Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 256 posts

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#191

Post by javagram »

rexpop wrote: post #74
javagram wrote: post #10

“In other cases, highly compensated engineers may see themselves as independent operators who have plenty of leverage on their own and thus do not need to join a union effort.” This is definitely my feeling. When I can just open up LinkedIn and browse all the unsolicited interview requests I get, I don’t end up feeling like I really need a union to protect my current job - I can always just leave and go somewhere els…

> I can always just leave and go somewhere else if I’m unhappy. A common refrain, and not entirely incorrect. It's true that I personally lean on marketplace bargaining power when making politically risky workplace decisions, e.g. pushing for a product or process change. It has its limits, however, as I've lightly addressed in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384306

Yes, absolutely. And if the amount of bargaining power I felt I have begins to change, I might feel more strongly about being in a union and regaining some of that power through collective bargaining.

Right now, I’m not on a visa and the job market only seems to get hotter and hotter, so for now I feel pretty good about it. Definitely recognize that could change.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#192

Post by erik998 »

ttcbj wrote: post #73

My Dad owns a construction company in a highly unionized region. He is an advocate for unions, although he acknowledges that quality varies among them. That said, many of the conditions where unions are beneficial don't seem to apply in tech: * Vocational training: unions in our area run schools to train craftsman (e.g. carpenters). This increases productivity and screens for quality. * Shifting workforce: Constructi…

Those were my initial feelings as well. I guess the issue comes down to focusing on software development as a skill and having that skill rewarded in manner you can count on. Our industry is really similar to actors. They have SAG and their guild negotiates with the MPAA. So every studio needs to belong to MPAA. Every year they negotiate the daily/weekly minimum rates for actors with SAG. They are pretty flexible with different rates for indy films vs big budget films.

It's not so hard to imagine a software developers guild where they negotiate for a daily/weekly minimum for developers, dba's, qa's, devops, and such...

https://www.sagaftra.org/production-center/contract/810/rate...

If you are celebrity equivalent of a developer, then you can get paid more. There are no real restrictions. You don't see famous actors getting paid below the daily minimum. When they work for a big budget film they typically get x multiple times the daily rate. Also, if they want to work on an indy film they can agree to those minimum daily rates as well.

I think its flexible enough so if you want to work for a nonprofit you can just accept the daily/weekly minimum vs asking full price if you work for FAANG.

I don't think it's a crazy amount of protections but it sets aside a basic set of standards you can expect from job to job.

If your are making over 120k they suggest actors create a loan out corporation at that point...

https://firemark.com/2015/01/12/should-you-have-a-loan-out-c...

Can you imagine all the FAANG companies having to setup a Software Industry Association to negotiate with a Software Developers Guild every year? It seems plausible. It's probably in their best interest as well. These companies could just dump any social issues on to the union and just focus on making profits. The ability to lock out competitors might force other big software dev employers to join the association as well.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#193

Post by duxup »

lonelappde wrote: post #140
duxup wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'll just say I don't think unions or the concept of a union needs to be perfect to generally have a positive effect. Maybe I'm naive. I can understand that. Personally I've had experiences with two unions in different industries. Each time the unions were IMO more of a hindrance to me than anything else. They were for me just another layer of bureaucracy with no more interest in me than a poor employer. Worse yet t…

Why are protections for unrpoductive shareholders and managers acceptable, but protections for unproductive workers not?

I don't understand what you are proposing.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#194

Post by erobbins »

dymk wrote: post #27
LarryDarrell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How confident are you that this climate will continue for the rest of your working life? How confident are you that this climate will extend past your working life?

We can form a union when we need to form a union. There's no point in forming one just in case software engineering no longer becomes a sought-after skilled job.

The problem is you can't form one when you need it, because then it's too late. You have to do it ahead of time, when you think you probably don't need it, because that's when you have the upper hand.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#195

Post by barry-cotter »

vcarl wrote: post #83
ttcbj wrote: post #73

My Dad owns a construction company in a highly unionized region. He is an advocate for unions, although he acknowledges that quality varies among them. That said, many of the conditions where unions are beneficial don't seem to apply in tech: * Vocational training: unions in our area run schools to train craftsman (e.g. carpenters). This increases productivity and screens for quality. * Shifting workforce: Constructi…

Vocational training absolutely could be done in tech, web/app development is much closer to carpentry than it is to computer science in my view. Unions are definitely complex, it's not a silver bullet to solve issues in the workplace. But at its core it's a group of people negotiating as a unit: the rest is just the natural evolution of a group where some power has been attained. More members means more organization…

Strong unions could do vocational training in software but the private sector is doing a more than reasonable job of that and their incentives are to increase supply, not restrict it. Lambda School has only existed for two years and is already educating an appreciable fraction of the software engineers in the US.

One of the economic failure modes of strong unions is excessive credentialisation and a dualised labour market. I’m most familiar with unions in Ireland and we definitely have some of that. A plastering apprenticeship is either three or four years. Learning to plaster is at most a six month job. Se situation with tiling. For a knowledge worker example more directly relevant to programmers the teachers’ unions really push credentialisation and dualistation. During the recent economic downturn the government wanted to decrease the wage bill so the teacher unions doubly shafted aspirant teachers. They negotiated a doubling in the length of teacher certification, from a one year Higher Diploma in Education to a two year M.Ed. and a lower pay scale for teachers hired after a certain date. Education in pedagogy doesn’t even have any demonstrable effect on teacher effectiveness so this was pure waste with no benefit. Even before that in Ireland a permanent job as a teacher is fantastic but it will take the average new graduate of a teacher training programme at three to five years of substitute work, with no paid holiday or other benefits to get one, if they ever do.

