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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

#281

Post by DocTomoe »

UncleMeat wrote: post #242
tootie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: why? Engineers are already compensated way, way above average and have loads of mobility opportunities. I actually work in a news org where most of the non-tech people are in one union or another but my team isn't. We have actually had a few union staff who wanted to do coding work and the union essentially blocked them.

Google made something like $300,000 in profit per employee in 2021. Engineers are indeed compensated way above average but they are not capturing their full economic output.

Good! That incentivizes them to start their own thing, leading to more innovation for the rest for us.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#282

Post by scarface74 »

aaomidi wrote: post #276
scarface74 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I haven’t been “stressed” about losing my job in decades. I keep my skillset up, my resume in sync with the market, my network strong, and have a go to hell fund. The only time it has ever taken me longer than a month to go from “I’m looking for a job” to “offer” is for my current job. That was only because I wasn’t really looking and was focused on this one job where the interview process took a month to…

Theres a lot more reasons that can lead to job loss other than technical competence. Being in a union gives you a slice of ownership in the company you're working in. It allows you to have support if you're getting bullied. It also creates a wonderful dynamic with your coworkers. But yeah, framing this as a technical problem is missing the point entirely.

I realize that. My financial livelihood is not dependent on my current job. It’s dependent on my ability to get another job.

It is purely about you taking control of your own career and not wait for the union or government to protect you.

The demand for software developers is not new. It’s been there since I started working in 1996.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#283

Post by scarface74 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #270
scarface74 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unions kept pushing for increased pay. But regardless, what good would unions be to prevent outsourcing?

> The unions kept pushing for increased pay. Sure, that's their job. Individuals do the same thing; unions just mean everyone negotiates as a group instead of one at a time, with a more balanced power dynamic. > But regardless, what good would unions be to prevent outsourcing? Unions aren't magical. That doesn't mean there's zero value in such a scenario. They can negotiate rules and limits on layoffs, they can negot…

How are they going to “negotiate”? If they say “no” what are the union members going to do strike? The company is trying to get rid of them anyway.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#284

Post by scarface74 »

msrenee wrote: post #272
scarface74 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unions kept pushing for increased pay. But regardless, what good would unions be to prevent outsourcing?

It really depends on the numbers here. Were the companies paying say $12/hour in current terms and the union was asking for more or were they trying to get $35/hr raised beyond what was reasonable for the work?

What’s “reasonable” is the same as the market demands for their skillset. If the companies could pick up and move to another state or a cheaper country, what does that tell you?

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#285

Post by slices »

Spooky23 wrote: post #30
iamjfu wrote: post #3

Some highlights > The workers voted in favor, 404 to 88 > The group is the biggest tech union with bargaining rights in America. https://nytimesguild.org/tech-vote-count

That sounds like nonsense to me. I can think of single sites of a few defense contractors with more unionized engineers.

this seems like another example of "tech" being used to mean "delivering online ads"

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#286

Post by scarface74 »

kiliantics wrote: post #268
scarface74 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been a developer for 25 years. The only time I couldn’t just throw my resume in the air and get another job was between 2008-2011. But that was a function of a bad economy and my letting my skills atrophy. When Amazon developers (I work at AWS in ProServe) saw their compensation not in line with the market, they didn’t talk about “unionizing”, they started interviewing and resigning en masse forcing Amazon to ch…

As someone who is newer in the industry, I can't say I feel the same. It was already fairly competitive when I was trying to get hired and now it is clear that huge numbers of people are getting trained for tech jobs and it is not clear that huge numbers of tech jobs will continue to be available. That said, I don't think this is what a union is about. They provide a mechanism for workplace democracy that is far more…

We are specifically talking about tech workers where especially post Covid, remote work is the norm.

I don’t work anywhere near Seattle or any other Amazon office.

How will unions help protect you from the laws of supply and demand? How will it protect you from outsourcing?

What protects you from workplace discrimination and harassment are laws. Besides, no one is crazy enough to say “we aren’t going to hire you or promote you because you’re Black (I am)”

You know how I got to the position where I could say “fuck you i quit” within three years after I graduated? By working my ass off, networking like crazy and interview prep. How is a union going to help me get or keep a job?

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#287

Post by freedomben »

icelancer wrote: post #172
tbrownaw wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds very inefficient. How did that whole industry not get their lunch eaten by other states / countries?

A lot of union businesses also benefit from regulatory capture and have the inside track on government contracts as their main source of income. There's no effective competition for these types of industries.

Exactly. This industry is highly regulated and the unions help write the laws and regulations. Because of that it's mostly large players and very, very few small ones. The large ones all have agreements with the unions because at their scale it's impossible not to, and to get that agreement they have to agree to only hire union.

Also a lot of the materials producers that supplied us were union, and many of them didn't want to provide services to a non-union shop. I don't know if they had any formal policies against it (probably they didn't) but anytime we called or places orders, etc we were a super low priority for them.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#288

Post by Spooky23 »

andrew_ wrote: post #50
mkr-hn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have an example of industry-wide, pervasive structural shift? Sincere question, as Blockbuster is a good example, but relatively isolated. By the time Blockbuster was done, viable replacements had already arisen.

Sure. The easy money growth phase of cloud will slow or stop. People laugh at my mainframe example upthread, but no Data Processing Executive saw 1992 coming in 1988.

Most of the people making $500k comp at AWS, MS, GCP will all get nuked once the growth and investment phase slows down. You’re already seeing it happen at the margins - you don’t see “Uber for Litter Box” startups in 2022.

I’ve seen this happen with internal enterprise services as well. When you’re growing 50-500% a year, all of your sins and fuckups are hidden in the growth. Once dust settles and you shift to steady state, you suddenly care about cost accounting vs growth.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#289

Post by toomuchtodo »

scarface74 wrote: post #176
CSMastermind wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honest question: why? Because the existing union of news workers demanded that software engineers be included in their membership as part of some negotiation at some point. Basically, it was a way for the union to grow its membership (and dues). It was impossible to opt out of the union and you had to pay dues, I forget how much but I think it was like 2% of your salary or something to the union. Given the option I…

I would leave a company if they forced a 2% tax on me to join a union I didn’t want to join after I started working there.

Vote with your feet, just if management changed the role materially. The role would likely be filled quickly by replacement talent desiring the protections such representation offers.

Re: New York Times tech workers vote to certify union

#290

Post by Apocryphon »

UncleMeat wrote: post #237
Kalium wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Developers are constantly complaining about things. Unions could fight for * 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 mo…

Even to push against something as mundane as open offices, which are almost universally disliked by engineers, but these days favored by management.
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