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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

#361

Post by Clubber »

sokoloff wrote: post #355
deathanatos wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The myth that just won't die. If this were true, salaries would be skyrocketing, companies wouldn't have the luxury of being as picky as they are, and open reqs wouldn't attract hundreds of applicants. I don't know whether to think it is real, or that it is a myth. It's true that tech companies are picky, it's true that salaries are not skyrocketing. Open reqs attract hundreds of unqualified applicants, at least, t…

> Open reqs attract hundreds of unqualified applicants, at least, that was my impression. Matches my experience on the hiring side. Even after we filter heavily long before they get to me, within the last month, had a candidate for a senior software position who literally asked "What is AWS?" I can only presume that guy files loads of applications and goes on every interview he's offered.

Are you paying market rates? If so, how are you calculating market rates? Also, if you are paying market rates, why would you expect anyone really talented to select your company over all the other ones that pay market rates? (I'm not trying to be snide).

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

#362

Post by azza2110 »

rtpg wrote: post #281
viridian wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like one of those really lazy appeals to things that happened forever ago to defend the modern organization. Republicans call themselves The party of Lincoln, Bell labs reminding people they invented the semiconductor, etc. Hearkening back to something you did a long time ago seems like a purposeful hand wave away from the present or recent history.

Ok so something more recent: Unions are constantly fighting to make sure that the pilots of commercial planes are allowed to get enough sleep and not be totally exhausted while flying. And to make sure that flight attendants are only half-zombies...

A typical 737 pilot earns 200-250k AUD and can work no more than 72 hours per month, including training, admin, etc.

If a pilot needs so much sleep that they can only safely work 18 hours per week, I'd hate to think how compromised a passenger's safety is when being shuttled around by a Taxi/Uber driver working 40-80 hours per week.

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

#363

Post by morgante »

Clubber wrote: post #360
morgante wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200-300k in total compensation.

I don't want this to sound like it probably does but that's not overly impressive for a place like SV. I mean it sounds like a lot before you calculate cost of living (and it would be a lot here). A good self disciplined developer where I live (accounting for cost of living) would make the north end of that from a not very known company (that's not even a software company). A not great maintenance developer that requ…

My estimate is skewed downwards because you asked for average, and a significant percentage of the cohort is new grads and relatively inexperienced developers. Senior developers can certainly make above $300k.

You seem to put far too much stock in cost of living adjustments (a very common fallacy on HN). Such adjustments should be applied to expenses, not income, and neglects the fact that many expenses don't multiplicatively scale with location. It's very possible to live a good life even in SV/NYC on $60k/yr in expenses, leaving tons of room for aggressive savings.

Instead of talking about bogus adjusted salaries, give me hard numbers on why you think $300k is a low salary. At the very least, tell me what bogus adjustment number you're using.

> The taboo about salaries only stands to help employers.

It also helps highly-paid workers who only have to justify their salary to managers instead of to all their peers as well.

> Also, it's a negotiating tactic to have the other person throw out the first number

It's a tactic but not a very good one. I've conducted my own split tests and anchoring with a high number tends to lead to much better results while not wasting your time on people who think paying a senior developer $120k is reasonable.

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

#364

Post by jeremysalwen »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #180
jeremysalwen wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume that the current wages are the "natural" rate established by the "free market"? Don't we have evidence that employers are already abusing their market power to extract rents? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... for an example close to home) In fact, corporate profits are record-high, and wages have been stagnant for decades, suggesting very strongly that the "unnatural"…

>>Don't we have evidence that employers are already abusing their market power to extract rents? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... . for an example close to home) Very few firms can engage in such behavior. A pact like this can only be maintained by a small number of very large firms, and only the firms party to the pact will abide by it, leaving the entire rest of the employer market…

> Very few firms can engage in such behavior. A pact like this can only be maintained by a small number of very large firms, and only the firms party to the pact will abide by it, leaving the entire rest of the employer market in a competitive state.

And the same can't be said about the market power of unions?

> Corporate earning growth is at historically low rates.

Cherry picked statistic. Corporate earnings as a percent of GDP are record high. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Pik And your linked chart shows exactly my point, wages relative to productivity have been decreasing.

Obviously with anything like this you have a hard time showing a direct causation, which is why I am confused that you are claiming that you can prove a clear causation in the exact opposite direction that the economy has been moving.

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

#365

Post by mc32 »

deathanatos wrote: post #327
ryandrake wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Considering there is already a shortage of software engineers, constricting it further is unlikely to be net positive. "Shortage of software engineers": The myth that just won't die. If this were true, salaries would be skyrocketing, companies wouldn't have the luxury of being as picky as they are, and open reqs wouldn't attract hundreds of applicants. > I just accepted a new job and the process of getting there in…

> The myth that just won't die. If this were true, salaries would be skyrocketing, companies wouldn't have the luxury of being as picky as they are, and open reqs wouldn't attract hundreds of applicants. I don't know whether to think it is real, or that it is a myth. It's true that tech companies are picky, it's true that salaries are not skyrocketing. Open reqs attract hundreds of unqualified applicants, at least, t…

>Open reqs attract hundreds of unqualified applicants, at least, that was my impression.

In that case, what you can do is train your underqualified candidates. Create a system which allows you to train candidates for training and get them up to speed.

Kind of like manufacturing used to do.

