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

nytimes.com

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

#241

Post by tptacek »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #176
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…

This is list reeks of entitlement. > 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? Most developers don't have any IP to lose. If you have IP to lose then you can find a company that won't ask you to sign onerous contracts. > If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen env…

On the other hand, my comment ranks (by votes) among the top 0.3% I've written on the site, while yours has been voted down so far after 13 hours that it's hard to read (I didn't downvote you). We're both software developers, we've both been in the industry for comparably long periods of time, but it feels like maybe one of us is saying something that better resonates with our peers.

It'd be interesting to see if, having pointed this out, the voting spread changes. I'd like a truer accounting, if there's one to be had!

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

#242

Post by losteverything »

pfranz wrote: post #202
zjaffee wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, union…

> Additionally, unions force costs to go up on many projects and revert any productivity gains that technology has provided. Honestly, I think this is worth some honest discussion about the big picture. Many of the critiques against neoliberalism[1] is that all of the benefits of opening international trade and automation have gone to the rich. In 1930 John Keynes predicted 15 hour workweek for his grandchildren[2].…

Examine amazon. I deliver them. Im in a union. I've had a $100+k prosthetic at Now, if i downloaded the Amazon app and became a delivery dude i would still deliver Amazon. No insurance No savings. Use of my own car. I could do this for amazon for 5 years and i would have nothing.

The union already blazed the way for my salary and benefit package.. So i simply benefited from it.

Amazon and uber workers and drivers have so untapped clout..

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

#243

Post by acdha »

ryandrake wrote: post #58
ng12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

Congratulations if you honestly can "quit and get a new job in a week". This is not true for the vast majority of tech professionals. Even if it were currently true in general, it will not be true during the next inevitable tech downturn (I've survived two of them in 20 years so far, knock on wood). Also, organizing is not just about protecting one's job. It's about collectively negotiating for stuff like pay, benefi…

> Congratulations if you honestly can "quit and get a new job in a week". This is not true for the vast majority of tech professionals. Even if it were currently true in general, it will not be true during the next inevitable tech downturn (I've survived two of them in 20 years so far, knock on wood).

This is a really important point to understand. Any time I hear people talk like the market will never get worse I'm reminded of San Diego in the early 90s. There had been a ton of great jobs there with all of the defense contracting jobs — whole suburbs full of highly-trained engineers who making great incomes because multiple companies were bidding for their skills.

Then the Cold War ended and the entire sector halted. None of those companies were hiring, anyone looking to move was selling a house in a neighborhood where many of their neighbors were doing the same thing, and if they tried to switch fields there was a lot of competition. My first employer had a $15/hour software QA job getting applications from people with engineering MS and PhD degrees who'd been out of work for a long time and were willing to take a huge pay cut just to have a job, only now that education and experience was seen as a negative because it was assumed that they'd leave as soon as the job market improved.

And, yes, the job market did recover but everyone affected still had to eat the cost of significant periods of unemployment or being forced to sell a house because they couldn't make the mortgage payments. IT has some differences in that the skills are more generally in demand but there are also some interesting risks like an entire profession becoming commoditized as e.g. a SaaS offering becomes a viable alternative to hiring staff — especially because the last couple decades have left a lot of tech workers are used to thinking of themselves as having more in common with senior management than we actually do and not everyone understands how quickly most companies would cut them lose if it fit the budget better.

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

#244

Post by saas_co_de »

losteverything wrote: post #225
saas_co_de wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Teamster and I have worked in union labor jobs, non union labor jobs, and professional jobs. One of the big misconceptions is that unions are just for workers. In my experience unions benefit the employers just as much as the workers by providing a formal process for raising and resolving grievances. This helps corporations by keeping things smooth and puts a check on low level management that benefits the org…

This is a great comment. Your point "dont really think that software engineers could benefit much from unionization" I disagree in one respect: hours and time of day worked. If rules exist that mean you dont work weekends or holidays or more than 50 hours in a week you as an engineer could simply cite rules amd say no. Rules could exist for who has to work those times...

Software engineers are not standing on a work line waiting for a minimum wage job where they have no control over their working conditions. Software engineers create value directly with little or no dependence on capital. Their employers need capital to support whatever their business ops are, but creating software itself requires no capital other than the training and experience that belongs to the engineer.

Software engineers already have a lot of leverage. If you have a boss telling you you have to work crazy hours just say no. If you aren't using the bargaining power you already have a union is probably not going to help you.

