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Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

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Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#81

Post by pjc50 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #67
alphazard wrote: post #22

Don't unions work best in fields where quality is very uniform and expertise counts for very little? I'm thinking about low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years. Unions create salary progression, and benefits for seniority where there is otherwise no reason for them to exist. When no one does anything better than anyone else, it makes sense to negotiate as a block, individuals have no power. Now compa…

Why would a 10x engineer object to improved working conditions for all? Some general hatred for coworkers?

Yes. Thinking of yourself as a 10x engineer, you run the risk of seeing everyone else as 0.1x engineers, mere inconvenient ants that you're forced to tolerate. You can see a bit of that in this thread.

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#82

Post by throw0101c »

lapcat wrote: post #75
alphazard wrote: post #22

Don't unions work best in fields where quality is very uniform and expertise counts for very little? I'm thinking about low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years. Unions create salary progression, and benefits for seniority where there is otherwise no reason for them to exist. When no one does anything better than anyone else, it makes sense to negotiate as a block, individuals have no power. Now compa…

> Don't unions work best in fields where quality is very uniform and expertise counts for very little? I'm thinking about low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years. Unions create salary progression, and benefits for seniority where there is otherwise no reason for them to exist. When no one does anything better than anyone else, it makes sense to negotiate as a block, individuals have no power. No, thi…

> Note that all professional sports have unions for athletes.

Except tennis, where players are basically independent contractors—and not coïncidentally they have the lowest average earnings of any major sport:

* https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/9/12/23870760/tennis-wages-s...

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#83

Post by tourmalinetaco »

LtWorf wrote: post #59
tourmalinetaco wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in countries like India programmers make salaries in the multiples of the average (checking around on Payscale I see the average is around ₹60k, while programmers make on average ₹460k). Sometimes programmers can have it rough, but that’s entirely their decision to stay. As a programmer you have unparalleled movement; the post-lockdown WFH standard and ability to code from basically any device show that readily.…

Our employees are saving a lot of money from WFH, and they are not giving that to salaries. You're saying that only the least paid profession should have a union and no other profession should have one? I don't think that makes sense. More than one union can exist at once.

Your reading comprehension is lacking. I’m saying programmers get paid well and have large opportunities, and that unions don’t serve a purpose. Care to enlighten me how programmers are some abused work force and need unions?

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#84

Post by woooooo »

alphazard wrote: post #22

Don't unions work best in fields where quality is very uniform and expertise counts for very little? I'm thinking about low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years. Unions create salary progression, and benefits for seniority where there is otherwise no reason for them to exist. When no one does anything better than anyone else, it makes sense to negotiate as a block, individuals have no power. Now compa…

Skilled trades have unions.

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#85

Post by TimPC »

itsoktocry wrote: post #34
alphazard wrote: post #22

Don't unions work best in fields where quality is very uniform and expertise counts for very little? I'm thinking about low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years. Unions create salary progression, and benefits for seniority where there is otherwise no reason for them to exist. When no one does anything better than anyone else, it makes sense to negotiate as a block, individuals have no power. Now compa…

> The best engineers are worth literally 10x the worst engineers Uh, I'm pretty sure the best employees in any field are worth 10x what the worst employees are, whether you're writing code, assembling a car or gutting fish. The economics of labour suggest unions are most valuable where there's a monopsony buyer of labour. Big Tech might fit that bill, especially when we know they colluded to depress salaries.

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of fields where the output of your best and worst employees don't differ dramatically. Worst is generally some passable minimum not someone who refuses to do the job entirely. For plenty of assembly line jobs, your worst employee has similar productivity to your best employee because there is no ability to make the assembly line faster for the more productive person.

In code on the other hand, your best employee can straight up do things your worst employee can't. The differences are much larger. There is a reason people hire Principal Software Engineers, but most IC roles in other fields don't have the same range of seniorities.

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#86

Post by runako »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #68
runako wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years Routinely on this site, there are job postings for "senior" engineering roles for that do not require even 5 years of experience. (By contrast, the recent headlines about UPS drivers making $170k are for drivers with 5+ years of tenure.) There are frequent discussions in this space about whether engineers need college or other pre-employment education. And ma…

> By contrast, the recent headlines about UPS drivers making $170k are for drivers with 5+ years of tenure. They do not make 170k, that was a puff piece from UPS. That number was total compensation + monetary value of all benefits. Which not the way most people/postings talk about compensation.

> Which not the way most people/postings talk about compensation.

This is a tech site. People in tech routinely include the value of e.g. RSUs in compensation numbers. Point taken, but a) it's not too far afield from how tech comp is discussed and b) even if you back out the non-cash components, the drivers still make a lot of money. (Possibly more even than the median US software developer.)

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#88

Post by chii »

ownagefool wrote: post #35
alphazard wrote: post #22

Don't unions work best in fields where quality is very uniform and expertise counts for very little? I'm thinking about low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years. Unions create salary progression, and benefits for seniority where there is otherwise no reason for them to exist. When no one does anything better than anyone else, it makes sense to negotiate as a block, individuals have no power. Now compa…

It's a decent take. But taking a view on markets outside of the US and SV/bigtech in particular, those 10x devs aren't usually getting the 2-3x as much, and taking a view of industry in total, profits are runaway but wages are flat and falling, especially when considering inflation. Capital is winning. Perhaps unions are required. But I'm not a union member and likely never will be.

> Capital is winning.

and a reactionary union isn't really the way to fix "capital winning". Because the idea that capital "wins" is flawed imho. It's not that capital is winning, it's that capital is the part of the equation which has bargaining power.

The reason for that is hard to say, but i am guessing that most workers are not really unique or special enough to warrant having them the same bargaining power as capital. After all, capital is required to establish the job in the first place.

Forcing a union, to prevent capital from "winning" merely makes capital less effective at providing their function - investment and growth of the economy. This makes capital leave.

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#89

Post by marcinzm »

throw0101c wrote: post #69
marcinzm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Capital is winning. When hasn't it won in the western world?

> When hasn't it won in the western world? In the US, post-WW2 until Reagan got elected.

They still won just not as much as now.

Re: Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte

#90

Post by nordsieck »

itsoktocry wrote: post #34
alphazard wrote: post #22

Don't unions work best in fields where quality is very uniform and expertise counts for very little? I'm thinking about low skilled jobs that can be mastered in months or years. Unions create salary progression, and benefits for seniority where there is otherwise no reason for them to exist. When no one does anything better than anyone else, it makes sense to negotiate as a block, individuals have no power. Now compa…

> The best engineers are worth literally 10x the worst engineers Uh, I'm pretty sure the best employees in any field are worth 10x what the worst employees are, whether you're writing code, assembling a car or gutting fish. The economics of labour suggest unions are most valuable where there's a monopsony buyer of labour. Big Tech might fit that bill, especially when we know they colluded to depress salaries.

> Uh, I'm pretty sure the best employees in any field are worth 10x what the worst employees are, whether you're writing code, assembling a car or gutting fish.

I've worked at FedEx as a package handler before. That is absolutely not the case there. The absolutely best employees might be 3x more productive than someone who's mediocre with 2 weeks of experience. When the job is picking up boxes off of a conveyor belt and putting them in trucks, your walking speed is one of the key limiters. And no one can walk 10x faster than someone else. Not for a 6-8 hr shift.

Some jobs - especially jobs that involve heavy manual labor - just don't have a wide range between the most and least productive employees.

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