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Tech Workers' Values

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Tech Workers' Values

#161

Post by AndrewKemendo »

bigtimeidiot wrote: post #144
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #10

We believe that employees should come together and clearly define the values and policies they'd like to see their companies uphold. A tech union isn't the perfect metaphor for this, but it's not far off. If it's going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is. I've argued for a while that tech workers need a union, but the chorus on HN and other place…

> If this moves the needle on a union then great I'm trying to figure out why a tech worker union would want to sidle up to, say, YC. As someone who spent a few years as part of the Canadian Autoworkers Union, management were adversaries, not partners. Are the bourgeoisie trying to get out in front of this thing?

I'm trying to figure out why a tech worker union would want to sidle up to, say, YC.

Well they shouldn't, actually - which was the whole point of my last sentence.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#162

Post by intrasight »

paulddraper wrote: post #153
intrasight wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters, we are not licensed. And I suspect that a non-citizen couldn't get an engineering license.

Neither are other engineers (in the US). There are certifications (e.g. PE) but you can get a job with or without them.

Not so. If you are not a licensed Professional Engineer, there are jobs you can't get. And that's what I mean by "licensed".

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#163

Post by st3v3r »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #20
rfrank wrote: post #12

From the earlier sama post, What I Heard From Trump Supporters: > Almost everyone I asked was willing to talk to me, but almost none of them wanted me to use their names—even people from very red states were worried about getting “targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him”. One person in Silicon Valley even asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement before she would talk to me, as she…

Silicon Valley (especially SF) is all for diversity...as long as you think exactly like they do.

Wrong. There's little tolerance for bigotry. There's nothing wrong with that. Having the opinion that a class of people do not deserve the same rights as others is not "diversity" or "having a different opinion". It's bigotry, plain and simple.

What you want is for no one to call you out for espousing terrible views. You want freedom from consequences of speech, not freedom of speech.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#164

Post by pseudalopex »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #122
nichj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last job(not tech), our wages were negotiated with the union at a much lower rate than our competitors and owed dues. We had no control because the union was "representing" us and we could take it or quit.

Yes. Mandatory unions (And be careful about how you define that, because many would claim they're not while still requiring their pound of flesh[1]) are signified by their monopoly on labor. By maintaining a chokehold on who can supply a vital resource (labor) to businesses, Unions have a history of strangling their patrons - See Detroit. From a distributed systems perspective, Unions represent a single point of fail…

US jurisprudence requires unions to represent non-members whether they want to or not. I don't like agency fees, but they're a response to a free-rider problem.

Yes, a union is pretty much a corporation that supplies labor. The biggest difference is how they're governed. Nobody bats an eye if a supplier negotiates an exclusive contract.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#165

Post by Apocryphon »

stale2002 wrote: post #150
bigtimeidiot wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have done just fine negotiating my salary on my own, thank you very much. And many, many other people haven't. Those people will unionize and won't care a lick to see you go.

Awesome. They can do that, and I will work for the multitude of companies and startups out there that will not unionize. You can't unionize every startup in the world, and non unionized employees will be able to demand a premium. Other people are free to burden themselves with union rules, and I will be free to accept the higher salary that I can command because my competition is hindered. It is a competitive advanta…

You seem to be operating from a world where there unionization in tech even exists, and making assumptions that tech unions behave exactly the same as they have in different industries.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#166

Post by Apocryphon »

throwaway71958 wrote: post #127
erikpukinskis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were flagged, but I don't see any rule violations so I vouched for you. I share many of your same fears. But your argument is a slippery slope argument, so I can't really argue against it. Maybe you're right, and the worker-owned Pizza co-op down the street from me will slide into Stalinist authoritarianism. We'll see. I think the fact that it is voluntary and you are at will to choose an ownership-based enterpri…

