Unions were great at stifling innovation and destroying some of our former industries such as Steel and Automotive - see what's left of former very wealthy Detroit. The classic example is the unions not allowing the Toyota Lean Production system in, as then you would need fewer workers. So in not allowing innovation, the unions were key factors in destroying entire industries which have now been built elsewhere. If t…
On the other hand Toyota Japan has been union since the 50s
This may not be the venue to get good answers but what are the likely costs of unionization in software? How would management respond to organized tech labor? What would be the economic impacts? Not looking for pro- or anti-union sloganeering, but real impacts. The economics of the tech sector would change dramatically with organized labor in computing, and I'm interested in how those changes would manifest.
I wonder how unionized labor would interact with US visas. If you're on an H-1b and your union goes on strike.....do you have to leave the country?
If you're on an H-1b and your union goes on strike
You are still employed, you're just not getting paid. There are laws that state, in effect, that you cannot get fired for going on strike as part of a lawful strike. Well, if you aren't fired, then you must be employed, right?
I've often thought there should be a union in tech, similar to the way the directors guild and screen actors guild operate. Not to set maximums on compensation, but to set humane minimums and provide continuity and health insurance in a pooled way, perhaps.
I would also like such a guild to remove people from the guild for intentionally performing law breaking(or unethical) behavior- such so that individual workers can say "I can't do that, my guild will oust me" and will take the heat off themselves. I'm not sure if actor/director guilds do this, though, I've only seen it in licensing orgs.
There is a problem with that is how do you define what is "law breaking" / "unethical" - its not a Unions job to be judge an jury here also it would make it hard to recruit widely.
And can we not use the term guild in TU history has some very negative connotations.
This may not be the venue to get good answers but what are the likely costs of unionization in software? How would management respond to organized tech labor? What would be the economic impacts? Not looking for pro- or anti-union sloganeering, but real impacts. The economics of the tech sector would change dramatically with organized labor in computing, and I'm interested in how those changes would manifest.
Intentional code obfuscation in combination with strike action would likely be the threat tactic of choice for developers.
Employers will likely react I a counter productive manner to this threat - e.g. mandating 100% unit test coverage which would be achieved with cryptic tests that actually make the code even harder to work with.
This could lead to a decline in overall software quality in America if the relationship between developers/ops and management really sours.
I haven't read the paper and I probably won't, but it seems suspicious to me that the 1940 to 1970 timeframe mentioned just happens to coincide with WW2 and the aftermath and recovery. If you aren't prepared to systematically destroy foreign cities and industry I don't think you can recreate those conditions.
These were also the years where the soviet union was at its most threatening and keeping workers happy to reduce the attraction of communism was at the highest. After that threat vanished the gains in productivity have been used to reward investors rather than workers.
Unions were great at stifling innovation and destroying some of our former industries such as Steel and Automotive - see what's left of former very wealthy Detroit. The classic example is the unions not allowing the Toyota Lean Production system in, as then you would need fewer workers. So in not allowing innovation, the unions were key factors in destroying entire industries which have now been built elsewhere. If t…
If sounds like what you're arguing is that the cost of innovation can be partly measured in human suffering. I disagree -- there are innovative, unionized companies (someone else mentioned Toyota).
But even if I did agree that worker rights and wellbeing decrease innovation, then it sounds like a worthwhile tradeoff.
I've often thought there should be a union in tech, similar to the way the directors guild and screen actors guild operate. Not to set maximums on compensation, but to set humane minimums and provide continuity and health insurance in a pooled way, perhaps.
Note that one of the UK equivalent of ISATSE merged with the big Uk Tech / Scientific unions as there is a lot of commonality.
This may not be the venue to get good answers but what are the likely costs of unionization in software? How would management respond to organized tech labor? What would be the economic impacts? Not looking for pro- or anti-union sloganeering, but real impacts. The economics of the tech sector would change dramatically with organized labor in computing, and I'm interested in how those changes would manifest.
The real impact is that offshoring would get even bigger. Those guilds only work if all of the best talent is a part of it. (i.e. the Directors Guild, SAG, WGA.) however top talent in software write their own ticket anyway so what would be their incentive? Convincing some startup to become signatory to a guild would be a non-starter for most. If they were to become signatory to a guild, are the founders going to be forced to pay themselves union scale for a side project that doesn’t yet have traction?
Unions were great at stifling innovation and destroying some of our former industries such as Steel and Automotive - see what's left of former very wealthy Detroit. The classic example is the unions not allowing the Toyota Lean Production system in, as then you would need fewer workers. So in not allowing innovation, the unions were key factors in destroying entire industries which have now been built elsewhere. If t…
It’s funny that you consider China freer than America. It shows that what you mean by freedom isn’t really freedom.
Did GP ninja edit his post? I see no mention of china in his post.
They did. Right before they didn't. It's a shame grassroots attempts to address exploitation usually turn into another form of exploitation if not out and out gangsterism. See: the communist revolution, the origins of the Italian Mafia, some cartels in Mexico. In the US unions did much good for society in general. But now we are saddled with things like public sector unions which do very much the opposite.