171–180 of 263 posts
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Sweden isn't famous for good tech salaries and stock grants though, even among the best/high profile engineers.
And this is where the union threads die, every time. Top post is essentially saying Americans/SWE are dumb for not being in a union, then comparing to other countries. As soon as someone companies US SWE salaries to these union countries it falls apart quickly.
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This is such a cynical unoriginal take. No, I don't care about being in a unicorn and I'm not a embarrassed billionaire. But I don't idolize unions either. I don't want to be paid the same as all other workers with the same title, I like getting personal bonuses based on performance. I don't want to be in a union.
> I don't want to be paid the same as all other workers with the same title That's not what unions do. > I like getting personal bonuses based on performance A union doesn't prevent that. Film and TV actors, and professional athletes are in unions. They are not all paid the same. They get lavish bonuses based on performance. Retail and fast food workers are usually not in unions. They don't make much money. A union c…
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I don't care what kind or style of job - if the balance of power in any labour relationship is overwhelmingly on the employer side, collective action is the only way labour can regain a modicum of negotiating power. To think that the style of job has any bearing on this relationship is naive.
>collective action is the only way labour can regain a modicum of negotiating power. Does collective action mean everyone gets paid the same? If not, how does that work exactly?
The way it works in the movie industry is actors or writers can sign a contract with minimum union terms. Or, if they're a big name, their agent negotiates a contract on their behalf.
From time to time the union membership will want improvements or changes to the minimum terms. If they don't get these terms then the union - stars and everyone else - goes on strike.
These strikes are well publicized. I'm surprised you haven't heard of them.
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For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.
Tech salaries are too high for people to do that. At least in Europe. Having an union will fuck with peoples salaries.
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Sweden isn't famous for good tech salaries and stock grants though, even among the best/high profile engineers.
And this is where the union threads die, every time. Top post is essentially saying Americans/SWE are dumb for not being in a union, then comparing to other countries. As soon as someone companies US SWE salaries to these union countries it falls apart quickly.
> The firm starts to underpay those better workers who kept their jobs, akin to making them pay for being “chosen.” Consequently, profits do not decline and may even increase. > “Firms now essentially can threaten the remaining employees: ‘Look, I can let you go, and everybody’s going to think that you’re the worst in the pool. If you want me not to let you go, you need to accept below market wages,’” This is exactly…
For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.
Naturally, these individuals had very little interest in waiting in line behind retiring gray-beards for high pay and job security. They experienced that just being interested in tech was enough for huge opportunities to fall into their lap.
Of course 25 years later, that ship has sailed and almost nobody is hiring people without a degree in C. And now you have the self taught gray-beards bumping up against ageism and the weird effects AI is having on the marketplace, and they're starting to wonder if, "hmmm, maybe unions aren't such a bad idea after all."
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Let me explain. Case 1: You're a high performer, one year into the role. A colleague, who's been around longer but struggled, gets promoted not necessarily on merit, but on their ability to manage up. Your early contributions are quietly absorbed into their promotion case. Once they step into a managerial role, the dynamics shift. Unless you stay quiet and compliant, you’re suddenly less welcome in the team. Case 2:…
>>You're a high performer, one year into the role. A colleague, who's been around longer but struggled, gets promoted not necessarily on merit, but on their ability to manage up. Its honestly mostly like a queue, you can't see why people who came before should get a early exit. But those people had people before them too, and thought the same. Now that you arrived, you think your specific case be prioritised above th…
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>>the manager is not politely savvy enough to ensure their team is being recognized for work that grows or is valuable to the business. Actually in most companies, no ones watching whats happening, no ones watching who performs, who slacks, or anything for that matter. Companies are basically a kind of a loosely assembled random crowd, where no one cares a thing about anything. In this kind of a set up both hardwork…
The problem is that as you go further up in hierarchy, people by definition have less specialized, and more general knowledge. This means that there are things that lower-level employee understands but their manager doesn't. This in turn means that it's impossible for the manager to tell whether the employee is doing a good or a bad job because the manager simply doesn't understand the details of the job. This is ope…
A bad tech manager a) thinks he/she must know more than their directs (no organization would ever scale if the leader in the hierarchy above knew all of what was below), b) micromanages competent people instead of giving them high level directives and course correcting at a high level when necessary c) can't tell the difference between the high performers and the slackers.
In my experience, there's a slew of bad managers out there, and in my present reality the bad ones are highly technical people who should not be managing human beings or projects.
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>collective action is the only way labour can regain a modicum of negotiating power. Does collective action mean everyone gets paid the same? If not, how does that work exactly?
No it doesn't mean that. The way it works in the movie industry is actors or writers can sign a contract with minimum union terms. Or, if they're a big name, their agent negotiates a contract on their behalf. From time to time the union membership will want improvements or changes to the minimum terms. If they don't get these terms then the union - stars and everyone else - goes on strike. These strikes are well publ…
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And when has a union ever stopped a multinational company from just closing shop and opening up overseas? If a company making physical things can do it, how hard do you think it would be for a software company?
sweden has unions and sweden has software companies. could it be that reasonable approach that benefits both parties can be achieved?