The point is that your pizza co-op can only exist as a non-dominant form of organization in a wealthy society. Once it becomes the dominant form, everything goes to hell. There isn't a single country in the history of this civilization where this wasn't proven true. Now, you could argue that we're not "cultured" enough to live onder such utopia, but my retort will be that you need to figure out a way to experiment wi…

People here are arguing for more companies like REI or Mondragón, and you are talking about proletarian revolution in a situation completely different from the economic and social devastation caused by World War I. This is completely premature hysterics.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#167

Post by wtvanhest »

badloginagain wrote: post #64
xienze wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is. This sounds like it's going to have exactly zero to do with what a labor union would normally be concerned with -- pay, working conditions, etc. Instead, I have a strong suspicion this is going to be some sort of enumeration of the progressive ideals that all tech workers "should" be concerned…

I don't see what that would really accomplish, though. All companies already publicly advertise the 'moral' beliefs you mentioned, yet continue hiring white male whiteboard challenge mavericks.

This feels like a very political move that has little to nothing to do with tech. If you build a union or trade organization which has influence over the biggest CEOs in the world, you have consolidated a lot of power.

I'm left scratching my head after reading this, and I feel like YC may have lost its way.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#168

Post by drawkbox »

We believe that tech companies can create a better economic future for all Americans by spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country and other measures

I believe this is key. Technology does not have to be binded to one or a few locations. If tech could once again try to be spread across other cities and states that will be good for everyone. It will be good for remote work, cost of living, people will support tech growth more nationwide, there will be new ideas that might not emerge in a tech hotspot and not everyone will have to move to one place which is really a single point of failure.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#169

Post by Apocryphon »

yanilkr wrote: post #120
cyphar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make the same argument about most engineering disciplines. Yet other engineers have unions, because historically they've had unions and they've worked out well. The only reason that software engineering unions aren't common is because we didn't adopt them at the beginning. Quick reminder that unions are the reason that many of the benefits you have in the workplace today are standardised across the workforc…

That probably explains why "other engineering disciplines" do not have as many startups as software. If you do not like the current place and its values why do you hold others and its owners hostage to your ideals? Why not start a new one and attract better talent with your better values. Tech companies are trying to do something better than what previous generations could do.

And maybe tech unions- call them guilds or free associations or hacker collectives if you can't stomach the term- can do labor relations better than what previous unions could do, as well.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#170

Post by spangry »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #10

We believe that employees should come together and clearly define the values and policies they'd like to see their companies uphold. A tech union isn't the perfect metaphor for this, but it's not far off. If it's going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is. I've argued for a while that tech workers need a union, but the chorus on HN and other place…

I agree with the what (I think) the parent post is getting at: if you're going to form a union, form a union. As in, a labour monopoly. This might sound radical, but I think there is good reason for developers and tech workers to consider this.

There are strong network effects and nearly unlimited economies of scale in most tech markets. In these cases, given enough time, the end result will be a monopsonist employer.[0] This results in lower employment, lower wages and, ultimately, the replacement of labour with additional accumulated capital (e.g. ML algos) and/or cheaper substitute labour (e.g. imported foreign workers). Even in cases where there are a few large firms in competition (e.g. Google and Apple), they will have incentive to collude and make illegal agreements on hiring practices, wage ceilings etc (and there have been documented instances of this).[1][2]

The logical way for software developers to avoid exploitation is to form a labour monopoly (i.e. a union or a guild).

I've noticed some interesting features of the software development labour market: quite a lot of the work is creative in nature, you produce non-rivalrous products (i.e. my consumption of 'software x' does not block someone else's consumption), and the workforce is supposedly peppered with unusually talented individuals who produce 50-100x the value that the average worker does.

There are two other industries that have similar features: traditional screen entertainment (TV & Movie), and professional sports leagues. In both of these industries, the content producing workers (baseball players, actors) are invariably a member of an industry guild or union, and they operate more like independent contractors than employees.

Food for thought.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony#Welfare_implications

[1] https://www.cnet.com/au/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

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