In unions bosses break the rules continually and you only get them enforced by persistently filing grievances in the face of a lot of blowback, sometimes from the upper echelons of the union itself because they don't like people rocking the boat too much.

In the grievance game management and union sit down every month or so and take the list of proposed disciplinary actions against employees (firings, suspensions, etc) and the list of grievances filed against management and swap them out to prevent the people with the most seniority from getting fired. A lot of valid grievances will get ignored because they were traded out so some old timer could keep their job - not exactly the epitome of justice.

Having a written contract does provide leverage but not as much leverage as being able to tell your boss that their project will fail and they will lose money if they don't give you what you want. Not every software engineer is going to have that kind of leverage but if you want it you are probably more likely to get it by using your existing skills than by trying to organize a union.

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

#245

Post by pvg »

tptacek wrote: post #241
pfarnsworth wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is list reeks of entitlement. > 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? Most developers don't have any IP to lose. If you have IP to lose then you can find a company that won't ask you to sign onerous contracts. > If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen env…

On the other hand, my comment ranks (by votes) among the top 0.3% I've written on the site, while yours has been voted down so far after 13 hours that it's hard to read (I didn't downvote you). We're both software developers, we've both been in the industry for comparably long periods of time, but it feels like maybe one of us is saying something that better resonates with our peers. It'd be interesting to see if, ha…

Ew. Don't be that guy.

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

#246

Post by tptacek »

pvg wrote: post #245
tptacek wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, my comment ranks (by votes) among the top 0.3% I've written on the site, while yours has been voted down so far after 13 hours that it's hard to read (I didn't downvote you). We're both software developers, we've both been in the industry for comparably long periods of time, but it feels like maybe one of us is saying something that better resonates with our peers. It'd be interesting to see if, ha…

Ew. Don't be that guy.

Oh, come on. If all my comments are going to be arbitrarily voted up at least I should be able to occasionally put that to good use.

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

#247

Post by pfarnsworth »

tptacek wrote: post #241
pfarnsworth wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is list reeks of entitlement. > 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? Most developers don't have any IP to lose. If you have IP to lose then you can find a company that won't ask you to sign onerous contracts. > If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen env…

On the other hand, my comment ranks (by votes) among the top 0.3% I've written on the site, while yours has been voted down so far after 13 hours that it's hard to read (I didn't downvote you). We're both software developers, we've both been in the industry for comparably long periods of time, but it feels like maybe one of us is saying something that better resonates with our peers. It'd be interesting to see if, ha…

Lol come on Thomas. That is probably the most pathetic comment I’ve seen you write. Worthless internet karma is a validation of your ideas? Did all your upvotes for starfighter on hacker news actually turn it into a real business or was it a failure in real life?

Why not try to publicize this ideaand see how much real traction you get? (spoiler alert: zero because most developers don’t want it)

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

#248

Post by tptacek »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #247
tptacek wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, my comment ranks (by votes) among the top 0.3% I've written on the site, while yours has been voted down so far after 13 hours that it's hard to read (I didn't downvote you). We're both software developers, we've both been in the industry for comparably long periods of time, but it feels like maybe one of us is saying something that better resonates with our peers. It'd be interesting to see if, ha…

Lol come on Thomas. That is probably the most pathetic comment I’ve seen you write. Worthless internet karma is a validation of your ideas? Did all your upvotes for starfighter on hacker news actually turn it into a real business or was it a failure in real life? Why not try to publicize this ideaand see how much real traction you get? (spoiler alert: zero because most developers don’t want it)

1. Starfighter did not seem to me at the time to be beloved by HN.

2. Starfighter is one of 3 companies I've been involved in publicly on HN. The first one did pretty good. We're doing pretty good with this one. Thanks for asking! :)

3. There's an obvious difference between the question of whether something's a viable business (CTFs as contingency recruiters: probably not!) vs. whether an argument represents any kind of popular sentiment.

4. Do upvotes validate my argument? No. But they would seem to me to rebut your claim to speak for "most developers".

What kind of publication were you thinking of?

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

#249

Post by tptacek »

tanilama wrote: post #226
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…

Entitlements from enormous privileges.

Is it? What makes you think the balance of entitlements between owners and labor in tech is the right one? It's not as if the owners seem to be suffering.

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

#250

Post by pvg »

tptacek wrote: post #246
pvg wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ew. Don't be that guy.

Oh, come on. If all my comments are going to be arbitrarily voted up at least I should be able to occasionally put that to good use.

What is the good use? The thing you're replying to is yelly and rude but 'I'm right because upvotes and you're gray' is just icky.
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