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

#366

Post by sokoloff »

Clubber wrote: post #361
sokoloff wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Open reqs attract hundreds of unqualified applicants, at least, that was my impression. Matches my experience on the hiring side. Even after we filter heavily long before they get to me, within the last month, had a candidate for a senior software position who literally asked "What is AWS?" I can only presume that guy files loads of applications and goes on every interview he's offered.

Are you paying market rates? If so, how are you calculating market rates? Also, if you are paying market rates, why would you expect anyone really talented to select your company over all the other ones that pay market rates? (I'm not trying to be snide).

I believe so and this guy was just an outlier dud who BS'd his way to an on-site round.

Fresh college hires are making 6-figures and it goes up from there, quickly. We use an HR market data firm to inform our hiring managers, but if you spend enough time in the market, you get to learn when you're never losing a candidate over comp or when you're frequently losing them over comp or getting strong counter proposals. I trust the intel we get from the candidates and market over what we get from the HR research company. (Boston market.)

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

#367

Post by Clubber »

stale2002 wrote: post #357
Clubber wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am not going to support anyone or any group that plans on putting up barriers to entry or outright discrimination. You mean like pointless tech quizzes on minutia that only a young college graduate with zero experience (and cheaper) would remember? >it is ridiculous that an uninvolved group would be able to stop that hire from happen. I don't believe unions prevent companies from hiring people. >Them have differen…

And that's called racism. I don't care if other countries discriminate against us. 2 wrongs don't make a right. I will not ever support an organization that is outright discriminatory like that, whether it is based on skin color or citizenship. Also, unions DO indeed prevent people from being hired. That's why right to work laws exist. Right to work is the idea that if a company hires you, it is illegal for a union t…

>And that's called racism. I don't care if other countries discriminate against us.

Lol. No it isn't, it's called nationalism. Racism is about the race of a person regardless of citizenship, nationalism is about citizenship regardless of race. You probably should look up words before you throw them around.

>I will not ever support an organization that is outright discriminatory like that, whether it is based on skin color or citizenship.

That's a straw man. No one said anything about discriminating based on skin color except you.

>Also, unions DO indeed prevent people from being hired. That's why right to work laws exist. Right to work is the idea that if a company hires you, it is illegal for a union to force you to join.

So where in that sentence do you explain that a union can force a company not to hire you?

>There are companies where you are forced to join the union. Ex, the screen writers and actors guild require people who work at certain companies to join them.

Yes, the logic being is the union is the reason people get higher wages, so they should pay union dues to support the people (fellow employees) that earned those higher wages. Many states have done away with that though as a direct attempt to weaken unions.

Here's a decent breakdown of the pros and cons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

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

#368

Post by Clubber »

morgante wrote: post #363
Clubber wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want this to sound like it probably does but that's not overly impressive for a place like SV. I mean it sounds like a lot before you calculate cost of living (and it would be a lot here). A good self disciplined developer where I live (accounting for cost of living) would make the north end of that from a not very known company (that's not even a software company). A not great maintenance developer that requ…

My estimate is skewed downwards because you asked for average, and a significant percentage of the cohort is new grads and relatively inexperienced developers. Senior developers can certainly make above $300k. You seem to put far too much stock in cost of living adjustments (a very common fallacy on HN). Such adjustments should be applied to expenses, not income, and neglects the fact that many expenses don't multipl…

>Such adjustments should be applied to expenses, not income, and neglects the fact that many expenses don't multiplicatively scale with location.

Only the big ones, housing, food, transportation.

>It's very possible to live a good life even in SV/NYC on $60k/yr in expenses, leaving tons of room for aggressive savings.

Bullshit.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/san-francisco-oakland/189180-...

>At the very least, tell me what bogus adjustment number you're using.

Pick any calculator. Here's one of many linked by the US Department of State.

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-l...

https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/79700.htm

>It's a tactic but not a very good one. I've conducted my own split tests and anchoring with a high number tends to lead to much better results while not wasting your time on people who think paying a senior developer $120k is reasonable.

If it was between you and some other guy just like you and I asked each of you what you expected the salary to be without throwing out a number and you were $10K higher, I sure ain't hiring you. That's how it works.

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

#369

Post by Clubber »

sokoloff wrote: post #356
ryandrake wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's lived through two awful tech downturns so far, now is also the time because the going is relatively good. People will be wishing they did the next time tech downturns and the layoffs begin...

Do you want the layoffs to be based solely on your union seniority number rather your individual value to the on-going company?

You give companies too much credit. When it comes to layoff time, most companies don't know or don't care what your individual value is. They need to make a number and will cut whatever they think they can to make that number. Most of the time, if they actually try to "rightsize," which isn't that often, it's the new guys who don't have the domain knowledge or the expensive guys who are assholes and redundant.

This goes back to my favorite adage:

  1. Be good at your job
  2. Don't be an asshole

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

#370

Post by Clubber »

sokoloff wrote: post #366
Clubber wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you paying market rates? If so, how are you calculating market rates? Also, if you are paying market rates, why would you expect anyone really talented to select your company over all the other ones that pay market rates? (I'm not trying to be snide).

I believe so and this guy was just an outlier dud who BS'd his way to an on-site round. Fresh college hires are making 6-figures and it goes up from there, quickly. We use an HR market data firm to inform our hiring managers, but if you spend enough time in the market, you get to learn when you're never losing a candidate over comp or when you're frequently losing them over comp or getting strong counter proposals. I…

It sounds like you are doing it right. I only personally know two really good people. One is my mentor, the other I made my business partner. Good luck.
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