Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave • Hacker News Board

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#161

Post by cookiecaper » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #116

paxy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these "so many developers" you've referenced a dozen times? You've been spending too much time on internet forums listening to rants of the vocal minority. Truth is that most developers are happy and don't need a drastic change, and this can hardly be said about any other profession.

People disagree about open offices. Some people disagree about the option to work from home or hire remote. But it is hard to believe that ANY of us disagree about IP contracts or extended options execution windows. Are you a professional developer? Which of these issues do you think are non-issues?

FWIW I've only worked for one employer that had a restrictive, overzealous IP contract and invention assignment (others have just had routine paperwork about acknowledging their ownership of things done during work hours, etc.). It was one of my first jobs and I left after six months. They can't keep good talent, and they either get hangers-on who never leave because they can't hack it anywhere else, or people just using it as a short-term stepping stone and are out the door in 6-12 months.

Options do suck, but I guess these are considered less pressing issues because anyone intelligent ignores options more or less completely. If you end up with a windfall from them, that's great, but no one should expect it. Working for equity is for chumps -- demand a decent salary. It's plenty attainable.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#162

Post by elihu » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:31 AM UTC

untog wrote: post #17

ProAm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is interesting that programmers (as a whole) seem resistant to it. Mostly because our working conditions are not bad, we are more or less paid fairly, there are a lot of options to move around. Also it'd be bad if we had other people negotiating on our behalf, for what we probably feel is less pay than we are worth, and the concept of seniority would ruffle and stop a lot of newer grads from getting higher payin…

> the concept of seniority would ruffle and stop a lot of newer grads from getting higher paying jobs over people that have been working already for 25 years in the industry. That's not a required part of a union. I think one of the misconceptions people have is that if you have a union it looks and operates exactly like one on a Ford factory floor. If you formed a union it could do exactly what you want it to do, an…

I think that's an interesting discussion worth having -- supposing a tech union existed, what would we want it to negotiate for?

Some possibilities I can think of are: better pay, less work hours or paid overtime, better benefits, more vacation time, minimum office size / screen size / cubicle wall height, a cap on the ratio of employee pay to CEO pay, a right to say no to work that violates a professional code of conduct without risk of reprisal, access to training material, pay transparency, prohibitions against overly-broad intellectual property assignments and a right to work on non-competing projects in one's free time, prohibitions against anti-compete clauses, and mandatory prior notification of layoffs.

I imagine most people who work in tech would have a different list, but there would be some overlap.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#163

Post by j4ship » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:31 AM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I thought this was interesting because if knowledge workers like journalists can do so, why not programmers, or what ever term you'd prefer to be called?

we cant come together on a frontend framework ... there are so many important things we do not agree on, programmers are very particular people , what is great for one , is crap for another.

We are also anti group think, i dont want to be part of a frat , or a group or a union and I dont want to pay union dues. Unlike actors we are people that can think for ourselves and we like to be atonomous. Think of the idea of the 10x'er ... Even if you were a 3x'er wouldnt you not want to be mixed with a group of shitters ...

basically programmers is a broad spectrum that many outside and some inside the industry really dont grasp ... hence why you say "or what ever term you'd prefer to be called'

I prefer to be called employed , with clear terms that my employer enforces ... you can take your bureaucratic , middle man bs and shove it.

Thats my opinion on unions , not you personally ... i just hate unions and all bureaucratic liberal constructs, its always a waste and hurts the hardest working becomes a corrupt group.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#164

Post by phil21 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:33 AM UTC

losteverything wrote: post #136

Imo union-ism is an attitide and coupled with experience is effective. Just because you are salaried and "professional" does not mean you collectively do not have extreme clout. Whatever the hot issues are - say hours worked in a 7 day period - and the desire is to place limits (say 4 twelve hour days amd 1 eight hour day) having a union attitude means your bargained (agreed upon) rules are enforceable. And you carry…

Dunno. Maybe.

All a union did for me in my younger years was have me work my ass off so older union members could sit around doing literally nothing. In fact as far as I could tell their jobs were effectively finding ways to do nothing, and then when they got too good at that finding ways to keep others from doing anything.

I would not be paid nearly what I am today had I been stuck in my first union job. Even if I had stayed in the same field.

Until unions can stop being basically safe havens for either the lazy, incompetent, or corrupt (what they've effectively become in the US) I want zero part of them. The two I were in in my teens and early 20's were enough for me. They were so bad I did not want to be morally associated with them in any way whatsoever. All I ever saw from them was protection for the worst kind of people, and the high performers were ran out of the company as soon as possible by all the other members.

It sucks there isn't something else that can champion the rights and pay of the workers without simply serving the lowest common denominator. I'd actively join and support a "trade guild" where membership was predicated on competence and work ethic - and members actively policed to ensure they meet the standard. I'd also seek out employing such guilds when possible.

Unfortunately that doesn't exist, and I tend to actively avoid union shops with a few notable exceptions. Typically when you say the word "union labor" to me that means it's going to be 4x the price, take 5x as long, and be done halfassed so we'll have to re-do half the work anyways.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#165

Post by pvg » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:33 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #116

paxy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these "so many developers" you've referenced a dozen times? You've been spending too much time on internet forums listening to rants of the vocal minority. Truth is that most developers are happy and don't need a drastic change, and this can hardly be said about any other profession.

