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Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

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Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#101

Post by chimeracoder »

tptacek wrote: post #98
chimeracoder wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems silly to confine the question to Teamster-style unions. You want the answer to that? No, tech workers are not going to create the Tech Teamsters. That's not the important question. The important question is, will tech workers organize, and, when they do, what will that organization look like? That's a question we can speculate productively about. Any union that derives its authority from the NLRA and is ov…

No, the NLRA doesn't protect "some employee activity" in "non-unionized workforces". The core elements of the law that enable "unions" are available to enable any workplace organization of any form. It's deeply misleading to suggest that a group of employees availing themselves of the protections of the NLRA are putting themselves on a slippery slope to becoming the Teamsters.

> It's deeply misleading to suggest that a group of employees availing themselves of the protections of the NLRA are putting themselves on a slippery slope to becoming the Teamsters.

That's not what I said.

What I said: It's misleading to suggest that professional associations require the NLRA to operate.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#102

Post by tedunangst »

tptacek wrote: post #97
tedunangst wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor seems to have some unique "challenges" that don't affect other organizations. If I buy a Dodge, nobody from Ford is going to come slash my tires. If I hire a non-union electrician, well, maybe my house burns down. "Shoddy craftsmanship", right? Always hire union to be safe. If anybody is arguing for the elimination of the market system, I'd start by looking at the unions.

This is approximately as rigorous an analysis as suggesting that if you hire an Italian, his mob buddies might come by later on to shake you down for protection money. How many AMA members have slashed the tires of a noncompliant doctor?

I think the point is that the word union has a particular stigma not shared by associations not called unions.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#103

Post by watwut »

dkhenry wrote: post #89
wfo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are smart, they should: right now they have a lot of power in the workplace because there is demand for them. This is a problem tech business owners have identified: programmers have too much power on the job relative to their bosses. They require good wages, they require too many benefits, they complain and sue when they are sexually harassed, they demand equity and to be treated well and refuse to accept th…

Your comment shows the real divide on unionization and its not about someone's political ideology, its fundamentally about how they view the profession. If like you said programmers should unionize before the army of $12/hour programmers arrives then what you are claiming is that software development could be done by someone who was trained and willing to accept $12 per hour. Essentially you are making the claim they…

So, how are we going to rename simple programming? There were always easy tasks and difficult tasks and both are called programming. Difficult tasks that require deep understanding are actually less common then easy tasks.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#104

Post by tptacek »

dkhenry wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely the most common objection to labor organization is that it's something associated intrinsically with low-status commodified occupations. But that's a fallacy. Most of the classic professions are organized. They're usually organized around professional associations and not "labor unions", and their collective bargaining concerns things other than their wages. But those are distinctions without differences.…

organizations are very different from labor unions. I think software engineering would be well served by a professional association, but they have the problem of having deep connections to higher education institutions and licensing boards. I don't think our industry would be well served by the same kind of educational gate keeping that limits the availability of Doctors and Lawyers ( like what the NSPE, or IEEE try…

I agree with you that professional organizations are a better model than AFL-style unions.

I agree with you that academic gatekeeping is a bad fit for tech workers (coincidentally, I have just one semester of college).

I think we need to be careful not to let ourselves, as a community of people sharing an occupation in this market, get derailed by the connotations of the word "union".

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#105

Post by perfmode »

jules wrote: post #91
jwhitlark wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a truly unregulated market approximates a war. Just look at the early history of trader/pirates. This doesn't mean capitalism is unstable; it's lowest energy state is the state of nature. Unrestricted warfare is bad for profits, as well as general wellbeing. The trick is to add regulation without adding unnecessary friction, and finding an approximate solution to the free rider problem.

An unregulated market doesn't mean that you can shoot people. Each transaction must be voluntary. Capitalism is not the same as anarchy.

Anarchy is not the same as chaos.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#106

Post by arkades »

tptacek wrote: post #97
tedunangst wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor seems to have some unique "challenges" that don't affect other organizations. If I buy a Dodge, nobody from Ford is going to come slash my tires. If I hire a non-union electrician, well, maybe my house burns down. "Shoddy craftsmanship", right? Always hire union to be safe. If anybody is arguing for the elimination of the market system, I'd start by looking at the unions.

This is approximately as rigorous an analysis as suggesting that if you hire an Italian, his mob buddies might come by later on to shake you down for protection money. How many AMA members have slashed the tires of a noncompliant doctor?

Sadly, the AMA is not a union. At best, it's an underpowered AARP analogue.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#107

Post by tptacek »

tedunangst wrote: post #102
tptacek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is approximately as rigorous an analysis as suggesting that if you hire an Italian, his mob buddies might come by later on to shake you down for protection money. How many AMA members have slashed the tires of a noncompliant doctor?

