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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

#101

Post by johnnyanmac »

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…

>the politics, drama, overhead, and costs of unionization just don't interest me.

Any collection of people has politics, drama, and overhead. That's the nature of collaboration with humans. So this really doesn't' say much to me besides "I got mine and don't see a need to rely on others (yet)"

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#102

Post by johnnyanmac »

mikojan wrote: post #11
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…

Financial equity, benefits and opportunities at other companies in my experience are not the determining factors for tech workers. Lack of or loss of self-determination and self-governance are. The tech workers who are unionized that I know didn't join for financial gain because there is none (except for a few who are bad at bargaining). They joined to exert control over their workplaces and help build companies they…

> (except for a few who are bad at bargaining)

Was this really necessary?

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#103

Post by johnnyanmac »

teravor wrote: post #76

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…

>they tend to enjoy legal protections not afforded to anyone else.

The ideal scenario is stronger labor laws, but even the most progressive circles I'm in don't seem to have much energy in trying to end at-will employment (the mechanism driving rampant layoffs for any reason the emplpoyer wants). So Unions are the next best thing.

And yes, this is the same logic as "people who bargain get paid more". People who collectively bargain end up with more perks. It's an inevitability.

>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.

Like all tech workers who started their career around 2010-2021? Yes, timing is everything. But you can't control when you are born. You can control if you choose to navigate a union.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#104

Post by greyface- »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #100
greyface- wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We agree, then, that it's ineffective at its stated goal of constraining an employer's power.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#105

Post by johnnyanmac »

tptacek wrote: post #51

There was an opportunity to organize and exploit market power back in 2017-2018, when there was a frenzy of recruiting and growth in the industry. The field was also much more ideologically coherent, in the wake of the first Trump election, than it is today. But nothing came of it. It's less clear that any similar opportunity exists today, or why it would come together now when it didn't under more favorable circumst…

People already react when it was already too late and not as a preventative measure to prevent the crisis from happening.

It is indeed way too late. But I guess late is better than never. It is foolish to try and push through this in an employers market, though.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#106

Post by johnnyanmac »

greyface- wrote: post #104
johnnyanmac wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We agree, then, that it's ineffective at its stated goal of constraining an employer's power.

Indeed. But that's by design from decades of efforts to reduce union powers. A proper system would simply patch the obvious loopholes to get the intended result. But sometimes neglect is a better tool than opposition.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#107

Post by Melatonic »

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.

Companies can choose to pay you more. There's nothing probibiting that

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#108

Post by Melatonic »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #83
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.

IIRC union seniority is tied to the current employer. Move to another employer and all your seniority and the perks that go with it are gone so union members avoid it. No mobility for you.

I have not seen that to be the case. Usually the opposite. You have x years of seniority/experience and then you hit a minimum base pay for your new employer.

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#109

Post by insane_dreamer »

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…

sure, you haven't needed the protections that unions provides so far (and tech companies have wisely provided tech workers with enough benefits so that they don't feel the need to unionize. that's going to change.

> I see no upside in killing the goose with the golden egg.

AI is going to kill the goose

Re: Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

#110

Post by johnnyanmac »

jmyeet wrote: post #74

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…

I definitely see a lot of "but tech (and I) am special, they need us" going on here. Clearly those employees have not had a significant layoff, or are running startups themselves (which isn't surprising at all given the site). And they haven't looked down at the current market for new grads, nor at the general state of the job market in general. I still regularly see other postings elsewhere on someone saying to the tune of "I just got laid off after 5+ years at [Company]. What is happening to the job market?".

(Un)fortunately, being a laid off game dev making ends meet freelancing has given me a lot of time to learn economics.

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

And extended exposure to this culture is probably why my sector is much more receptive to unions. We've been in such an environment even in the "good times". It does suck not knowing if you'll have a job next week. At least contract work always has an end date and you simply bet on not having it continue.

>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 i

That behavior as of late is why I tend to just do a blank query on search and skim through the highest voted pages in 24 hours or a week. Helps me find blind spots like this that didn't make the front page.

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