571–580 of 624 posts
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To reply to your point about H1B: Unions are normally very nativist and would be the last group pushing for better/ more H1B visas. The Union reaction to the TPP should have indicated something. I feel as if the ageism is more on the worker's shoulders. Many of us are young, and the field is on the younger side on average
Unions can be nativist but a tech union shouldn't have to be just because another labor union might've been. Ageism is on the worker's shoulders, but those workers are also managers who choose to do bullshit like lay off workers above a certain age across a company. We need ways to protect ourselves from that.
There is no "might have been". It's pretty much a matter of historical record that labor unions were fiercely anti-immigrant.
Judging by nativist comments even on a heavily moderated forum like HN whenever the topic of H1-Bs comes up, the many, many immigrants in the tech industry would be have to be bonkers to trust that a tech union wouldn't become nativist.
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I'm talking about multinational corporations, not individuals or nations.
As am I. I'm arguing against labor arbitrage, due to weak labor regulation and protections, as a wealth transfer mechanism by multinationals (operating in a market while outsourcing labor to another, collecting and profiting off the spread, while likely paying minimal taxes where they're domiciled). The hollowing out of the American middle class over the last 40 years due to globalization is what the end result looks…
Middle class = 0.67(median household income) - 2.0(median household income)
Was there something wrong with the traditional definition of middle quintiles?
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It is irrelevant. But somehow companies have convinced most that unions are a bad thing. They have leveraged their greater influence to further their power. They are now in an essentially unassailable position. For the great majority of the workforce they have no bargaining power. This toxic modern world should pop like the noxious little bubble it is. We need a new 60s only this time we need to win.
It all depends on what your goal is. Unions take money from R&D and shareholders, and put it in their own pockets. That's totally fine, but it is a tradeoff. The negative side is it creates opportunities for other companies that aren't unionized to innovate with that capital. Or sometimes it just results in returning capital to shareholders. Tesla is a good example of where paying union members instead of investing i…
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I am only qualified to speak about the tech sector in which I work. All of my coworkers make above six figures. We have every sort of benefit that we could want. Why would we want a union? Our company has convinced us that unions are a bad thing by giving us basically anything that a union could have, and more. Why would we want to agitate for more when we already have so much, and risk what we currently have (which…
I'm also a tech worker and I know plenty of things we can agitate for: * Better treatment against the rampant ageism in our industry (eg. access to lawyers when IBM decides to do mass layoffs of people above a certain age...) * Guaranteeing reimbursement for self-education materials, time off for self-education purposes like conventions and hacker spaces * Better treatment for H1B visa holders, a political push to st…
I don’t know your location, but in the US it’s already illegal to discriminate against someone’s age if they’re over 40
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You said this was a compelling moral argument. I don't believe the moral content is at all clear and give examples of why not. Would you mind responding to those? Apple prices have converged quite a lot - but note that the labor content of their products prices changes very little as everything is made in same factories in China. McDonalds (another multinational with a quite standardized product offering across marke…
I'm not sure I understand your concerns. Why would it not be OK to receive the same compensation for the same work?
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> what would be the ideal way to give access to opportunities? Should only smart and hard working people people get them? As opposed to just getting access by virtue of where you were lucky enough to be born or how wealthy your parents are?
But one could argue even intelligence is based purely on luck.
Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They exhibit a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. It is manifested in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, and systematic; also including such elements as carefulness, thoroughness, and deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting)
[...]
With the advent of the FFM (Five-Factor Model), behavior geneticists began systematic studies of the full range of personality traits, and it soon became clear that all five factors are substantially heritable.
This will happen but people will should not be surprised that we all get paid Topeka KS salaries not San Francisco CA salaries. The long term strategy of location pay differentials may seem like punishing people for leaving SF, but it's the opposite. I've been paid 80% of SF rate to live in the middle of nowhere and anyone else who has done this will realize it's an amazing deal. When a 3000 sq ft house costs conside…
As a counter-anecdote: I moved from the Florida panhandle to the SF Bay area, and while certain things like housing and taxes were quite a bit more expensive, most things really weren't. The California salary/equity increase meant my relative standard of living and (most importantly) ability to save went way up. Without going into specific numbers, in 2019 the amount I was able to put away into 401k, IRAs, and other tax advantaged savings accounts exceeded my entire Florida gross salary in 2009. And I'm not even getting one of those wild outlier high-level FAANG engineer compensations. It's a world of difference.
This will happen but people will should not be surprised that we all get paid Topeka KS salaries not San Francisco CA salaries. The long term strategy of location pay differentials may seem like punishing people for leaving SF, but it's the opposite. I've been paid 80% of SF rate to live in the middle of nowhere and anyone else who has done this will realize it's an amazing deal. When a 3000 sq ft house costs conside…
> I've been paid 80% of SF rate to live in the middle of nowhere and anyone else who has done this will realize it's an amazing deal. When a 3000 sq ft house costs considerably less than your 1 bedroom apartment, you realize that your cost of living didn't just drop by more than 20%, but that standard of living went way up. As a counter-anecdote: I moved from the Florida panhandle to the SF Bay area, and while certai…
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> Mandated unions Unions aren't mandated by law anywhere.
Aren’t they mandated in non-right-to-work states in union shops?