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Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

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Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#71

Post by [deleted] »

spamizbad wrote: post #42
brightball wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever thought that programmer pay is as high as it is because of the lack of those protections? It's pretty well established that programmer interviewing is hard for businesses and when they get it wrong everybody needs to be able to part ways. The speed at which this field moved is almost entirely due to the lack of encumbrances. That includes having to pay a state licensing group to say you are professional…

> Have you ever thought that programmer pay is as high as it is because of the lack of those protections? It's not. Union members earn more than their non-union counterparts in nearly all instances. Source: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf But I'd go further and say what constitutes "high" is subjective. If you look at it in terms of median household/income distribution then yes, you could certainly…

[deleted]

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#72

Post by dkhenry »

crdoconnor wrote: post #59
dkhenry wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope not. I see tech-workers as professionals not as laborers. I think the great battle to be fought by tech workers is to stop having them treated as common laborers that perform some kind of rote process. Some times we call software development engineering, and if thats the case I would press anyone to show me an engineering discipline that parallels software engineering in terms of working conditions and r…

Actors and writers are not laborers either and they're also competing against the "crapification" of their industry driven by execs trying to undercut them (e.g. reality TV).

The Screen Actors Guild is an interesting model for professionals. They go much farther then most professional organizations in terms of protecting workers right, but they also don't have rules like you have to hire the actor with 20 years experience before you can hire one right out of school, or you have to pay everyone on the same scale. Also I don't think they have requirements like you must have attended 10 years of school and done 4 years of internship before your allowed legally to work in the field.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#73

Post by _jal »

gok wrote: post #63
_jal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the GP was thinking more of the state Bars, the Federation of State Medical Boards, National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, etc. Those are not in the same category as the IEEE.

Sure, boards which look after professional certifications do have more power, especially in jurisdictions that give those certifications legal power. But those boards still don’t typically negotiate wages or organize strikes.

Right, they manage wages with entry limits and what amount to extended hazing rituals. And the power offered by controlling entry shifts negotiating tactics - strikes would rarely have a point. (Although doctors have gone on strike[1] in the US, it is just rare.)

They are still labor unions with government-recognized powers, and they carefully look after their members' interests.

[1] Stricken, struck, striked?

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#74

Post by arjie »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #2

Question for the HN crowd: do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize? It seems to me that (in general) they've got such a nice position in the economy there's probably a bit of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. Is that correct?

I hope not. I've seen enough HNers talk about how they want immigrants out of the industry, and about how we should restrict the supply of programmers to keep pay high. No thanks. I don't want to baseline myself to a bunch of guys who can't get a good job when the market is as hot as it's been.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#75

Post by tptacek »

wyldfire wrote: post #69
tptacek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the capital and ownership sectors of our economy are all trained to operate businesses rationally and to not leave value on the table, it seems pretty clear that anything that labor doesn't take will be traded away. To me, in that light, neither the "depredations" of owners and investors nor the "coercion" of labor unions is really a problem; it's just the natural give and take of the market at work. The real p…

> The real problem is the late 20th century stigma labor organization has acquired. I think the stigma is well-deserved. Indeed they are rife with corruption and often create very odd incentives. Unfortunately unions suffer the same fate as other "invisible" benefits: everyone takes them for granted and doesn't recognize their value. People focus on the drawbacks and it's much easier to convince them that we're all b…

Organized labor has most of the same problems as organized ownership and capital. Ownership and capital has some unique problems. Labor has some other unique problems. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

Unless you're arguing for the elimination of the market system, "this structure in a market economy is prone to corruption" isn't a dispositive argument, or really an argument at all.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#76

Post by danielvf »

tptacek wrote: post #36
ryandvm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All unions, nay all power structures, naturally evolve to serve the interests of the _current_ members. Because of this, seniority-based benefits and insulating bad apples from termination are traits that almost always show up in every union through convergent evolution.

Your comment creates the impression that without unions, developers wouldn't have to deal with "power structures". But to a pretty good first approximation every technology firm in the industry is a "power structure" --- a rigid and overt one, at that --- run by financiers and owners. So it's hard to see what rank-and-file professionals would have to lose from exercising their own market power, at least in your analy…

And add a union to the current situation, and now you have two power structures over you, not one.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#77

Post by chimeracoder »

tptacek wrote: post #67
chimeracoder wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most professionals also belong to labor unions. They're just not called that; they're called professional associations. There's a massive difference between a professional association and an NLRB-governed union.

What's your point? I agree that developers don't neat an equivalent to the Teamsters. The NLRA protects any concerted effort among employees to improve workplace conditions. You don't have to be an "NLRB-governed union" to organize.

> The NLRA protects any concerted effort among employees to improve workplace conditions. You don't have to be an "NLRB-governed union" to organize.

I understand that the NLRA contains provisions which protect employee activity in a non-unionized workplace, but this entire thread beings with the question "do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize?", not "do you think tech-workers will begin to make an organized effort to improve workplace conditions".

In that context, saying "Most professionals also belong to labor unions... called professional associations" implies a conflation of the two. And that's an important distinction, because most professional associations' activities don't even fall under the purview of the NLRA at all.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#78

Post by jacobush »

kevmo wrote: post #49
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, anyone willing to treat employees horribly, operates cheaper. If using trafficked chinese women were legal, the owner willing to be a psychopath will put his competition under. Capitalism is an inherently unstable system and only works with good regulation. I think a capitalist system only works as well as its regulation.

I largely agree. However, I think it is important for regulations to generally (not always) be structured on a sliding scale that is directly related to company size, i.e. the bigger the business, the more regulations it becomes subject to. Otherwise, regulations become a cudgel with which small businesses are beaten down because only the big established players can afford to comply. In today's age of regulatory capt…

Easy one. Just outsource to smaller and smaller companies. It's turtles all the way down! Somewhere down there, sick leave and other frivolities start to look more and more quaint.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#79

Post by mc32 »

gok wrote: post #70
mc32 wrote: post #65

This is a bit misleading. Union power is putting pressure on service economy companies which in turn service tech companies. Tech workers are not unionizing -and I can't imagine they would, given their pay compared to other sectors. I could see an AMA type organization perhaps. On the other hand, unfortunately, companies no longer staff vertically. When they can outsource their non core competencies they do. They don…

> Tech workers are not unionizing -and I can't imagine they would, given their pay compared to other sectors. Unions needn’t be only for the middle class. See professional sports players unions for example.

Isn't that a diff scenario given the sports leagues are granted legal monopoly exemptions?

Not to say that obviates the need, or delegitimizes the idea, but rather the pressure for it isn't as mounting.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#80

Post by arjie »

majewsky wrote: post #35
School-Cotton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "other" professional degrees? There's no "professional degree" to become a programmer and I'd like to keep it that way.

I bet there was a time when doctors/engineers/lawyers/etc. said the same.

Yeah, and look at the nonsense they do: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-02-doctor...

The AMA tries to restrict the number of doctors in the US and creates crises instead of letting people study to become doctors. Because they're incompetent at the goal of keeping the public healthy, and exceptionally competent at keeping doctor salaries high, you get something indistinguishable from regulatory capture.

No, thank you.

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