actors. To me the real question is why don't we have agents like actors and basketball players? We could be like actors and have both a union and our own agents. But thanks to Jobs conspiring to hold back engineer income we have a situation where we are often leveraged into poverty.
Why would developers need agents? Hollywood actors earn orders of magnitude more than your average 10X-er developer.