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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

#41

Post by maxxxxx »

mdorazio wrote: post #27
maxxxxx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are plenty of employee-owned companies to join if that's your opinion. Trying to shoehorn that ownership into companies that often got to where they are by not being employee-owned seems really entitled.

There was a time when nobility was complaining about peasants who wanted to have a say in how the country is run.

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

#43

Post by glvn »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #33
glvn wrote: post #16

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 wo…

Yes, you are popular now but in 10-20 years after you’ve been through the wringer a couple times the concept of a tech union might make more sense. EDIT: changed "ringer" to "wringer".

I agree, and that's one of the reasons I posted how long I've been in the industry. On the one hand, right now everything is flowers and daisies but who knows what it will look like for me in 10-20-30 years, it might be a completely different landscape and unions might be required.

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

#44

Post by pg_bot »

scarmig wrote: post #17
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.

The capitalist answer is they don't have any right to your labor.

They purchase your labor with the wages that they pay you. You are free to not accept any opportunity offered, and either party can terminate it at any time for any (legal) reason if they feel the deal is no longer to their satisfaction.

Almost everyone believes that they are underpaid. There is a very simple way to prove it by checking your worth in the marketplace.

You are also free to ply your trade on your own if you so wish.

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

#45

Post by tenpies »

GaltMidas wrote: post #13
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…

I am also worried about who would end up leading these unions. If traditional blue collar jobs, where members are most certainly not Left-leaning already end up with literal communists in the leadership, I cannot imagine how bad it would get when the membership is largely Left-leaning.

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

#47

Post by itronitron »

glvn wrote: post #16

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 wo…

>> As an engineer you don't make those decisions, you just implement them

I feel that is a very myopic attitude. Engineers and tech workers generally are in the best position to present options that can inform business decisions. In order to identify a good option it helps to have a lot of options. Disregarding the positive input that any employee can have on how a company operates is incredibly stupid.

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

#48

Post by gorpomon »

A lot of counter arguments here say that this isn't necessary because we can easily find new jobs. Yes that's true, but that's not what I want to always have to do in my career.

I don't always want to cut and run. I want to invest in a workplace and have a meaningful say about my circumstances there and the work we do. I don't want to quit or have to suck it up and deal. I don't want to have to go into management and then have dueling loyalties (what comes first, ethics or keeping my team employed?) If I work at a big company like Amazon, I want a say in what our tech does and who uses it. Even if I cut and run from them, I'm not going to catch up to Amazon anytime soon. In a place like that positive change could much more easily come from within than from competition.

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

#49

Post by whytaka »

TomMarius wrote: post #30
shraremywin2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialism is when the government owns production. capitalist are allowed to aggregate in the form of corporations why shouldn't workers be allowed to aggregate.

They are able to incorporate just as well.

Unionzation is just another way to do exactly that.

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

#50

Post by mises »

maxxxxx wrote: post #32
mises wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, overall my above comment had two sub-points: First, the point that employees are not always shareholders. They get payed to do a job at a wage accepted by both the company and employee. Second, the idea of socialism over all. As Marx described it, it's merely a transitional phase: the means of production is taken from capitalists and given to the government to basically hold in custody until it can be passed t…

I hate this straight jump to warnings of socialism whenever somebody questions the current system. There is much more nuance. In Germany workers get a seat on the board of directors and from what I know these companies still make the owners rich and the country is quite different from Venezuela.

The headline of the article is that Silicon Valley has a "budding socialist movement". Even if it's not a full-scale war, it's still a move toward it (and quickly). Don't believe me? Take a look at this recent article: https://qz.com/1580091/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-how-far-left...

Scroll down to the graphic, and look at the massive recent leftward lurch by the Democratic party.

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