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Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

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Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#71

Post by cyberax »

Unions sound great in theory, but they aren't working all that well in practice for high-paying fields that require specialized knowledge. It negates the main advantage of that: being able to move between jobs without losing the salary, because employers are paying _you_ for your skills.

Unions also are terrible because they often artificially strangle the supply. For example, you can't become a licensed electrician without completing an apprenticeship, and unions control the number of apprenticeships. With all the corruption associated with that.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#72

Post by DiscourseFan »

missedthecue wrote: post #34
DiscourseFan wrote: post #15

Earlier 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…

A friend of mine at Amazon got laid off during their big stupid AI push last year and yeah, being paid like $150k a year sounds nice until you realize that only covers basic living expenses in, say, Manhattan. Now was Amazon right to fire so many people for basically no reason? No, but software on its own is no longer marketable. One person can generate a hundred times more code than before the advent of LLMs, so you only need one person to do the job of a hundred. Now, it takes some skill, that takes years to develop, to use LLMs effectively in the workplace, so Amazon was incredibly short sighted to believe it was just some magical box that fixed everything automatically. But that doesn’t mean companies won’t be making similar moves, in the aggregate, in 10 years, when leaner competitors come to rip a chunk out of their profits. Do you see the capex of major tech companies now? They are _scared_, they have every right to be. You have to be just as nearsighted as those Amazon bosses to believe that things will continue as they always have, that this is just a short dip in a long term regression to the mean.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#73

Post by throw-the-towel »

bko wrote: post #65
hackthemack wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Look at other unions. It's a "union" of workers so they need to have some guidelines. Teaching for instance you know exactly how much money you'll be making over the next 20 years. Add a masters (which may or may not contribute to you being a better teacher) get a bump. Do you believe there is a direct correlation with how long someone was working there and how productive they are? Would you like to live in this rubr…

> What kind of people do you think are interested in this kind of rigid rubric?

This is actually spot on. In my last gig I was working with the kind of people French job security produces. Never again.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#74

Post by jmyeet »

Here's a question I have for all the predictable "I don't need a union" SWEs out there: if unions were so bad, why do companies literally spend millions and break the law to make sure they don't happen?

To borrow a George RR Martin'ism, there are a lot of children of summer of this space that have only experienced the 2010s, which were an unprecedented boom in tech hiring. Even now in permanent layoff culture they've been anchored to the 2010s as being "normal" and this is "abnormal". You are incorrect. What's going on now is normal and companies are aggressively working to claw back the compensation gains of the last 1-2 decades. A few key AI people are making insane money but I assure you that this is temporary too.

You do not have negotiating power with a trillion dollar company. If you withhold they labor, it's no big deal. If they withhold your paycheck, you and your family are at risk of homelessness, bankruptcy and death. These are not equal positions.

The very idea that unions will reduce your compensation is itself propaganda created by decades of McKinsey "research", billionaire-backed think tanks and money in politics as well as a healthy dose of the Red Scare. Many of the benefits you take for granted like weekends, PTO and sick pay only exist because people died for those benefits. Also, look at any industry and union employees get paid more than non-union employees. The Big Three automakers pay more than Tesla does, for example.

Permanent layoff culture exists to disrupt your life, reduce your compensation and make you do more unpaid work. Unions would prevent that.

Lastly, I have to note, it's pretty interesting that this submission got killed on HN manually. 2 hours, 60 votes and that would be on the front page. I went through the top 500+ submissions and couldn't find it. It's still on new but nowhere on the main feed. Interesting. That in itself is evidence that VCs don't want unions.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#75

Post by throw-the-towel »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #54
alephnerd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100,000 jobs were still lost and there is no one else who can absorb them. And the experience of the VFX industry is probably the best example of what would happen to a heavily unionized software driven industry. Edit: can't reply > are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people Nope, but there is a real risk that what arises is labor immobility and blocking new entrants.

