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Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

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Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#241

Post by unionmember99 »

DesiLurker wrote: post #169

As a non gaming engineer, I dont want a union, what I really want is solid (really, harsh) enforcement of basic common sense labor rules for exempt workers like weekly working hour limits, no after hours scheduling or minimum notice/severance period for layoffs & many other abuses. Problem is tech industry does not wants to give an inch and workers don't complain because of higher pay and 'lottery ticket' effect. I f…

OK, so if you don't want a union, but you want to achieve goals which are typically fought for by unions, what exactly is the alternative mechanism you propose for achieving these goals?

This sounds to me like "I don't want memory protection, what I really want is for my computer to solidly enforce common sense memory barriers", or "I don't want defense attorneys, what I really want is courts to provide common sense advocacy for defendants". Somebody has to do the work, and you're naming the component of the system which provides the features you want.

The universe maximizes entropy, not common sense. The tech industry doesn't want to give an inch for the same reason a dropped object falls to earth: there is no force suggesting it do anything else.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#242

Post by desmoulins »

podgorniy wrote: post #20

Good for them. During economic downturns, when fewer resources are available for redistribution, collective action across population groups can help address worsening power imbalances.

This is true, but there's still the problem of how things are distributed within the collective groups.

When the labor market gets competitive, you start to see long probationary periods, two-tier pay and benefit scales, hiring people on as casuals instead of permanent members, and other bargaining concessions that end up favoring some union members over others. I know some unions over the last few years have managed to fight against two-tier systems, but if there's any sort of serious economic downturn I'd expect them to become commonplace again.

I'm curious to see if they can come up with a way to organize that works for everyone, or if it'll end up as something like the Longshoreman's union: a fantastic deal, provided you won the lottery to get in and then stuck around long enough to be a permanent member.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#243

Post by AnthonyMouse »

overfeed wrote: post #230
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably not a great example given that the rust belt was thick with unions. And in general the US has a cost of living problem because the various levels of government keep getting captured by people who want regulations that make costs to go up because they're the ones getting the money. That makes US workers less competitive because of the corruption-induced regulatory costs, which is exactly the opposite o…

> That's probably not a great example given that the rust belt was thick with unions. Perhaps we need to complete the thought here: was it the unions or executives that decided to offshore manufacturing? If the counterargument that unions are to blame for offshoring by "artificially" increasing the cost of labor, and should have competed with Chinese labor on price and they got their just deserts: then why are execut…

> was it the unions or executives that decided to offshore manufacturing?

Neither. It was consumers, who prefer lower prices.

> why are executives now (successfully) lobbying for protectionism against Chinese manufacturers?

Because they were fools who thought they could offshore the factory work but not the management work.

> If chinese goods could be ported as easily and cheaply into America and American labor was ported to China

This is literally what has already happened.

The actual solution is for the US to do something about high domestic costs, especially housing and medicine, which are the things keeping US workers from being globally competitive.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#244

Post by appreciatorBus »

vkou wrote: post #90
appreciatorBus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot that collective ruin is also an option and we have seen this many times when societies attempted to do away with economic & market concepts.

We've also seen collective ruin many many times when societies have embraced economic and market concepts. Seen the rust belt anytime lately?

It's almost as if there is no silver bullet to these problems and we have to better than rely on dogma like "unions always good"

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#245

Post by torginus »

andy99 wrote: post #91
jandrese wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think all developers are interchangeable you're the reason they're forming a union.

Being interchangeable is literally why unions are formed. If you have some unique skill set that is valued, a union is unnecessary and would hold you back. If you’re happy being slotted in to whatever the next available position is based on your seniority with no regard to you as an individual, unions are great. That’s why they’re mostly autoworkers or longshoremen and whatnot an not professionals, outside a few nich…

Not necessarily - many games have custom engines underpinned by a decade of arcane tech that you wont find anywhere in the world outside the company.

It sucks both for you and the company if they have to replace you.

In contrast, if you work building SaaS apps on top of k8s, you can both transfer your skills easily, and the company can replace you easier.

It could go both ways, but in practice it usually turns out that if your skills are transferable you make more money.

This thing also popped up in the gaming industry, with Unreal becoming popular, and people using it making much more and jumping between projects, because their skills are transferable.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#246

Post by Manuel_D »

Daishiman wrote: post #238
Manuel_D wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employer-bound health insurance in the US Benefits are part of an employees compensation package. A competing offer could have even better healthcare than Id. > Industry blacklists to exclude uppity employees and union members. This is illegal and the last time SV companies were found doing this the government punished them Is there any evidence that this is happening to Id employees? > Noncompetes Illegal in CA wh…

> Benefits are part of an employees compensation package. A competing offer could have even better healthcare than Id. If a period of unemployment kicks you off an insurance program that's covering life-essential treatment for a loved one, there is no mechanism of "choosing freely" here; ex-employees don't have the option of covering health care themselves and there are no guarantees that the other employer's health…

Id employees can apply for jobs while remaining employed at Id. You're writing as though Id employees must first quit their jobs before seeking a new one. And even if they do have a period of unemployment between jobs, COBRA continues to cover them for up to a year.

