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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

#241

Post by jayess »

stale2002 wrote: post #216
Clubber wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. A past job, I automated away jobs at $0.10 on the dollar and made a healthy salary, but it obviously was 1/10th of what I was worth. I left that company and all those jobs are still automated away and the more the company grows, the more they save. Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equip…

This isn't really a good thing. Unions do things like engage in age discrimination by favoring senior members over all else. They do things like throw up oppressive barriers to entry, and limited licenses, in order to F over everyone who is not already in the club. Unions are only a good idea for exceptional 1 size fits all situations. For example, there are only a couple major airlines in the industry, and if you ge…

I used to be a school board member and have seen this first hand. Our unions preferred that we lay off younger teachers so that the more tenured ones could receive raises.

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

#242

Post by morgante »

Clubber wrote: post #200
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…

I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. A past job, I automated away jobs at $0.10 on the dollar and made a healthy salary, but it obviously was 1/10th of what I was worth. I left that company and all those jobs are still automated away and the more the company grows, the more they save. Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equip…

> I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people.

By what mechanism? Either they engage in collective bargaining, which is filled with problems, or artificially constrict the supply of labor by requiring additional licensing. Considering there is already a shortage of software engineers, constricting it further is unlikely to be net positive.

From where I'm standing, the current system works very well and is about as free as a labor market can be. I just accepted a new job and the process of getting there involved talking to about two dozen companies, narrowing those down to 6 or 7 offers and having each company submit a bid (initial offer). I pruned off the bottom half and had the top 2-3 companies submit revised bids based on competitor info and ultimately chose a company which offered a great mix of compensation and role/culture.

At no point in the process do I think having someone else do negotiation for me would have increased my pay. In fact, I'm convinced that any collective bargaining arrangement would mean a significant reduction in my compensation—for one thing, every "open salary" calculator I've seen proposes a salary about half of what I make. Formulaic salaries help low performers and hurt high performers.

> If nothing else, they could communicate with the business on how to make developers happy and comfortable; something the business might be willing to do, but don't know how to do.

I don't need a union to do that. I certainly don't need a union with collective bargaining to do that.

Tech "unions" might make sense to enshrine certain ethical principles, but I would not expect a union to increase my pay—and would vote against any one which promised that.

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

#243

Post by morgante »

Clubber wrote: post #225
stale2002 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really a good thing. Unions do things like engage in age discrimination by favoring senior members over all else. They do things like throw up oppressive barriers to entry, and limited licenses, in order to F over everyone who is not already in the club. Unions are only a good idea for exceptional 1 size fits all situations. For example, there are only a couple major airlines in the industry, and if you ge…

>Unions do things like engage in age discrimination by favoring senior members over all else. I think you mean unions negotiate for relatively higher pay for people who have been with the company longer, or with more experience, but it would also negotiate higher pay for new hires relative to a non-union shop. You're also thinking of manufacturing unions. I suspect a tech union would be a little different. Things lik…

> I mean right now you hear about high demand for tech people, but wages don't reflect that.

By what metric? Software developers can make $250k+ in SV.

I have a hard time imagining pay doubling broadly. Only a small cohort of employers could sustain paying engineers $500k+, though I suppose it is possible.

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

#244

Post by Clubber »

morgante wrote: post #242
Clubber wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. A past job, I automated away jobs at $0.10 on the dollar and made a healthy salary, but it obviously was 1/10th of what I was worth. I left that company and all those jobs are still automated away and the more the company grows, the more they save. Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equip…

> I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. By what mechanism? Either they engage in collective bargaining, which is filled with problems, or artificially constrict the supply of labor by requiring additional licensing. Considering there is already a shortage of software engineers, constricting it further is unlikely to be net positive. From where I'm standing, the current system w…

>Considering there is already a shortage of software engineers, constricting it further is unlikely to be net positive.

Since there is a short supply of software engineers, why do you think wages haven't risen?

>every "open salary" calculator I've seen proposes a salary about half of what I make. Formulaic salaries help low performers and hurt high performers.

I suspect that's because businesses manipulate that so they can hire offshore workers cheaper. H1B mandates that they pay at least industry wages (or something like that). If the business declares the industry wages artificially low, they can hire cheap tech workers. Unions would prevent that.

>At no point in the process do I think having someone else do negotiation for me would have increased my pay.

Maybe, maybe not. It sure works well for NFL players. I seriously doubt you are getting a tenth of what you make for the company. There's only so far you can go by yourself.

>I don't need a union to do that. I certainly don't need a union with collective bargaining to do that.

You can ask until your are blue in the face, but you will probably be ignored at most places. Also, you wouldn't have to fight for 6 months to get a decent monitor, it will just be there.

>but I would not expect a union to increase my pay—and would vote against any one which promised that.

