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The Burnout Machine

unionize.fyi

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Re: The Burnout Machine

#21

Post by jakelazaroff »

film42 wrote: post #11

I think unions need to work on their marketing. I resonate with all of these problems, but the "fixes" sound like a politician saying, "elect me and I'll solve your problems." What's the A+ example out there of a unionized engineering team that has been able to find a great work-life balance, great benefits, and a fun product development life-cycle that is profitable or clearly on its way to profitability? Show me th…

The issue is the idea that there’s something that can magically solve all your problems. If you believe in panaceas, everything will disappoint you.

Unions are a tool, and tools have tradeoffs. They will be able to solve some of your problems — most importantly, the power imbalance between employer and employee — and introduce new ones you didn’t have before. The bet is that if we collectively use unions correctly, they will solve more problems than they create; that we will, on balance, be better off.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#22

Post by fullshark »

sfpotter wrote: post #17
film42 wrote: post #11

I think unions need to work on their marketing. I resonate with all of these problems, but the "fixes" sound like a politician saying, "elect me and I'll solve your problems." What's the A+ example out there of a unionized engineering team that has been able to find a great work-life balance, great benefits, and a fun product development life-cycle that is profitable or clearly on its way to profitability? Show me th…

[flagged]

Why don't you fill in the gaps for all of us that lack imagination, instead of insult us?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#23

Post by sfpotter »

limusrazor wrote: post #14

How do you then compete with companies from other geographies willing to overwork US companies? Sounds great on the surface, but if you slow down the treadmill too much, you risk falling off completely.

Not burning your employees out is good. Totally unclear that working "80 hour weeks" is any more productive than a standard 40 hour week. Keeping employees around by slowing things down and making things more humane means you can retain employees for longer, build institutional knowledge, build a good culture at the company, etc. You can have a company full of atomized, dehumanized, and miserable workers... or not? Not seems better.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#24

Post by Muromec »

linksnapzz wrote: post #7

What happens when your employer replaces union workers w/ more pliant immigrants on visas? Or just outsources their work entirely? Are you going to picket an AWS DC in Ashburn?

You get a nice piece of metal, come close and personal with coppers and live happily in exile in Europe ever after. Either that or you become a homeless drug addict. There are always exciting choices for these exciting times.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#25

Post by mattgreenrocks »

rglover wrote: post #9

The ideal is to encourage developers to start their own small businesses and support each other by being customers. That, and when you find success/profitability, don't sell to a big tech nightmare or PE—just run the business. The "machine" is a natural side-effect of mega corporations and creating unions will just encourage more creativity around stealing your soul or getting rid of your entirely.

Correct. Devs need to stop believing that business acumen is some special skill they can't develop. It's not magic. Your CEO isn't a better human than you despite what LinkedIn tells you.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#26

Post by deedubaya »

Burnout? Yes. Overwork? Maybe. Unionize? Eh…

The post reeks of privilege.

Go work a manual labor job outside in the sun for a few weeks and tell me how bad tech employees have it. Most of non-tech America is not empathetic to our plights. They’ll probably cheer on the offshoring of our jobs.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#27

Post by debacle »

rglover wrote: post #9

The ideal is to encourage developers to start their own small businesses and support each other by being customers. That, and when you find success/profitability, don't sell to a big tech nightmare or PE—just run the business. The "machine" is a natural side-effect of mega corporations and creating unions will just encourage more creativity around stealing your soul or getting rid of your entirely.

I never worked harder in my life than when I worked for myself.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#28

Post by thom__ »

Awesome to see something like this on HN. As we keep working for less pay, more hours, the constant threat of layoffs, and business leaders frothing at the mouth to replace us all with AI, it's important to remember that we aren't powerless as workers. It's also important to remember that your relationship to the higher-ups is adversarial. They want to get as much productivity out of you for as little pay as possible. It's not because they're evil, it's just good business. Organizing helps protect us as things get worse.

I see a lot of my colleagues resigned to the reality we live in and just hoping they get lucky enough to come out on the right side of the meat grinder by making a few bucks at a startup. I've worked in a couple industries, and tech workers seem to lack solidarity in a way I haven't seen elsewhere. I survived three rounds of layoffs at a startup, and every time the attitude among some of my colleagues was that we "trimmed the fat." I somewhat agreed and got caught up in that culture until I got picked up in the fourth round of layoffs at a time when I felt I was doing my best work. We need each other as workers to get through a future that looks gloomy for technology developers. As the saying goes: "united we bargain, divided we beg." A better world is possible!

Re: The Burnout Machine

#29

Post by droopyEyelids »

film42 wrote: post #11

I think unions need to work on their marketing. I resonate with all of these problems, but the "fixes" sound like a politician saying, "elect me and I'll solve your problems." What's the A+ example out there of a unionized engineering team that has been able to find a great work-life balance, great benefits, and a fun product development life-cycle that is profitable or clearly on its way to profitability? Show me th…

Unions could address on-call rotations, that seems like a low hanging fruit.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#30

Post by Muromec »

drpossum wrote: post #15
linksnapzz wrote: post #7

What happens when your employer replaces union workers w/ more pliant immigrants on visas? Or just outsources their work entirely? Are you going to picket an AWS DC in Ashburn?

This was actually very popular with offshoring and the results spoke for themselves. I made a lot of money cleaning up those dumpster fires and it's hard for me to not encourage more of it.

My favorite is sitting downstream from those ascended souls. There isn't ever a deadline they don't miss, so business people never bark on my tree.
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