It's funny, the DSA in SF has been very anti-tech worker, complaining we get paid too much.
Imagine that - socialists complaining that workers get paid livable wages.
Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
31–40 of 153 posts
Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#32For some tech workers maybe but the issue is that for much of vc backed tech work, Marxist analysis a la Jacobin et Al do not work. Marxists delineate the working class from the owning class but in my experience in these vc backed startups and large public companies that come out of them, the working class quickly becomes part of the owning class. The union would only serve to make sure that transition never took pla…
You might want to read some more Marxist analysis. TLDR: Eventually the real owning class decides they no longer need to pretend that the professional class is one of them.
Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#33As a California tech worker (where the article is focused), I have zero interest in joining a union and firmly believe that much of what has been possible as a tech employee (high paying, interesting career) is in part because we don't have unions, and instead employees own equity and get valuable skills. Modern tech workers arguably have the best career deal in the history of humankind. I see no upside in killing th…
These topics are just so difficult to debate. They are filled with feelings and one person's perspective or anecdote, and it is difficult to drill down into what is true or what is not true. You wrote "Modern tech workers arguably have the best career deal in the history of humankind". How do you know? And, for the sake of argument, let us say it is the best deal in the history of humankind, does that make it fair th…
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Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#34As a California tech worker (where the article is focused), I have zero interest in joining a union and firmly believe that much of what has been possible as a tech employee (high paying, interesting career) is in part because we don't have unions, and instead employees own equity and get valuable skills. Modern tech workers arguably have the best career deal in the history of humankind. I see no upside in killing th…
Yeah just wait until you get laid off
Most tech workers I have met with parent commenters opinion have been laid off at various times in their career.
I think it's important to note that unions aren't very good tools to avoid layoffs. If there is a company specific hardship, the union can't simply force the company to maintain headcount all the way into bankruptcy. On the other hand if there is a secular change across the industry, the unions can't prevent that change either. Easy example is how Big 3 automakers were 100% unionized in the 1970s and have since shed about 500,0000 American jobs despite producing more automobiles than ever.
Unions tend to be good at bargaining for better pay and benefits, but the current status quo is that most tech workers already have decent pay and benefits anyway.
Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#35* [...]Could Have Saved[...]
Cannot Now Save. Unions get power when labor is at its strongest, not when labor is at its weakest. When tech labor was at its strongest, it became super-libertarian, started discussing sous vide and $300 shirts, became YIMBYs, and told the flyover states to learn to code while creating the gig economy. FAANG colluded to fix salaries in the valley for years, and they just sighed and paid their $3000 rent to live with 3 roommates.
I'd add shouldn't be saved. There were far too many programmers before AI, and everything was getting worse. They were mostly vastly overpaid, except for the extremely productive ones who contributed to society the most, who were vastly underpaid or worked on a volunteer basis. Their salaries were a function of ZIRP and quantitative easing, and their acquisition (and now their layoffs) were to juice the stock prices that were the engine of the entire thing.
Learn to dig ditches. If we used less immigrant slaves, ditch diggers might be able to start a union.
The reason AI is failing is because it's replacing programmers that were totally superfluous and bringing in zero marginal revenue. Laying off your programmers and not replacing them with AI is going to be the new black.
edit: I got a lifetime subscription to Jacobin when it started (because I thought we needed a glossy lefty magazine) but I really hate it and keep accepting issues out of pure spite because I know it costs them money. I don't know what makes them think they can talk about economic issues yet avoid any math or actual discussion of economics. The suburban child of immigrants upper-middle class Liberal Arts majors on the left are its albatross. Please stop saying Gramsci.
Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah just wait until you get laid off
Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit. Or, from an IP-driven industry perspective, the offshoring of Hollywood following the SAG and WGA strikes in the early 2020s. And if IATSE couldn't stop VFX from being offshored back in the 2000s and 2010s, then tech unions wouldn't be able to either. Edit: can't reply > Without film industry unions, might the offshoring have been undertak…
Volkswagen is perhaps the greatest counter-example. The union in Germany converted every layoff initiative in whole or in part (more often in whole) into partial retirements, backfill stops, reduced working hours, compensation freezes.
Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#37Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#38As a California tech worker (where the article is focused), I have zero interest in joining a union and firmly believe that much of what has been possible as a tech employee (high paying, interesting career) is in part because we don't have unions, and instead employees own equity and get valuable skills. Modern tech workers arguably have the best career deal in the history of humankind. I see no upside in killing th…
The underlying thesis for the valuation of all these AI labs is that 80% of tech workers can be replaced with automation.
Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#39[flagged]
Enough of this passive aggressive quoting. If you have something to say, man up and say it.
Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah just wait until you get laid off
Most tech workers I have met with parent commenters opinion have been laid off at various times in their career. I think it's important to note that unions aren't very good tools to avoid layoffs. If there is a company specific hardship, the union can't simply force the company to maintain headcount all the way into bankruptcy. On the other hand if there is a secular change across the industry, the unions can't preve…
> most tech workers don't have bad pay or benefits anyway.
But what if they could be even better? This is an industry with 75-80% gross margins, quite unlike any other industry in history.