In the U.K. with its easier entry and lower credential requirements [1] getting a job is easy but the working conditions are comparatively dreadful.

Unions generally make things better for those on the inside by making them worse for those on the outside.

[1] Do you have a psychology degree and want to teach Math? Do a conversion course and you can.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#196

Post by mikeash »

I'm always amazed at the complete double standard between unions and companies.

Look at the discussion here: lots of people arguing against unions, saying they're just plain bad, or they're good in some industries but not in tech, or we just don't need them, or whatever.

And not to say that these arguments are wrong, but....

Hands up, how many of you think that it's a good idea to run a business with employees as a sole proprietorship?

I'm pretty sure there are no hands up. The first thing you do when you're going to create a business with employees is to organize. This is so ingrained that we don't even think about it. When was the last time you saw "Ask HN: do I need to incorporate?" Of course you do. There are many questions around where to do it and what type of corporation to create and what ownership structure you want to use and so forth, but there's no question about whether it's a good idea.

When employees band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "union" and we come up with many reasons why this may not be a good idea.

When employers band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "corporation" and nobody takes even a moment to wonder whether or not this is a good thing to do.

If workers are better off without organization, maybe the same is true on the management side? Instead of big companies, we should have individual managers on their own, employing a team as a sole proprietor.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#197

Post by barry-cotter »

pessimizer wrote: post #187
themacguffinman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your points make sense, but it stands in contrast to unions of other industries like voice acting (SAG-AFTRA) where voice actors/actresses can vary a lot in quality/desirability and aren't exactly a commodity. I actually honestly don't know how voice acting unions could be successful.

By getting the highest quality people into the union, setting minimum rates for union talent, and throwing people out of the union who work for people who pay lower rates (to them or anyone else.) Offer auxiliary services like health insurance, pensions, and anything else that can be gotten at a group rate at cost to your members. Organize training in the profession to your members, and facilitate networking between…

> By getting the highest quality people into the union, setting minimum rates for union talent, and throwing people out of the union who work for people who pay lower rates (to them or anyone else.)

Dualisation, making a labour market with insiders and outsiders certainly helps those on the inside. But that comes at the expense of those on the outside. If this is the goal how would punishment of those hiring self taught developers and those who didn’t pay union dues be coordinated?

This model has a problem in that programmers are closer to lawyers or accountants than electricians. An individual lawyer/accountant/programmer can be tens or hundreds of times more valuable or productive than another. So you can see professional services firms. You’re not going to see electricians doing that because the productivity differential isn’t that enormous. And those programmer professional service firms can either continue that way, as consultancies, or augment themselves with capital and make a product. That’s a startup. The economics of knowledge workers are radically different from production workers. Even voice actors and script writers are inputs into the final product, a film. Knowledge workers can make the entire product and capture far more of the productivity thus generated.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#198

Post by ZhuanXia »

mikeash wrote: post #196

I'm always amazed at the complete double standard between unions and companies. Look at the discussion here: lots of people arguing against unions, saying they're just plain bad, or they're good in some industries but not in tech, or we just don't need them, or whatever. And not to say that these arguments are wrong, but.... Hands up, how many of you think that it's a good idea to run a business with employees as a s…

>If workers are better off without organization, maybe the same is true on the management side? Instead of big companies, we should have individual managers on their own, employing a team as a sole proprietor.

This actually has some interesting incentives.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#199

Post by Zarel »

mikeash wrote: post #196

I'm always amazed at the complete double standard between unions and companies. Look at the discussion here: lots of people arguing against unions, saying they're just plain bad, or they're good in some industries but not in tech, or we just don't need them, or whatever. And not to say that these arguments are wrong, but.... Hands up, how many of you think that it's a good idea to run a business with employees as a s…

I'm pretty confused by your argument here.

When employers band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "cartel" and it's radioactively illegal, and not a single person defends it as a good thing.

When employees band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "union" and have a variety of opinions on it; with plenty of people thinking it's a good thing.

Corporations don't seem remotely analogous to unions and are mostly created for legal reasons, not for anything related to collective negotiation?

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#200

Post by peisistratos »

negamax wrote: post #7

The benefit in tech is options. Don't like your job, get another one. Don't like your boss, get another one. For many locations it's just the matter of turning a button on Linkedin or for many people sending some emails. That keeps people idealistic, vocal and demanding of the behavior from their employer/bosses. This is not the norm in other business functions. Unfortunately.

> Don't like your boss, get another one.

I look out my window and watch the birds fly by and wonder why a human like me needs a boss, or a "job creator" or some other euphemism.

It's hard for me to comprehend someone so slavishly minded to conceive of a concept like "don't like your boss, get another one". Sometimes I ponder what is going on in the minds of "men" who conceive such a notion, just like I sometimes see a homeless man in the gutter drinking a bottle of wine and wondering what is going through his mind.

Post reply on HN