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Why top firms fire good workers

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Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#211

Post by autoexec »

ryandrake wrote: post #200
triceratops wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you're just here repeating the lazy old anti-union talking points with 0 thought. I offered some examples that contradict them. The burden of proof is on you at this point. If not having unions leads to high wages and good working conditions, why aren't retail and fast food workers making bank? Why do they get treated like shit? Please tell us.

It's so wild. So many HN commenters have this exaggerated caricature in their heads about what a Union must be: "Unions mean every worker gets paid the same!" "Unions mean I will make less money!" "Unions make it impossible to fire underperformers!" "Unions are run by bosses whose incentives are different than workers!" "Unions mean I can't plug in my own workstation!" "Unions reward seniority over everything else!"…

Companies have spent a fortune paying companies just to spread lies and misrepresentations about unions to workers. I guess their money is being well spent. All their big talking points are here, being regurgitated just like they wanted.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#212

Post by VirusNewbie »

autoexec wrote: post #152
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet isn't it a regular complaint that European tech salaries are half of what they would be in the US?

Isn't it a regular complaint that American tech workers don't get the kinds of benefits they would in Europe, especially healthcare? Even someone with a very nice American salary can be bankrupted by medical expenses very easily in America. When Americans do end up bankrupt it's usually medical debt that is to blame. It seems like there should be room for a happy medium somewhere where some workers in the US maybe do…

No this is definitely not a real complaint. My health insurance is better than any in the EU.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#213

Post by VirusNewbie »

autoexec wrote: post #150
gedy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself, but I think there is a naive idealist view of (modern, American) unions that gloss over the tradeoffs. I don't want another bureaucratic layer that tells me what to do, and run by yet more HR admin-types. We aren't working in the coal mines or steel mills here in the 1920s. Sorry I'm not interested in that for office jobs. I'm glad they still work in some countries and cultures.

> I don't want another bureaucratic layer that tells me what to do, and run by yet more HR admin-types. That new bureaucratic layer would be designed to benefit you, and if it were to stop doing that and suddenly no longer served the interests of it's members you'd have the power to replace the leadership of that union or to leave it and start a new one. This is a huge improvement from the current bureaucratic layer…

        that new bureaucratic layer would be designed to benefit you,
Why are union SWE jobs so much worse off in terms of benefits and compensation than non union jobs?

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#214

Post by VirusNewbie »

prewett wrote: post #197
idiotsecant wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.

Speaking for myself, I see unions as frequently corrupt, being intransigent (such as essentially making Detroit not cost-effective) and just as self-serving as management. Every union experience I have had or hear about involves arbitrary rules (we're not allowed to do that, union rules; you have to get that union to do that). Why would I want to pay dues for that? Furthermore, I see no reason for a union; software d…

thank you, agree. There are lots of us who see through the bullshit of unions. The poeple pushing unions think they have a better shot of navigating the politics of unions than a free market, which is why they push it so hard.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#215

Post by Redoubts »

autoexec wrote: post #150
gedy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself, but I think there is a naive idealist view of (modern, American) unions that gloss over the tradeoffs. I don't want another bureaucratic layer that tells me what to do, and run by yet more HR admin-types. We aren't working in the coal mines or steel mills here in the 1920s. Sorry I'm not interested in that for office jobs. I'm glad they still work in some countries and cultures.

> I don't want another bureaucratic layer that tells me what to do, and run by yet more HR admin-types. That new bureaucratic layer would be designed to benefit you, and if it were to stop doing that and suddenly no longer served the interests of it's members you'd have the power to replace the leadership of that union or to leave it and start a new one. This is a huge improvement from the current bureaucratic layer…

> It's hard to understand the mindset of "I'd rather just be powerless in the job I have because that seems easier."

Because that’s not the case? In America it is still extremely easy to find alternative lucrative work, or simply start your own business; because in software development the worker basically owns the means of production - himself. This is an extremely powerful bargaining position and it’s why SWE pays so well here.

Athletes, actors, doctors, and other professions still have to negotiate with centralized capital to some degree in a way SWE never will

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#216

Post by Redoubts »

idiotsecant wrote: post #203
gedy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself, but I think there is a naive idealist view of (modern, American) unions that gloss over the tradeoffs. I don't want another bureaucratic layer that tells me what to do, and run by yet more HR admin-types. We aren't working in the coal mines or steel mills here in the 1920s. Sorry I'm not interested in that for office jobs. I'm glad they still work in some countries and cultures.

How to loudly announce you've never been in a union. I am an engineer in a unionized workplace. It's great. I make a ton of money, management is respectful, and work life balance is not based on the whims of whoever has a self-imposed emergency this week. My work is satisfying, and I have an avenue for resolving any complaints I might have with management. Nobody tells me 'what I can't do' like some kind of anti-unio…

> power imbalance inherent to the relationship between owners and laborers.

