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Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

latimes.com

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Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#2
As much as I don't like the idea of unionizing tech workers in general, game development does seem like it's suffering from the kind of industry-wide coordination failure unions are built to address. Every source I've ever seen is unhappy with months-long crunch time - are there any serious arguments that it's a good development model?

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#5
I read all of this as "Major union seeks to extract rent from an additional sector".

I agree that putting developers on death marches is antithetical to everything that is human, but it's not like you don't have options in this industry... Tech work isn't like coal mining where your health is legitimately at risk on a daily basis, and where the number of alternative options available to the average worker is low to non-existent.

Just yesterday we were all ogling over the salaries offered to engineers by the various top dogs in the valley. Anyone who works in tech on one of these salaries, and then turns around to complain about their collective rights... It all just feels incredibly childish to me.

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#6
post #5

I read all of this as "Major union seeks to extract rent from an additional sector". I agree that putting developers on death marches is antithetical to everything that is human, but it's not like you don't have options in this industry... Tech work isn't like coal mining where your health is legitimately at risk on a daily basis, and where the number of alternative options available to the average worker is low to n…

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Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#8
post #6
post #5

I read all of this as "Major union seeks to extract rent from an additional sector". I agree that putting developers on death marches is antithetical to everything that is human, but it's not like you don't have options in this industry... Tech work isn't like coal mining where your health is legitimately at risk on a daily basis, and where the number of alternative options available to the average worker is low to n…

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Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#10
post #5

I read all of this as "Major union seeks to extract rent from an additional sector". I agree that putting developers on death marches is antithetical to everything that is human, but it's not like you don't have options in this industry... Tech work isn't like coal mining where your health is legitimately at risk on a daily basis, and where the number of alternative options available to the average worker is low to n…

Collective rights extend beyond salary to the ability to have say over the basic terms and content of one’s labor. Some people can certainly be bought out of these concerns with high enough pay, but salaries at Google weren’t high enough to prevent people from organizing around sexual violence in the workplace nor work on Chinese surveillance. And I don’t think their organizing around these issues was “childish” in any fashion, no matter what they were being paid.
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