I think the point is that the word union has a particular stigma not shared by associations not called unions.

You hear a lot of things about city bus drivers burning down houses, or telecom engineers slashing tires?

There are a lot more unions in the US than people realize. For some reason (I can think of many), high-status workers in the US are captivated by the drama of a few particular unions, and have extrapolated wildly from it.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#108

Post by jasode »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #2

Question for the HN crowd: do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize? It seems to me that (in general) they've got such a nice position in the economy there's probably a bit of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. Is that correct?

>they've got such a nice position in the economy there's probably a bit of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. Is that correct?

I'd say your intuition is basically correct. If we use average programmer's salary of $84k[1], that places the income in the top 30%. If we extend the statistics further to include Silicon Valley salaries of $200k+, that places them in the top 5%.

I can't think of any unionization in labor history that originated with members in the top 5% of salaries. That includes unions in manufacturing, arts (film/tv), sports, transportation, etc.

Yes, NFL & MLB players make a lot today but their unions happened before the advent of TV and playing pro sports was not a highly paid endeavor. (Early MLB players had to have 2nd jobs and share hotel rooms on the road.) As a thought experiment... one might argue that if the NFL were to restart today after the invention of TV, there would not be a players union. Instead the roster of 53 football players would be 53 independent contractors. Indeed, modern players in "sports" teams like eSports are mostly independent contractors. The technology of tv magnifies individuality (Tom Brady's face also sells cars & watches for endorsement deals). Today's marketability of the individual instead of the team would make it harder to convince 50%+ of players to elect union representation. (NASCAR drivers and UFC MMA fighters had/have grumblings about union representation that have gone nowhere so far. Also, they first have to switch to from independent contractors to employees -- which is another set of hurdles.)

Some airline pilots (with seniority) are 5% salary but in the 1930s they weren't when the union formed.

So, when would 50%+[2] programmers willing want to pay union dues -- say 1.5% (SAG) or 1.4% (UAW) of their salary?!? When the economic conditions of programmers match the poor conditions of the previous successful unionization efforts. We're obviously nowhere near that situation with software devs (even ones without college degrees) earning good salaries.

Some other commenters recommend that now is the best time to unionize because the current times are good for programmers. My question to that is... has that ever happened in history?

Basically, the main driver for unionization is economic conditions instead of ideological stance. If one believes more in the the ideology rather than economics, then yes it seems realistic to think that top-5% salary earners will vote themselves into a union. Since I emphasize economic conditions, I predict they won't -- at least not within the next 10 years. If a breakthrough AI happens to make programmers a commodity equal to burger flippers, the economics stresses on the profession changes which makes unionization more realistic.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=average+programmer+salary

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#109

Post by dragonwriter »

dkhenry wrote: post #32
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #2

Question for the HN crowd: do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize? It seems to me that (in general) they've got such a nice position in the economy there's probably a bit of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. Is that correct?

I would hope not. I see tech-workers as professionals not as laborers. I think the great battle to be fought by tech workers is to stop having them treated as common laborers that perform some kind of rote process. Some times we call software development engineering, and if thats the case I would press anyone to show me an engineering discipline that parallels software engineering in terms of working conditions and r…

> I see tech-workers as professionals not as laborers.

Professional labor is a subset of labor, and unions representing (exclusively or alongside other) labor exist. (Of course, tech workers don't have much professional organization outside of the labor union kind, either.)

> I think the great battle to be fought by tech workers is to stop having them treated as common laborers that perform some kind of rote process.

“rote process” or not has nothing to do with the reasons for or against having a union; it has a lot to do with what you'd want a union to negotiate for in terms of working conditions.

> Some times we call software development engineering

Only because management discovered that labels are good way to distract from substantive issues, because developers eat up the empty status markers.

Re: Organizers have unionized 5,000 contract workers at Apple, Facebook, Yahoo

#110

Post by tedunangst »

tptacek wrote: post #107
tedunangst wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that the word union has a particular stigma not shared by associations not called unions.

You hear a lot of things about city bus drivers burning down houses, or telecom engineers slashing tires? There are a lot more unions in the US than people realize. For some reason (I can think of many), high-status workers in the US are captivated by the drama of a few particular unions, and have extrapolated wildly from it.

Well, the local bus drivers union isn't held in such high regard either, so maybe not the best example. And I seem to recall Verizon experiencing a sudden spike in equipment failure right around the time their telecom union went on strike.

(Happy to concede there are unions people like, but if that's your best effort at naming two good ones, I think the problem is worse than you're acknowledging.)

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