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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

#91

Post by johnnyanmac »

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…

>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 rubric?

Given my experience as someone who is looking for full time work over 3 years later because executives decided that data centers are better to pursue than quality products: yes, and yes.

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

People who need to worry about rent next month.

>The best people want to work in a place where they're valued (and paid) on merit.

And we know from decades of knowledge this is never true. Two equally talented engineers can be paid differently based on where they live. They can end up with much different compensation based on one company lucking out with a deal and another missing a crucial deal and collapsing. Which isn't an engineering factor. We know negotiating gets you paid more, which is a skill orthogonal to engineering.

This illusion of meriocracy will be the collapse of the whole industry.

>Why shouldn't a better engineer with less formal experience be promoted above someone who has been filling a desk for the last 20 years?

Because you think the job is building things. the 20 years employee understands the systems and how to keep things together. Life isn't all about moving fast and breaking things. Especially in fields like teaching the future generatrions.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#92

Post by johnnyanmac »

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…

>If there is a company specific hardship

That's the issue. 2/3 of my layoffs were not "financial hardships". One was just a medium sized studio who ran out of projects and didn't want me to continue. The other was a large global company who was about to make big purchases (and eventually, change leadership).

Maybe with job #1 I could have saved it, but I was underpaid and already looking out the door, so it wasn't surprising to me. Job #2 was 100% the kind of place a union would have saved my job from. (and if you care, Job #3 was just classic "startup funding pulled". They shut down a year later. It is what it is, but I guess you don't see the red flags when you get a nice pay boost and a shiny company on your resume).

>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.

yes, almost like they spent the last 50 years working with the federal government to break down union powers. Surely isn't a plethora of literature on that.

>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.

You forget stability. Making big money one year and none another year just averages out to "okay".

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#93

Post by johnnyanmac »

jamestimmins wrote: post #21
DiscourseFan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah just wait until you get laid off

I've been laid off. It was fine because software is literally the most marketable skill in the world. Edit: But also, this was a pre-profit VC-backed company. If those companies can't lay people off, it's not like you make good money with more job security. Either the company just has less runway (so I still lose my job, just later and with everyone else) or they adapt by hiring fewer people at lower salaries.

> software is literally the most marketable skill in the world.

I see you haven't been in the current job market.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#94

Post by johnnyanmac »

hylaride wrote: post #42
Apocryphon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within the last four years?

I was canned early last year. Looking for a new job was mostly fine. It wasn't insanely easy like 4 years ago and I had to network a bit, but there very much is still demand for qualified people. Would suck to be in this market as an entry-level engineer, though.

My network has all experienced at least one layoff in the last 2 years. Every single person I talked with except maybe 1 or 2 people. And they don't feel good about their studio.

YMMV.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#95

Post by johnnyanmac »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #22
DiscourseFan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah just wait until you get laid off

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.

>It's still not clear to me whether union protection is going to be worth the decrease in job creation.

What Job creation? The last 3 years have only shedded IT roles (what the tech industry falls under) in the jobs report.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#96

Post by johnnyanmac »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #80
braiamp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

>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.

How many EU's are migrating to the US?

Most people's solutions in first world countries is not to go through the arduous process of finding work in another country and leaving behind their entire culture and network behind in hopes of a better life. That is not the same decision you make as if you're jumping to another state/province (which in itself is already a big life change).

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#97

Post by johnnyanmac »

alephnerd wrote: post #19
DiscourseFan wrote: post #15

Earlier 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…

>Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit.

Yes, let's point to examples of intentional union decay as proof that unions do not work.

>VFX was already largely offshored by the early 2010s

And there's still VFXs jobs domestically. For the same reasons offshoring tech in the 2010's didn't work out

> much of the industry has already shifted to ASEAN, China, and India where there is no real unionization to begin with.

Most countries are not "at-will" like the US. those houses cannot just layoff people on whim.

That said, yes. VFX is very much a contractor-driven field. But there's a different between knowing the end of a contract, and waking up one day to realize your key fob doesn't work and you're locked out of your account. You get to plan around the instability.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#98

Post by johnnyanmac »

alephnerd wrote: post #46
mikojan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

>there is a real risk that what arises is labor immobility and blocking new entrants.

We're already doing that without uniuons. Older folk can't afford to retire and new grads cannot get a leg in to start their careers. we're talking something like a quarter of new grads who cannot get any job in their field out of college.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#99

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

> is in part because we don't have unions

Not really. It is all about leverage. When you've got what they want, and they can't get it anywhere else, they pay the price.

Whatever leverage tech workers have, they would have even more if they unionized. Salaries are high? Maybe they could be even higher. These trillion dollar corporations can afford it.

> employees own equity

Why would this be mutually exclusive with unionization?

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#100

Post by johnnyanmac »

greyface- wrote: post #87
Melatonic wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything a union would aid job mobility. And theres no reason you cant still individually negotiate and receive equity if you are in a union.

The National Labor Relations Act prohibits covered employers from negotiating directly with employees.

Yet they do it indirectly all the time to bust unions. That's not really a barrier.
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