Wait a second, are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people? In that case, the company is absorbing the lion’s share of the profits (or whatever profit is left) so you are effectively arguing in favor of shielding an entity over the livelihoods of the people who work within it.

To butcher a famous poem, it's better to have hired and lost than never to have hired at all. Restrictions on letting go of enployees mean that companies are afraid to hire. They double check and triple check, they reject everyone they feel even the tiniest bit suspicious of, they try to protect themselves with ultra long probation periods, etc.

I don't know about the US, but I spent 4.5 months trying to get a new job here in the EU as a senior dev. Everyone tells me that was quick.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#76

Post by teravor »

the problem with unions is that they tend to enjoy legal protections not afforded to anyone else. as such they will distort the marketplace. as is often the case with such carve-outs those who can get in early tend to benefit at the expense of everyone else.

it was a mistake to entrench unions because now you will never get rid of them, but it's not surprising as the alternative would have been aggressive anti-trust action and the corporate powers would much rather deal with unions (whose incentives they can model just as well as their own).

note that the incentives of the unions are the incentives of the union organizers which much like in democracy are not aligned with the collective they purport to represent.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#77

Post by hackthemack »

adamisom wrote: post #49
hackthemack wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>How do you know? Well, if a European dev asked me how I could possibly know if they'd make more in a less regulated environment, I would point to American salaries. Agree it's hard to know things and that antitrust arrangement was bad. If we're talking policy, we are implicitly accepting counterfactual reasoning (because otherwise why would we change policy).

Yep. We can go around and around. Like, does health care count for some of the discrepancy? Or the more generous time off that Europeans typically have?

I do recall some reports that concentrated on just workers that had unions in the United States versus workers in a similar field that did not have unions, and it concluded that unionized workers get paid more.

But, it was not the tech sector, so someone, maybe you, will argue it does not count.

Just very, very difficult to get to the bottom of what is the best way.

I am in the we should unionize camp. My stance is based on, the tech companies have way more leverage than you or I. They do not work in your interest. A union is imperfect but it is better than nothing to get "some" leverage back.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#78

Post by ydlr »

popalchemist wrote: post #41
hylaride wrote: post #4

This is essentially a story about front-line traditional desktop support/sysadmins at a public university. It's not going to be the same story at much higher paid shops where workers often have equity, good benefits, and the market has provided access to other jobs if you lose yours (in my experience, there are still shortages of qualified and competent engineers). I would like a different method to deal with the pit…

Being in a union isn't about being at one job for life. I'm a member of IATSE (the huge mega-union behind thousands of technical job titles/positions in the entertainment industry, such as film editors, sound mixers, etc; really it's many mini-unions acting as one.) There is really no connection to belonging to a union and being stuck in one job title, in fact the incentives are set up in the opposite direction - the…

IATSE membership helps with job mobility because they enjoy a carve-out allowing sectorial bargaining. It would be illegal in US for a union to try to organize the software industry along the same lines.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#79

Post by yibg »

hackthemack wrote: post #30
jamestimmins wrote: post #14

As 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…

For these topics I don't think there is anything wrong with using your own experience. Yes it's one person's perspective and anecdote (mine), but that's what informs my opinion. I've worked at a couple of unionized places before, for me they're terrible. You can say those are bad unions, or unions in Europe etc are better. This may be true, but my own experience tells me to avoid them.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#80

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

braiamp wrote: post #55
throw-the-towel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still not clear to me whether union protection is going to be worth the decrease in job creation. There's a reason Europe has way less IT positions with worse salaries.

Salary isn't even be all end all. In fact, higher salary might be worse, because in total you have to pay out of pocket for things your europeans counterparts. Therefore they should have more discretionary income compared to a US worker (I don't think I have to source this).

Every time someone says Europeans have it better, note that we are not seeing net migration of high-pay tech workers from the U.S. to Europe that we should if that were true. SWEs are not stupid. (If nothing else, there would be a barrage of submissions on Hacker News saying "Here's one neat trick for tech workers to increase their effective income!".) So, yes, you do "have to source this".
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