> Every recruiter has spreadsheets of blacklisted employees

If you're going to allege illegal anti-poaching agreements, you ought to provide evidence of those claims.

> So illegal en CA but legal pretty much everywhere else, once again limiting you if you want to move because COL is too high in California and reducing the pool of real employment alternatives.

Actually, I just checked this and in 2024 the FTC banned non competes nationwide.

> Software jobs but not gaming jobs. California suffers from an artificial shortage of affordable housing due to insane tax laws and building restrictions. There's nothing free market about this.

And? Id software developers are free to work non-gaming software jobs. A big part of the reason why game dev jobs offer less renumeration is because people are passionate about games and are willing to take a pay cut to work in the industry.

If an Id employee is not willing to work non-gaming software development jobs that's a restriction imposed by their own decisions, not by their employers.

People in this thread are comparing Id software developers to slavery. The fact that they'll have to go on COBRA in between jobs doesn't make this comparison to slavery any less absurd.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#247

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ethbr1 wrote: post #234
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are basically useless in a healthy market economy because then companies have to compete for customers and employees instead of having a monopoly, which causes them to have thin margins and therefore leave nothing on the table for collective bargaining to extract that wasn't already being extracted through competitive pressure. Meanwhile unions in a consolidated market have the perverse incentive to sustain th…

> Meanwhile unions in a consolidated market have the perverse incentive to sustain the monopoly because then the union is extracting a portion of the monopoly rents the corporation is squeezing out of consumers at the expense of the 99% of workers who don't work for that specific company. This still sounds like an improvement over the American consolidated market status quo, where the companies and shareholders retai…

> Antitrust enforcement would be great, but absent an 1880s-1910s level push, isn't going to happen.

Let's do that then.

> This still sounds like an improvement over the American consolidated market status quo, where the companies and shareholders retain more of the monopoly rents.

Except that you then get the union lobbying to sustain the monopoly instead of eliminate it, which makes it even harder to do the thing that actually needs to be done.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#248

Post by overfeed »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #228
cogman10 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all businesses fail because of unions, but let's suppose some of them did. Should the conclusion then be that we should find ways to prevent that from happening again, or should it be that two wrongs make a right? It goes both ways. There are plenty of nations with strong unions throughout. In the US some work is primarily done by unions (such as trade work). The fact that someone can pull up an example where a u…

> It goes both ways. That's the point. We should prevent management from destroying productive companies and prevent unions from doing it, instead of saying "what about those other guys" to justify the bad behavior of either of them. > In the US some work is primarily done by unions (such as trade work). You're referring to some of the least efficient industries in the US with high levels of regulatory capture. The f…

> We should prevent management from destroying productive companies and prevent unions from doing it, instead of saying "what about those other guys" to justify the bad behavior of either of them.

Im not justifying anyone, I'm suggesting a pragmatic, imperfect solution to a clear power imbalance. There's only one way to treat a counterpart who repeatedly defects on the iterated prisoners dilemma, and its not waiting for them to unilaterally start cooperating.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#249

Post by appreciatorBus »

meheleventyone wrote: post #105
appreciatorBus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees being paid less than they would prefer to get paid for a given type of work does not imply "unfair exploitation"

That’s a fair opinion but obviously it’s the opinion of the employees and their ability to freely associate that let’s them collectively organise.

I support that freedom! I just think the idea that all employee-employer relationships are exploitative is wrong. It feels derived from Marx's long discredited labour theory of value.

It is of course possible for an employer to treat employees very poorly and arguably exploit them. But it is also possible for employers to lose money for years such that employees are effectively exploiting the employer.

I can imagine unions being a great force of good in the world, but whether they are or are not is largely down to how they behave, just like individuals, corporations and other organizations & institutions.

A union that bargains collectively for it's members sounds very straightforward and logical.

A union like the NYC hotel union that actively lobbies for fewer hotels feels insane.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#250

Post by torginus »

andy99 wrote: post #70

Curious if this was workers casting off the shackles of their oppression or a luxury option for a group that is already well off?

I think it's both - while game devs experience more hardship than regular devs do, I'd say they still constitute an insanely fortunate slice of society, not exactly Oliver Twist.

From the article, remote work seems to be the crux of the issue - I do think devs should get it but the pity party they hold for themselves is kinda tone deaf imo

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