Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave • Hacker News Board

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#191

Post by jokola » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:32 AM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #160

tptacek wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People disagree about open offices. Some people disagree about the option to work from home or hire remote. But it is hard to believe that ANY of us disagree about IP contracts or extended options execution windows. Are you a professional developer? Which of these issues do you think are non-issues?

> But it is hard to believe that ANY of us disagree about IP contracts or extended options execution windows. It's not that people disagree about them, it's that many developers don't suffer from them. I'm a professional developer and, for me personally, everything in your list is a non-issue. I left BigCo where they were an issue. But I sure can think of a host of issues that I would be concerned about were I part o…

> If a time comes where a good dev cannot choose where they work and basically negotiate their own terms [...] then unionization may be warranted.

When that time comes it will very likely be too late to effectively organize. It might already be.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#192

Post by DrScump » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:42 AM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #184

stale2002 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Otherwise workers - even professionals- have no true security, no true predictable work conditions." How do you shore this up the the fact that many of us engineers have pretty freaking awesome, high paying jobs? Things have seemed to work out great for those of us who are willing and able to negotiate well for ourselves. Thats the problem I have with unions. I do not for a single second want someone else to be nego…

Every time there's an article about unionization (here, yes, but anywhere else too), there's someone in that article extolling the virtues of all unions, followed up by others denigrating the state of unions. As a younger man, I've been a member of unions that were good, and unions that were bad, and while I don't remotely proclaim myself to be an expert on them, but I am experienced enough to have observed what I be…

"Where the employees are less skilled, or more easily replaceable, unions can be super effective at raising workplace standards and wage negotiations."

The presence of a union can also make the difference in management resorting to close/offshore the operation altogether.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#193

Post by pfooti » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:42 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #166

losteverything wrote: post #136

Imo union-ism is an attitide and coupled with experience is effective. Just because you are salaried and "professional" does not mean you collectively do not have extreme clout. Whatever the hot issues are - say hours worked in a 7 day period - and the desire is to place limits (say 4 twelve hour days amd 1 eight hour day) having a union attitude means your bargained (agreed upon) rules are enforceable. And you carry…

"Otherwise workers - even professionals- have no true security, no true predictable work conditions." How do you shore this up the the fact that many of us engineers have pretty freaking awesome, high paying jobs? Things have seemed to work out great for those of us who are willing and able to negotiate well for ourselves. Thats the problem I have with unions. I do not for a single second want someone else to be nego…

Consider a few ways engineers could have things Even Better:

Less / No crunch time. Ethical support so you can refuse to do something shady. Support for union members getting equal pay and equal treatment, despite marginalized status. Job security for people over 50.

Those are just off the top of my head. And yes, I get that not all of those things are delivered by all unions. But ultimately, there is a lot to be gained from banding together and cooperating, which cannot be negotiated singly.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#194

Post by icelancer » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #189

icelancer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It is interesting that programmers (as a whole) seem resistant to it Software developers and people in IT are probably two orders of magnitude more likely to be libertarian / anarcho-capitalist and conservative in economic views than your average union worker in another field. That's definitely a large impact as well.

Unlike most Americans, software developers feel themselves to be temporarily embarrassed billionaires.

Heh, I'm sympathetic to the libertarian viewpoint in many ways, but I enjoyed this comment all the same.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#195

Post by zjaffee » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:50 AM UTC

losteverything wrote: post #136

Imo union-ism is an attitide and coupled with experience is effective. Just because you are salaried and "professional" does not mean you collectively do not have extreme clout. Whatever the hot issues are - say hours worked in a 7 day period - and the desire is to place limits (say 4 twelve hour days amd 1 eight hour day) having a union attitude means your bargained (agreed upon) rules are enforceable. And you carry…

My personal issue with unions is I've seen the way my family members work places have acted through the fact that collective bargaining has given them the ability to leverage things such as years served as a way to dictate many aspects of how the organization is run. Additionally, it is very hard to fire people, where people can coast for years and still continue to get raises and even promotions.

Additionally, unions force costs to go up on many projects and revert any productivity gains that technology has provided. This prevents projects from getting done reducing the GDP impact of the larger industry even though certain people would likely get paid less.

Yes, for labor jobs, unions are absolutely necessary, but from my perspective collective bargaining presents many failures when it comes to coordinating large projects across multiple union groups, in addition to demoralizing high performers as unions as of right now have not adopted well to any sort of up or out promotion structure.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#196

Post by tinokid » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:51 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #166

losteverything wrote: post #136

Imo union-ism is an attitide and coupled with experience is effective. Just because you are salaried and "professional" does not mean you collectively do not have extreme clout. Whatever the hot issues are - say hours worked in a 7 day period - and the desire is to place limits (say 4 twelve hour days amd 1 eight hour day) having a union attitude means your bargained (agreed upon) rules are enforceable. And you carry…

"Otherwise workers - even professionals- have no true security, no true predictable work conditions." How do you shore this up the the fact that many of us engineers have pretty freaking awesome, high paying jobs? Things have seemed to work out great for those of us who are willing and able to negotiate well for ourselves. Thats the problem I have with unions. I do not for a single second want someone else to be nego…

>Things have seemed to work out great for those of us who are willing and able to negotiate well for ourselves.