Software developers aren’t laborers, they’re the capital.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#217

Post by swatcoder »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #210
ryandvm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective bargaining has been unpopular in this industry for so long because 25 years ago pretty much any ADHD autodidact that was interested in tech could get an extremely promising job with nothing more than a high school diploma. 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 wa…

Unions can't defeat the forces of supply and demand. If people feel it is in their best interest to take a pay cut, they should be free to do so. If you want to take a job for a lower rate because of a mismatch in experience, union rates can amount to a ban on you getting a job. Likewise, if you can command a higher wage than average, no union should be able to tell you that you're not fit for the pay grade. If the s…

Some of the healthiest, oldest, and most mutually respected unions are in the entertainment arts -- actors, musicians, writers, directors, etc. In these unions and in their negotiations, talent value is understood to sometimes be very singular; a particular education or apprenticeship process isn't deemed strictly necessary for talent to mature; and that work often comes in the form of a time-boxed project that might need many members for a while and then far less (or none) after it reaches some progress threshold, leading to cycles of on/off work.

What these unions achieve by forming solidarity between the most exceptional talent and more average working members is that they can establish baseline working conditions that are respectful and non-exploitative, a wage floor that allows occasional workers to earnestly commit to their trade even when confronted with intermittent downtime, internally managed group benefit programs that free producers from needing to administer and offer them and give members stability in participation, etc

A healthy union for software engineers, which the gaming industry in particular is well suited towards right now, looks more like one of these kinds of unions than it does a factory laborers union. And by the accounts of both talent and producers, at basically all levels, these unions fundamentally provide a clear benefit to the market. Tension and bluster flare up during frustrating negotiations, but almost nobody with experience in these industries wants to get rid of these unions. Not even the producers.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#218

Post by ljf »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #185
ljf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While they cannot stop something like that (a Union never gets to control the business), they can at least negotiate good terms for the departing employees, and help ensure everything is in order.

Have you ever heard about someone who was laid off from a major tech company complain about the severance amount? My n=1 experience at BigTech is that I got $40K severance after 3 years (and anecdotally had 3 offers within two weeks of looking in 2023. But I realize the market is worse now than then) And that severance was from Amazon.

FAANG maybe not, but there are heaps of horror stories from plenty of other big and medium tech players.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#219

Post by sershe »

idiotsecant wrote: post #65
autoexec wrote: post #56

> 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.

I mean there are many reasons, I really don't have time to reiterate all of them but I'll provide one serious and one funny example before summarizing.

One kinda relevant to the present moment and the fact that dude still has a street named after him in SF - Cesar Chavez running his own border patrol against undocumented immigrants https://humanrights.fhi.duke.edu/chavez-ufw-and-wetback-prob... As much I despise it, I feel the current administration really missed a trolling opportunity, naming their thing Cesar Chavez Memorial Patrols.

The funny one from a 1960ies govt report on UK shipbuilding industry: ...literally took three different workers to change a lightbulb: …a laborer (member of the Transport and General Workers Union) [to] carry the ladder to site, a rigger (member of the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers Union) [to] erect it and place it in the proper position, and an electrician (member of the Electrical Trades Union) [to] actually remove the old bulb and screw in the new one. Production was often halted while waiting

Call me old-fashioned but I don't want to wait for a different union member to run my build! (and the situation like this still occurs - someone I know works at a place where they are not allowed to clean up above a certain trivial threshold and have to wait for a custodian, because otherwise the latter union would be pissed)

Unions are, in essence, a pressure group for locking down certain jobs against anyone else who might want them, and against any kind of technological progress. They will, and have been shown to, do anything - from lobbying for legal monopolies to violence against immigrants, other workers, political candidates; racism, connections to organized crime - in pursuit of that goal. And blocking any attempts at improvement and automation.

The goal itself though, on top of the methods, is fundamentally evil. It's next level up from people who don't want immigrants to "take jobs", at least for immigrants there's some flimsy justification, but unions operate against their fellow citizens.

From a purely moral perspective, compromising principles for personal gain aside, I'd rather join a drug cartel than a union.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#220

Post by wakawaka28 »

swatcoder wrote: post #217
wakawaka28 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions can't defeat the forces of supply and demand. If people feel it is in their best interest to take a pay cut, they should be free to do so. If you want to take a job for a lower rate because of a mismatch in experience, union rates can amount to a ban on you getting a job. Likewise, if you can command a higher wage than average, no union should be able to tell you that you're not fit for the pay grade. If the s…

Some of the healthiest, oldest, and most mutually respected unions are in the entertainment arts -- actors, musicians, writers, directors, etc. In these unions and in their negotiations, talent value is understood to sometimes be very singular; a particular education or apprenticeship process isn't deemed strictly necessary for talent to mature; and that work often comes in the form of a time-boxed project that might…

Unions work in entertainment because there is a lot of value in relationships and brand recognition. They still have the same disadvantages as they do in other fields, but the advantages make it fly anyway. If only the members of the union get to declare whether it's good or not, it will practically always be considered a success. Non-members don't get work, or at least get less. It is an inevitable outcome.

>A healthy union for software engineers, which the gaming industry in particular is well suited towards right now, looks more like one of these kinds of unions than it does a factory laborers union.

I don't think so. Software engineers are not generally operating in the brand or personality space. Their employers just want work done and nobody cares who does it.

I am running short on time but basically I want to leave you with the forgotten disadvantaged of unions: favoring more advantaged workers over more desperate ones, putting a floor on minimum skill level to get hired, costing everyone outside the union more money (including employers and consumers). Maybe these down sides can be negligible sometimes but you'll rarely hear anyone say this stuff. They talk about fellow humans who want to work more badly than themselves "scabs". I think unions can be a net positive but I don't buy the popular narrative that they are glorious with no disadvantages.

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