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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

#91

Post by mises »

scarmig wrote: post #82
mises wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> owners and especially managers nowadays controlling priorities and work rules So? I do think some people have bad practices. Non-competes, for instance, are often abused. But you can still leave... > existing corporate management structures... rely on state violence to maintain themselves... If a bunch of workers enacted control over their workplace Yes, if there was a workers uprising, I would darn well hope the p…

> We live in a nation founded on the basis of property rights. Assuming you live in the United States, do you mean the right to enslave people and take their labor? Or the right to kill people and take their land?

Care to clarify? I was never alive at either of those times, nor were my predecessors (all immigrated legally after that). I and my family have fairly earned what we have. I agree there were past issues, but socialism/communism is worse in that it keeps taking every year after. And none of what you mentioned is a free market.

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

#92

Post by jogjayr »

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".

Unrelated, but it's "through the wringer" not "ringer". A "wringer" being something that wrings your clothes out i.e. puts a great amount of stress and force on them.

Sorry for being annoying and pedantic :-(

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

#93

Post by MangezBien »

I think it is time for tech workers to force their companies to pursue an agenda that is in-line with the worker's ethics. We are highly paid, we are also highly valuable to the US economy. If we can effectively unionize - we can use that leverage to pressure the government to act in ways we support with regards to surveillance and climate change.

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

#94

Post by cworth »

appleiigs wrote: post #72
adreamingsoul wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've been through the ringer... I'm in my 40s and at the point in my life where if you'd pay me good money to dig holes, then I'd dig holes. I go to where ever pays me the most to dig. I don't identify myself by where I work at. I don't expect other people to have my values, and definitely don't have those expectations on a corporation. I have this mercenary attitude because I know that I'm solely responsible for mys…

It sounds like you are mixing the positive and normative. Yes, corporations now don't represent the values of their workers and lobby for all kinds of awful things. Yes, there is no social net now provided by unions or the government in the United States.

But wouldn't it be excellent if these things were true?

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

#95

Post by mises »

maxxxxx wrote: post #76
mises wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“Socialist” is a meaningless label by itself. In the US they call Sweden and Venezuela “socialist” although they are totally different countries. " Even if it's not a full-scale war, it's still a move toward it (and quickly). " that's just scaremongering. Why use words like "war"?

Your first point is a baseless assertion; I will ignore it, as you can't really argue against a "yuh-huh".

I used the word war because that's typically how socialist and communist governments have gotten into place.

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

#96

Post by lixtra »

mises wrote: post #71
dgzl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what right have you to the fruits of my labor? Edit: Nobody. If you allow someone to have rights to another person's product or service (I'm thinking healthcare), then you're saying you have a right to the people who produce the product or service, which is slavery. The government can't guarantee your "right" if there's no people to produce it, unless the government forces it (slavery), or just throws random worker…

> If you allow someone to have rights to another person's product or service Who said this should ever be the case? You're assuming I support a right to healthcare. I don't support that, nor do I support most positive rights. Especially if they're not constitutional and are federally implemented. The obvious solution to all the problems you mentioned is that nobody has a right to anyone else's product or service, whi…

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

You mentioned the constitution so you agree that some effort has to be made to enforce it. This effort has to be paid for by tax on your labor. Once you agree on that you only haggle if it is more tax efficient to put someone in jail for stealing a pizza or handing out free pizza. You’re free to take part in this democratic process.

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

#97

Post by okmokmz »

durnygbur wrote: post #60
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…

Once you discover later on in your career that seniority and respect of your peers is not transferable between companies, that hopping to the next job from the job board is vicious circle of working on dull dead end projects under authocratic and dumb at times people (with long length of service at the company), you might change your mind. Also you’ll discover that life is more complicated than „just walk away or sta…

>seniority and respect of your peers is not transferable between companies, that hopping to the next job from the job board is vicious circle of working of dull dead end projects under authocratic and dumb at times people (with long length of service at the company)

I haven't found this to be the case at all. I know many people who jump companies every 3 years or so, make more money each time they change, get to work on a variety of projects that interest them, and are well respected by their peers regardless of what company they are with due to the work they have done and continue to do. It is relatively common advice that you are generally able to advance faster by moving between companies and negotiating for better pay and titles rather than trying to get promoted frequently while staying with the same company. If you decide to take a position where you will be doing dull, dead end work with "dumb" people that is your own fault.