Yeah, but companies are also really good at making people think they are getting a great deal when they aren't.

There was a thread a few years ago where someone posted a police agency's salary database disclosure and the comments were along the lines of "zomg some random guy I knew in high school makes way more than me".

Not to contradict the poster who claims that unions can become parasitical--both on employers/taxpayers and on newer members--but in the end which benny is more valuable: free meals, or a fully COLA'ed pension that's still paying out when you're 80?

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#197

Post by Aloha » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 1:53 AM UTC

losteverything wrote: post #136

Imo union-ism is an attitide and coupled with experience is effective. Just because you are salaried and "professional" does not mean you collectively do not have extreme clout. Whatever the hot issues are - say hours worked in a 7 day period - and the desire is to place limits (say 4 twelve hour days amd 1 eight hour day) having a union attitude means your bargained (agreed upon) rules are enforceable. And you carry…

my attitude in general is that unions are something you earn - as a company, you either treat your employees fairly (and pay reasonably well), be transparent in management, and give non-management people a voice at the table of how the enterprise is run, or you earn a union, the LAT was a bastion of anti-unionism for years, but the Chandler family (who owned it) treated its folks (for the most part) quite well.

I've experienced union and non-union workplaces - I'd have no problem working in either - in the end, if the company rewards loyalty, and longevity - you're going to have a good time all around - union or not.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#198

Post by majormajor » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 2:17 AM UTC

phil21 wrote: post #164

losteverything wrote: post #136

Imo union-ism is an attitide and coupled with experience is effective. Just because you are salaried and "professional" does not mean you collectively do not have extreme clout. Whatever the hot issues are - say hours worked in a 7 day period - and the desire is to place limits (say 4 twelve hour days amd 1 eight hour day) having a union attitude means your bargained (agreed upon) rules are enforceable. And you carry…

Dunno. Maybe. All a union did for me in my younger years was have me work my ass off so older union members could sit around doing literally nothing. In fact as far as I could tell their jobs were effectively finding ways to do nothing, and then when they got too good at that finding ways to keep others from doing anything. I would not be paid nearly what I am today had I been stuck in my first union job. Even if I h…

Sad secret is that you'll find pay-your-dues-ism, laziness, incompetence, and corruption everywhere. I've seen it at elite universities, government contractor engineering/research firms, startups, and larger tech companies, and none of those have been union positions.

The more important thing is the freedom to leave a job that doesn't work for you. That's how I went from the shitty non-union jobs to (eventually) a lucky couple decent ones.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#199

Post by majormajor » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

pfooti wrote: post #193

stale2002 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Otherwise workers - even professionals- have no true security, no true predictable work conditions." How do you shore this up the the fact that many of us engineers have pretty freaking awesome, high paying jobs? Things have seemed to work out great for those of us who are willing and able to negotiate well for ourselves. Thats the problem I have with unions. I do not for a single second want someone else to be nego…

Consider a few ways engineers could have things Even Better: Less / No crunch time. Ethical support so you can refuse to do something shady. Support for union members getting equal pay and equal treatment, despite marginalized status. Job security for people over 50. Those are just off the top of my head. And yes, I get that not all of those things are delivered by all unions. But ultimately, there is a lot to be gai…

A professional association with ethics standards you could quote to say "no I won't build your creepy backdoor/logging/privacy-invading tracking feature, it's against the code" would be pretty sweet...

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#200

Post by majormajor » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

phil21 wrote: post #169

tptacek wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work under onerous IP contracts that grant their employers rights to what they build in their spare time? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen environments where they have to blast music into their ears with headphones to focus their attention on what they're building? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers…

Honestly the answer to all your questions is "because people traded those items for massive pay increases". I've never had a problem negotiating any of those points with any of my employers in the tech industry. Perhaps work for smaller companies if these sorts of things are important to you? If you want to max out salary in silicon valley, I guess your list applies. For almost everywhere else in the country it's sim…

CA is one of the few places I've found where companies actually can't pull the we-own-everything-you-do-at-any-time trick...

But to the rest: this is a forum where people constantly complain about the shoddy standards of shipping software. Shit security. Shit privacy. Shit performance. Shit dependency hell. Right now people get paid a lot of money to make as-bad-as-possible-to-still-make-money products. It's interesting.

Maybe a group that could negotiate on a larger scale with companies to say "we're not making that shit" could have some use. Or maybe the jobs would all go overseas, but from my experience... good luck with that!