People disagree about open offices. Some people disagree about the option to work from home or hire remote. But it is hard to believe that ANY of us disagree about IP contracts or extended options execution windows. Are you a professional developer? Which of these issues do you think are non-issues?

I’m not entirely convinced IP agreements are that big of an issue. The rare horror stories that I’ve heard and read are mostly about really predatory employers (and usually a somewhat legally-unsophisticated employee). “I went to my employer with an exemption to my AoI and they said no” isn’t a thing you often hear programmers grouse about, at least, I haven’t.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#166

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:34 AM UTC

losteverything wrote: post #136

Imo union-ism is an attitide and coupled with experience is effective. Just because you are salaried and "professional" does not mean you collectively do not have extreme clout. Whatever the hot issues are - say hours worked in a 7 day period - and the desire is to place limits (say 4 twelve hour days amd 1 eight hour day) having a union attitude means your bargained (agreed upon) rules are enforceable. And you carry…

"Otherwise workers - even professionals- have no true security, no true predictable work conditions."

How do you shore this up the the fact that many of us engineers have pretty freaking awesome, high paying jobs?

Things have seemed to work out great for those of us who are willing and able to negotiate well for ourselves.

Thats the problem I have with unions. I do not for a single second want someone else to be negotiating for me. I can do that on my own, and I have done well for myself using my own negotiation power.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#167

Post by cookiecaper » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:34 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #102

SEJeff wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find there are more than enough people that want me (as a software engineer with 10+ years of low level linux / unix experience) and wish me to be very happy. If I ever was forced to join a union, I'd quit on the spot and go find somewhere else to work. I worked for Comair (small airline owned by Delta) during a stewardess strike, which ultimately caused the company to sell planes and eventually go out of business.…

As there are good and bad companies, there are good and bad unions.

The difference being that you're free to leave a bad company. If the union gets any clout, however, it's not quite so easy to leave it behind...

EDIT: Hey everyone, I can't comment in this thread for several more hours now, because HN considers questioning the wisdom of deploying conventional databases on Kubernetes beyond the pale. They throttled my account because my posts that did that were too "boring" and "tedious". See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14453705 for details.

If HN's mods ran the union, would they limit your professional advancement for asking questions that may imperil their friends' VC investments, on the subjective basis of the question's technical implications being too "boring" and "tedious"? Because they limit HN accounts for it. Now imagine they could control your salary instead of your imaginary internet points.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#168

Post by Daishiman » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:35 AM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #65

untog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the concept of seniority would ruffle and stop a lot of newer grads from getting higher paying jobs over people that have been working already for 25 years in the industry. That's not a required part of a union. I think one of the misconceptions people have is that if you have a union it looks and operates exactly like one on a Ford factory floor. If you formed a union it could do exactly what you want it to do, an…

The people with political influence in the union might not be those whose views align with the more technically proficient members of the group. I anticipate a developer union being another vector for leeches to grasp onto productive developers and (indirectly) siphon off their well earned money. I've seen the types of developers that thrive in political climates. They manage to get paid way too much money to make po…

> Union interviews will be all be standardized and will consist of: drawing UML diagrams, naming 24 design patterns in 30 seconds, and white-boarding a blockchain Rubik's CryptoCube solver implementation.

So, like today's retarded interviewing environment for most SV companies?

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#169

Post by phil21 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #83

ng12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work under onerous IP contracts that grant their employers rights to what they build in their spare time? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen environments where they have to blast music into their ears with headphones to focus their attention on what they're building? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers…

Honestly the answer to all your questions is "because people traded those items for massive pay increases".

I've never had a problem negotiating any of those points with any of my employers in the tech industry. Perhaps work for smaller companies if these sorts of things are important to you?

If you want to max out salary in silicon valley, I guess your list applies. For almost everywhere else in the country it's simply not the case - if you are truly talented you can almost write your own job description.

> I don't understand how you can spend more than a few months on Hacker News without seeing the litany of complaints developers have about their working conditions.

I suppose that's one reaction. My reaction is generally amusement at the ridiculous complaints. Once in a while a legitimate one comes through, but most of them are truly "first world problems" to the absolute utter extreme.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#170

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 12:41 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #116

paxy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these "so many developers" you've referenced a dozen times? You've been spending too much time on internet forums listening to rants of the vocal minority. Truth is that most developers are happy and don't need a drastic change, and this can hardly be said about any other profession.

People disagree about open offices. Some people disagree about the option to work from home or hire remote. But it is hard to believe that ANY of us disagree about IP contracts or extended options execution windows. Are you a professional developer? Which of these issues do you think are non-issues?

"But it is hard to believe that ANY of us disagree about IP contracts "

Frankly, I don't care even a little bit about this.

I am not building any startups that are going to be worth anything. I do stuff for fun, sure, but none of it is going to be worth any amount of money ever.

Thats why I work for a big company who pays me a high salary, because I don't have any world changing, valuable startup ideas. If the big 5 tech company that I currently work for wants to have the IP rights to my worthless side projects, they can go ahead and have them. (They are certainly paying me enough for the privilege)

Or in other words, if I had the choice between "keeping my IP rights", and "getting paid 5k more in salary", I'd take the 5k every time. Or the 1k. Or merely to avoid an awkward conversation with a lawyer.

And I expect that the vast majority of other developers are in the same boat as me. They `might` have side projects, but they aren't kidding themselves about how much they are worth, and are correctly valuing those IP rights at near 0$.