231–240 of 335 posts
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Its fascinating that for a profession that likes to think its all about understanding complex systems, we have so many that oppose unionization.
Look at what unions did to Detroit.
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,…
Large corporations who have been around a while are controlled by heirs who have never worked, the purpose of which (according to law) is to extract as much surplus value profit from those doing the work. It sounds like the antithesis of meritocracy.
Unions are organizations where union elections are comprised of those doing the work and creating the wealth.
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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.
So will NYT be a union shop / the union will have a monopoly, have multiple unions, or have a mix of union and non-union work?
I can't speak for this situation, but before I moved to tech I worked in a heavily union industry, and all the union shops had in their bargaining contract that the employer could not hire anyone who wasn't in the union. For people in the union it was great. For people not in the union, it sucked. And before somebody says, "well just join the union" (do you really think I'm that stupid not to have thought about that?…
The heirs receiving dividends from the New York Times company slack off to the extent of never working a day in their life, yet receiving massive amounts of money from those doing the work and creating the wealth at the New York Times company.
The union works so that the workers creating the wealth send less of it to these lazy, slacking "job creator" parasites.
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How would a union have helped?
I'm sure people at all levels except executive got the short end during the collapse of Blockbuster. A union would have represented employee interests every time the C-suite issued an execution order down the chain. They could very well have stopped the decline if there had been anyone to protect the retail employees who used to be able to recommend movies. That could have held the line against Netflix and its algori…
How much negotiation does a union have in a company that is bankrupt?
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/review-blockbusters-de...
How would a union have helped? Retail was the cause of BlockBuster’s problems. Forcing stores to stay open wouldn’t have helped.
How much did unions help employees at automakers get jobs?
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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.
> Every time the union got involved, the plants just picked up and left. Unions have been around - especially in manufacturing - long before they started offshoring production. The cost of labor in China and elsewhere was simply too low, unionized or not.
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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.
This also describes an environment where the union doesn't seem to be offering any significant benefits to developers. If unionizing doesn't improve your working conditions, what's the point of the union?
* Access to remote work
* Pay that isn't adjusted by location
* Transparency in performance review and promotion processes
* Better leave policies
* Better equity access policies
* Opportunities to fire shit managers
* Elimination of forced attrition policies
Software engineers are paid very very well. We have better working conditions than most. But there are still big things that bother people.
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This of course isn’t a problem for HN posters, who are all 10x engineers or w/e. Overall though, not having a contract, recourse and representation in a large company is a pretty big risk factor unless you just toil away in silence.
> Overall though, not having a contract, recourse and representation in a large company is a pretty big risk factor unless you just toil away in silence. Why? I have an in-demand set of skills and could easily find a new job if I wanted to. I'd much rather negotiate directly with my employer than have a union intermediating that relationship. If anything, it feels far riskier to have a politically-motivated union bos…
Prior to covid, HN basically constantly complained about the dearth of fully-remote positions. Yes, you could get another office job but if you wanted something fully-remote there was only a teeny tiny number of possible companies. Could unions have forced employers to offer this option?
Today, people complain about pay being based on location for fully remote work. Perhaps a union could actually achieve the goal of making your pay unrelated to where you live?
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Its fascinating that for a profession that likes to think its all about understanding complex systems, we have so many that oppose unionization.
Look at what unions did to Detroit.
North Carolina is in a tie with South Carolina for lowest unionization in the US. The textile mills promised workers if they didn't unionize they would be OK. They didn't, yet the textile mills closed up and left the country any how. After years of low pat they are now low skilled workers with little savings in a town without industry.
In Detroit, workers like Larry Page's grandfather battled during 1930s strike and wound up making a good living. He sent his son to college, and his son founded Google, holding aloft the improvised weapon his grandfather made in the 1930s UAW strike.
The difference is when Detroit was a union town, it produced grandsons like Larry Page. Burlington, North Carolina was never a union town and it was working class then and nowadays over one third of those under 18 are under the property line.
Also Detroit was in a union state when one-income families with the breadwinner working 40 hours a week owned a home, had a car (or two) working in a factory. Now Detroit is not in a union state, it is in a so-called right-to-work state.
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All it takes is a structural shift. Blockbuster had a 29-year run, most of which was after it wiped out the independent stores that predated it.
How would a union have helped?