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Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

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Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#11

Post by Zak »

I've noticed this trend here on HN beyond workers organizing for their own benefit. The idea of regulating the internet, for almost any reason was abhorrent to the tech community a decade ago.

Now, most people seem to think the likes of Uber and AirBnB need to be regulated. A majority of comments here about GDPR seem to support it, and I regularly see calls for more regulation of the sort. I'm not sure if the same group of people have changed their views, or if a wider range of people have brought new perspectives to the community.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#12

Post by tenpies »

maxxxxx wrote: post #7
mises wrote: post #2

This trend bothers me. Employees are not shareholders, or if they are, they ought to do this in their capacity as shareholders. If they want to govern the company, they ought to buy in or move to management. Or, they can always move companies. This is always an option. Also, socialism is an awful idea. I can't believe people actually support it. I have a massive moral objection to its core tenets: what right have you…

Employees share responsibility for the success of a company so they should also have stake in the company. This whole idea that a company exists exclusively for the owners doesn’t make sense to me. There is a bigger picture to make a society work for all citizens. Warning about “ socialism “ also doesn’t make sense. We don’t have to choose between the way the US is at the moment and the Soviet Union or Venezuela. The…

> Employees share responsibility for the success of a company so they should also have stake in the company.

Exactly, so what is stopping them from using their salary to buy shares? If you believe you are doing such a good job that the company will sustain or do better, it would almost be silly not to. You have domain expertise by virtue of working there. You may even have a solid insider feel for the pulse of the organization.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#13

Post by GaltMidas »

ycHatesFreeSpch wrote: post #4

Socialism aside, the unionization of tech workers is extremely important. Failing this, they will be exploited at every damn job. Unions exist in local governments, so why not at private firms too. It's time to organize. A lot of CEOs and CTOs will hate this idea, of course, and will do anything to make you believe otherwise.

I'm 46 years old. I can't think of one example where I was exploited as a tech worker. I'm from a union town, grew up in a union family. I support unions. The UAW was very important to the country and the middle class. I'm just not sure where the need is in tech. I think it might hurt us, if anything. Tech workers are not fungible. We do have quite a bit of leverage. Your average factory floor worker is fungible and has almost zero leverage.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#14

Post by helen___keller »

I've never been convinced that unions are necessarily the best approach to resolving the employer/employee power differential, but I do believe that in the coming decades something will be necessary.

By luck, the explosive growth of software in the states and relative scarcity of developers has resulted in a lot of wealth and luxury for engineers. There's no reason to believe this trend will continue indefinitely.

On the other side of the spectrum, another country that has explosive software growth but a large supply of engineers and STEM workers is China. China's 996 work policy has been getting a lot of attention lately and I think it should highlight the risk we face in a matter of maybe a generation or two if the software industry does eventually cool down.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#15

Post by sokoloff »

ycHatesFreeSpch wrote: post #4

Socialism aside, the unionization of tech workers is extremely important. Failing this, they will be exploited at every damn job. Unions exist in local governments, so why not at private firms too. It's time to organize. A lot of CEOs and CTOs will hate this idea, of course, and will do anything to make you believe otherwise.

This exploitation seems to take many forms. Being paid a multiple of the median income, working indoors under climate-controlled conditions, and (at least in my case) being paid to do that which I’d do for free anyway.

My grandfathers mined coal and milled steel. They needed unions. I don’t see any benefit to unions for me.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#16

Post by glvn »

Unpopular opinion:

As a recent graduate (last 5 years), I can't agree with most works desire to unionize for one reason: demand for your skills.

When I was looking for my second tech job, I turned on that switch in my LinkedIn that lets recruiters contact me. I was immediately inundated with 10-20 messages a day from recruiters asking if I could speak with them about . For me this was the most insane luxury in the workplace, instead of having to go out and look for jobs, those jobs were coming to me and knocking on my door.

What I took from that is tech workers have an incredible choice in where they can go work because their skills are highly in-demand. So why unionize? Don't like where you work? Flip a switch and suddenly you have 10-20 offers a day from other companies looking to hire someone with your skillset. Yes, you have to spend time combing through the messages, on the phone with recruiters and going to interviews but at the end of the day with that level of attention to your skillset, you can basically decide where you want to work. Company A seems great but the culture is toxic, ok great let's see what company B has to offer. Company B has a good culture but their data collection practices you don't agree with, ok let's see what company C has to offer. Company C has a great culture and doesn't do the things you consider unethical with data collection, bam we have a winner.

Also on the topic of general democracy in the workplace regarding decisions. As an engineer you don't make those decisions, you just implement them. Don't like the decisions, go somewhere else. Want more/total control over decision making? Start your own company.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#17

Post by scarmig »

mises wrote: post #2

This trend bothers me. Employees are not shareholders, or if they are, they ought to do this in their capacity as shareholders. If they want to govern the company, they ought to buy in or move to management. Or, they can always move companies. This is always an option. Also, socialism is an awful idea. I can't believe people actually support it. I have a massive moral objection to its core tenets: what right have you…

> what right have you to the fruits of my labor?

Socialists ask the same thing of capitalists.

There's no reason to elevate one particular (and historically rare) version of property rights over all others. And there's no particular reason economic organizations should or must be authoritarian dictatorships ruled by "shareholders" instead of workplace democracies.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#18

Post by idlewords »

As someone who was pretty heavily invested in getting tech workers to organize, I've watched with interest as some version of this article gets written every three or four months. There is always a small group of people actively tilting at this windmill, and they make for a good story.

What I am waiting to see is a significant demand being met by any major tech employer. The end of forced arbitration at Google was a promising development, but the failure of the Google walkout organizers to get their key demand—an employee representative on the board—doesn't bode well.

I continue to believe that tech workers enjoy a temporary position of immense leverage in the workplace, but turning that into substantive gains has so far proven beyond anyone's capacity. I wish the current crop of organizers the best of luck in trying to make it happen.

Re: Tech workers are organizing and demanding democracy in the workplace

#19

Post by mathattack »

ycHatesFreeSpch wrote: post #4

Socialism aside, the unionization of tech workers is extremely important. Failing this, they will be exploited at every damn job. Unions exist in local governments, so why not at private firms too. It's time to organize. A lot of CEOs and CTOs will hate this idea, of course, and will do anything to make you believe otherwise.

Look at airlines and auto companies for the danger of extreme unionization. You can kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Unions generally only work in monopolies (think old school telecom) where there is a surplus that is protected from competition. In this case it’s just about dividing a fixed pie.

The best thing for workers is to have many companies competing for their talents. That’s why counterintuitive things like lower corporate taxes can sometimes benefit workers. Same with reducing barriers to market entry.

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