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

#98

Post by Zak »

helen___keller wrote: post #21
Zak wrote: post #11

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 gr…

I think there was a sort of techno-utopianism in the aughts that the hip new startups will solve all the world's problems. People will be educated and not fall for disinformation with wikipedia and google at their fingertips. People will discover the wonders of democracy and free speech with facebook and rise against oppressive governments. These were obviously overly optimistic projections. Also, the rise of outrage…

I think there's a tendency to discount the partial successes, perhaps because they make the failures yet more shocking. I can fact-check most things I read in seconds, yet there's a still-growing anti-vaccine movement. While the mechanisms promised are there and work great at an individual level, that's not always the case at a national, regional, or global scale.

And now the popular hope seems to be that the wonders of democracy can temper the excesses that came with these partially successful solutions. It is my fear that this hope is also irrationally optimistic, and that regulation will lead to politicians and bureaucrats deciding what is true at scale for their own benefit.

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

#99

Post by scruple »

mises wrote: post #85
orblivion wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lean more on the capitalist side, but this is a more interesting question than a basic view of capitalism would lead one to believe. The ethics of capitalism are based on the assumption that the business owner rightfully has final say on all of the property of the business, and that the workers are merely guests on the property, paid to do something with the property, collect a paycheck, and go home. They have no r…

There was a thread yesterday about a jury selection glitch that made young people less likely to be selected, and someone suggested making them 10x more likely as recompense. I said that wasn't fair to the new jurors or the new defendants (who would still get a biased jury). I believe it's the same here. I know several people who were raised dirt-poor, and even one who was a high-school drop-out, who started successf…

There was another thread yet, a day or two back, where people were talking about the financial windfalls that they received from their parents. I found that interesting, because as one person put it, paraphrasing, receiving that money from their parents to kick-start their life and presumably successful business had led them towards a more liberal political outlook.

Having been raised in relative poverty, I have no idea what it's like to have wealthy parents to fall back on. Instead, I spent a decade after high school fighting to get ahead. Today, I find myself, over a decade later still, living what can only be called an excellent quality of life. I, instead, give back to my parents. And I look back at the path that I walked and it makes me less liberal in my politics as a result.

> Getting ahead is hard, but certainly possible.

I think that most everything we do in life is hard and that the daily challenges of life are exactly what make it worth living.

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

#100

Post by turkeysandwich »

gorpomon wrote: post #48

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…

I've started businesses. When I start a business, it's mine (and my partner's). Like a car or a house or a website. I'm trying to do something specific with it, with plans that I've drawn up. It's not just to make money. If all I wanted to do was make money, I'd just get a normal job.

When I hire people, I'm not giving away my business, in the same way that if I give a friend a ride, I'm not giving away my car. If they don't like where I'm driving, their only option is to find another ride.

That's the key difference between starting a business vs getting a job: all the decision making is yours.

And this applies at any scale, even Amazon scale. If you have plans and you start a business to execute them, you can execute them even better at a large scale. Getting Amazon big and maintaining control is the reason you start a business.

It'd be insulting if my hires started wanting to take away control. When you hire someone, it's with the implicit understanding that they respect that the business is not theirs. They don't own any of it. (Unless they want to buy in.)

Violating that understanding is disrespectful. Like your neighbor letting their dog shit on your lawn and not picking it up, because they think "well, he's just going to walk his dog in twenty minutes, he can do them both at the same time."

I don't like working (whether for my business or for someone else's business) with disrespectful people. There's a lack of trust.

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