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New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

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Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#201

Post by bigbillheck »

scarface74 wrote: post #148
woodruffw wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood the parent comment, there are two kinds of leverage being discussed here: there's the leverage that individual tech workers currently have (as high demand, high income laborers in a hot market) and then there's the leverage inherent to collective bargaining. I believe the GP was saying that unions can deliver when circumstances give individuals large amounts of leverage, but they don't need to. But we…

And what’s stopping tech companies from doing the same thing manufacturing companies do when they don’t want to deal with unions - hire cheaper labor overseas? My hometown use to be booming with multiple manufacturing plants. Every time the union got involved, the plants just picked up and left.

Overseas labor is also cheaper than non-union US labor.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#203

Post by eru »

lmm wrote: post #178
eru wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want me to be actively involved in all insurance contracts that are offered to me, and try to lobby them to be better? Seems like just saying No to them would be the saner option. (Similar also for unions you don't want to participate in. Or political parties, or companies etc. Joining and getting involved is fine, if that's what you want. But avoiding is just as valid a response.)

You have to judge how much involvement to have. Just signing up and forgetting about it is a pretty bad idea. But not getting insurance at all because you've heard some insurance sucks and doesn't pay out is an even worse one. Most kinds of disaster preparedness are thankless, seemingly pointless work until the disaster in question happens.

Insurance is a broad term.

I agree that is some forms of insurance are useful. Eg catastrophic health insurance at a good price.

But that doesn't mean I need to insure my phone. Or buy health insurance that covers glasses.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#204

Post by dgb23 »

Unions are important and solve real problems. But I tend to think that they are a necessary evil rather than attacking the root or at least a deeper branch.

In my worldview there are two principles that I think are fundamental to a well functioning community (a workplace is just that):

- Meritocracy. The kind where better ideas and actions get more consideration. I'm thinking in terms of basic virtues here: loyalty, rationality, empathy, courage, cunning. Potential rewards and incentives should align but should always be in service of outcomes and not the goal in of itself. This is material/knowledge focused. - Consensus. To keep a peaceful, sustainable, fair, productive environment one needs a process to reconcile differing views and interests. Open communication, democracy, agency. This is people focused.

When a community doesn't follow these principles then it eventually degrades, becomes brittle and rigid until it crumbles under its own weight or a counterforce (such as a union) is formed. But what should happen is a disentanglement of power into meritocracy and consensus.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#205

Post by bigbillheck »

eru wrote: post #117
mkr-hn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are insurance against capitalist hubris.

Competition is insurance against that, too. Alas, unions can have their own principal-agent problems and bureaucracy and hubris.

Competition usually turns into collusion and consolidation.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#206

Post by eru »

mschuster91 wrote: post #200
eru wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolute wages are higher in the US than in Europe. Wages have not stagnated in the US, either. What measures of inflation do you use to come to that conclusion? The labour share of GDP has been roughly stable over the last few decades.

> Absolute wages are higher in the US than in Europe. They are, but do not forget that in Europe, our take-home wages already have healthcare, social security and pension contributions taken care of, and our housing and general cost of living (e.g. groceries) are also vastly lower than in the US. > Wages have not stagnated in the US, either. They have, at least for the wide masses [1]. [1]: https://www.epi.org/public…

> They are, but do not forget that in Europe, our take-home wages already have healthcare, social security and pension contributions taken care of, and our housing and general cost of living (e.g. groceries) are also vastly lower than in the US.

Well, Europe is big. Cost of living differ between different places.

You can look at measures like 'disposable income' or similar metrics.

Doesn't really matter too much what specific metric you use, US incomes are higher.

Thanks for the source you linked to. To quote them:

> Changing the price deflator used to adjust wages for inflation can boost measured wage growth. But wage growth would still lag far behind growth in economywide productivity, [...]

They are either using difference inflation metrics for productivity vs wages, or their definition of 'far' is different from mine.

Have a look at the labour share of gdp. Eg at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG or https://taxfoundation.org/labor-share-net-income-within-hist...

Since 1950, the amount of compensation going to labour has fluctuated around 59% - 65% of total GDP in the US. A fairly narrow range; and no reason to say anything like 'lag[ging] far behind'.

Because we are looking at a ratio, it doesn't matter how or even whether we adjust for inflation here.

So all productivity improvements that make it into GDP also make it proportionally into wages. You can't really ask for more, can you?

Whether wages have stagnated is then a question of whether real GDP has stagnated. And, alas, unions aren't really known for driving productivity in the US. Just the opposite.

Of course, you can argue about median vs average. And that's a very valid discussion to have.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#207

Post by eru »

rmbyrro wrote: post #181
jcims wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a member of the Teamsters for about a year. That organization seems to thrive on creating a hostile relationship between management and staff. I’m a manager now, there’s absolutely no way I would want to invite that type of operating model into a current workplace. If the organization that I work for creates an environment that is not conducive to retaining employees then I’m just as likely to leave as my team.

Given how easier - relatively to manufacturing - it is to challenge established players in tech, this shows tech unions are pretty much doomed. Companies adopting this model will collapse very quickly with the lck of good talent. Good people will work elsewhere and their employers will thrive.

Depends on what kind of manufacturing.

If your company manufactures a commodity, like screws, they are also easy to challenge.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#208

Post by DocTomoe »

afavour wrote: post #71
morgante wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. That's why I will vigorously oppose any unionization drives. It's incredible that people would acquiesce to being forced to accept whatever contract some union boss negotiates.

Huh? If there’s no union you’re forced to accept whatever contract the company boss decides upon. At least in the union situation you’ve had an advocate in negotiating the contract. In either situation if you don’t like the end result you can just quit.

Many people think they individually can get a better result negotiating themselves than having some "racketeer" negotiate in their name. With the historical connections of US unions to organised crime, they can hardly be blamed.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#209

Post by raxxorrax »

0xy wrote: post #135
lmm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A union is like an insurance policy, or a lawyer on retainer, or a contract in writing. It doesn't do anything when times are good, that's not what it's for.

So it's like buying a lottery ticket every day for decades expecting to win millions. They don't show value and there's no indication they ever will, and it costs a significant amount of money. Often, the unions themselves are corrupt.

Most problem I see with unions is that they tend to run their own causes at some point. It is difficult to keep them focused on the interest of workers and they can get tangled up in contemporary issues. Corruption is another problem since possible. If I look at some unions some people in tech wanted to start, I don't really see the issues of worker prioritized.

That said, because corporations seem to default to exploiting workers to the maximum degree possible, they are a necessary evil.

I don't know how bad working for the NYT is, but I wouldn't be surprised that instead of arguing for employee conditions, they try to influence editors and dejure editorials the might not like.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#210

Post by zarkov99 »

the_duke wrote: post #19
CSMastermind wrote: post #7

I'm surprised they weren't already in one. I worked at a competitor (the Wall St. Journal) years ago and all software engineers there had to be part of the union. Unions in the news industry are extremely common and powerful. My subjective experience with it was that union membership was mostly inconsequential for developers. The market for programmers is so strong that people would just leave if they weren't treated…

That's exactly the time to unionize! The employer has limited leverage to bust any union efforts. When the employment market is weak and you are scrounging for a job it's a lot easier to threaten/scare everyone into submission.

What if you do not want a future where you have to pay union dues and give up individual agency in your relationship with your employer? Unions might be a necessary evil to rectify massive power imbalances but that is hardly the case in tech, so all we are left with is the evil part.
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