That's not very good business sense. You should at least ask them to prove it before you flatly deny it.

Let me ask you this, say you owned your own company and you partnered with another company on a joint venture. Do you think it would be a good negotiation if your company only got 1/100th of the profits of the joint venture? That's probably what you are getting now. Sounds like you've sold yourself short and you either don't realize it, or you want to believe you are a good negotiator. You may be a good negotiator as an individual, but you just don't have the power of a group. Why do you think political parties exist? Group power always trumps individual power.

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

#245

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

mulmen wrote: post #221
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paint a wall in an individual office on Market St, San Francisco, with whiteboard paint, is upwards of $10000 in labor, because of union regulations. Unions are ripe to be used as instruments for abuse.

Is that because of unions or because of market forces?

Unions are a market force.

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

#246

Post by Clubber »

morgante wrote: post #243
Clubber wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unions do things like engage in age discrimination by favoring senior members over all else. I think you mean unions negotiate for relatively higher pay for people who have been with the company longer, or with more experience, but it would also negotiate higher pay for new hires relative to a non-union shop. You're also thinking of manufacturing unions. I suspect a tech union would be a little different. Things lik…

> I mean right now you hear about high demand for tech people, but wages don't reflect that. By what metric? Software developers can make $250k+ in SV. I have a hard time imagining pay doubling broadly. Only a small cohort of employers could sustain paying engineers $500k+, though I suppose it is possible.

Software developers wages have stagnated for at least the last 10 years.

http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread/81424.html

So I'll ask again, since developers are in such high demand, why do you think wages haven't increased?

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

#247

Post by tomohawk »

Clubber wrote: post #200
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…

I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. A past job, I automated away jobs at $0.10 on the dollar and made a healthy salary, but it obviously was 1/10th of what I was worth. I left that company and all those jobs are still automated away and the more the company grows, the more they save. Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equip…

Eastman Kodak was a technology innovator. Where are they now?

Unions were/are a huge drag on them.

In order to 'protect' workers, unions define job functions. This prevents an engineer from being moved over to bathroom cleaner. However, it also locks people into job descriptions that may have made sense at one time, but no longer do. It also makes the business unable to respond flexibly to new conditions.

A friend of mine worked at Kodak. It took months to get a photocopier installed because the movers were unionized, and they wouldn't move the old one because it was plugged in. Only the unionized electricians were allowed to unplug it.

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

#248

Post by emodendroket »

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.

You know, the big pay-fixing scandal with Google and Apple didn't happen that long ago.

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

#249

Post by pyrale »

jules wrote: post #211
s73ver_ wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you disagree with this definition of voluntary, that's fine. Let's choose another string of letters to denote what I wrote in the previous comment, and change my other comment and replace the string "voluntary" with that new string of letters." That won't make it any better. You're still hand waving away a lot of exploitation. "Being fired is simply no longer engaging in the transaction where one party trades the…

> That won't make it any better. You're still hand waving away a lot of exploitation. I'm not hand waving away any exploitation. I did not pass any moral judgement, for or against. I described what an unregulated market is. To do so I used the word "voluntary", and I explained what I meant by that word in that context. In particular, it does not include the use of a gun to make somebody give you their wallet. I'm ser…

The point you don't seem to realize in that string of comments is that the amount of extorsion that happens in an unregulated market becomes so large over time that it eventually leads to the dominant player stripping the dominated player of any hint of dignity and reduce him to total dependence. You cannot just look the other way and pretend there is still free choice when these people are captive and not even able to search for a new job.

This inhumane treatment inevitably ends up with physical violence, because it is the only resort left when the dominant's autnority is questioned.

You don't need to trust me, just look at the events of labour-related violence in the US at the turn of 20th century. Observe what happened before the situation became violent, and you will realize that in dozens of examples, the mechanisms that led to violence are the same: a class of workers that were dispossessed of so many rights that physically removing them did not look despicable as a business option.

Here are a few examples to start with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisbee_Deportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_Wars

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

#250

Post by emodendroket »

tomohawk wrote: post #247
Clubber wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a tech union would significantly raise the wages of technical people. A past job, I automated away jobs at $0.10 on the dollar and made a healthy salary, but it obviously was 1/10th of what I was worth. I left that company and all those jobs are still automated away and the more the company grows, the more they save. Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equip…

Eastman Kodak was a technology innovator. Where are they now? Unions were/are a huge drag on them. In order to 'protect' workers, unions define job functions. This prevents an engineer from being moved over to bathroom cleaner. However, it also locks people into job descriptions that may have made sense at one time, but no longer do. It also makes the business unable to respond flexibly to new conditions. A friend of…

Non-unionized workplaces can also have ridiculous, bureaucratic rules.
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