The Brief Origins of May Day • Hacker News Board

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#241

Post by const_cast » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:48 AM UTC

DrillShopper wrote: post #233

gibspaulding wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even anti-union, but comfy enough not to feel the need for the effort/risk involved in unionizing. When you work in a trade where you could easily be killed or injured on the job the calculus is a bit different.

It's never ceases to amaze me how much software folks think that their job cannot easily injure or kill them. All of the devs I know have no work/life balance, skip doctor's appointments because of work commitments, and several I know have had strokes or heart attacks at their desk while pushing to meet a deadline. Just because you likely won't be killed in a crane collapse or someone dropping a hammer doesn't mean t…

You’re quite right - working in an office kills you. It’s just mundane and slow, so we don’t really notice.

But at the end of the day most people are dropping from heart disease, diabetes, obesity. Sitting 8+ hours a day is basically worse for you than smoking.

Since it’s so, so slow I think we all have the belief that surely this will not happen to us. We will not be frog boiled, because surely we will notice once we are fat and hyperventilating going up the stairs. Surely, there will be some indication and we will turn the ship around.

But looking around us, I don’t think so. Clearly people are getting frog boiled. And they get so beaten down, so worn, that eventually they do not fight it.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#242

Post by const_cast » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:53 AM UTC

naming_the_user wrote: post #98

smallmancontrov wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not mathematically ordained that conditions must suck on the bottom of the pyramid in an absolute sense. In a relative sense, your argument isn't wrong, but in an absolute sense, the failure of our economy to bring modest levels of comfort on the bottom despite truly astonishing advances in fundamental capacity is a scathing indictment.

In the absolute sense, from my perspective as someone who was born with not much (I often have a sense that this discussion is driven by people who were always fairly well off and see "the poor" as a different species) the primary issue is excessive regulation, resulting in things like property being hilariously expensive, so that it's difficult to afford a house or start a business. Wages and hours for low level job…

> Wages and hours for low level jobs feel like a distraction, barely anyone needs more toys, the issue is that the necessary items for life are monopolised.

They’re related. Unions aren’t just labor movements, they’re efforts to reduce the power of corporations.

Monopolies form because they make a lot of sense for the people on top. Competition is cool, but mostly a fools errand. The true winners know how to work together to widen the gap between their in-group and everyone else.

What’s evident to me about market theory is that it naturally tends to monopolies. To me, it is human nature. So therefore, we need extra structures, extra systems, to keep it in check.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#243

Post by theamk » Fri, May 02, 2025, 3:00 AM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #93

dauertewigkeit wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes solidarity between workers possible is the homogeneity of their labour. This condition is not present for tech workers. Labour market conditions are completely different from those of say, a meat processing plant or a factory assembly line.

> What makes solidarity between workers possible is the homogeneity of their labour. Ethan Hunt play by Tom Cruise and Waitress #2 played by Jane Doe aren't very homogeneous with regards to pay and fame, but they're both part of SAG.

Looking at SAG benefits [0], I can imagine they would be very nice for Waitress #2.

But what does Tom Cruise get out of it? He certainly does not need a union to get his wage, pension and benefits.

Is this a solidarity with other, less known actors? Prestige? Something else?

[0] https://www.sagaftra.org/membership-benefits/member-benefits

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#244

Post by theamk » Fri, May 02, 2025, 3:12 AM UTC

DrillShopper wrote: post #233

gibspaulding wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even anti-union, but comfy enough not to feel the need for the effort/risk involved in unionizing. When you work in a trade where you could easily be killed or injured on the job the calculus is a bit different.

It's never ceases to amaze me how much software folks think that their job cannot easily injure or kill them. All of the devs I know have no work/life balance, skip doctor's appointments because of work commitments, and several I know have had strokes or heart attacks at their desk while pushing to meet a deadline. Just because you likely won't be killed in a crane collapse or someone dropping a hammer doesn't mean t…

If that describes you, I advice you to look at other jobs ASAP.

I've seen what you describe in Amazon - high pressure, constant thread of being fired, stress, no work/life balance, etc...

Many other jobs are different. Sure, things are inefficient, but the expectations are not very high either. You come in, do your 7 hours of work (or don't even come in if you are remote), and go home. It's pretty hard to get fired, so as long as you are putting a nominal effort, you'd be fine.

Some people are trying to get a promotion, or are just full of energy - they may work very hard, skip work/life balance and stress out. But it's all optional, if you are happy with your initial salary, you don't have to do it.

(The major annoyance with this is if you are trying to actually get things done, like ship a product, there are just _so many_ people around who seem to work very slowly, and that cannot be relied on to deliver things in time... but this is all in your head, you only stress out about this if you choose to)

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#245

Post by vintermann » Fri, May 02, 2025, 8:16 AM UTC

aaronbaugher wrote: post #85

parpfish wrote: post #16

Why don’t labor issues resonate more with tech workers? I know that we’re not a monolith and are actually a heterogeneous mix of opinions, but there frequently talk about job dissatisfaction (career burnout, comically stingy equity grants, etc). But when organizing comes up, it’s usually treated with disdain because so many have bought into highly individualistic hustle-culture and the narrative that unions only exis…

We tend to think like this, unconsciously if not outright: "I'm smarter than the next guy, so in a dog-eat-dog system I'll come out ahead. Organizing with a bunch of less-smart people would only hold me back." Plus, at the risk of too much head-shrinking, I've never gotten the impression that tech workers liked each other very much. There's a lot of disdain in the industry, for the guy who uses that language or frame…

I don't think that's it. I'm pretty damn red on economics, and I'm a software developer, but I'm not in a union because the unions I could join are not very good. Either they're more interested in selling me credit cards, or they're for policies which are disastrously bad for a software developer (e.g, paying into a pensions scheme which pays out nothing if you haven't been with the same employer for 7 years before retirement), or more commonly, both.

I could join and try to influence them, but if I was good at that sort of thing, I probably wouldn't have been a software developer in the first place.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#246

Post by vintermann » Fri, May 02, 2025, 8:29 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #82

parpfish wrote: post #16

Why don’t labor issues resonate more with tech workers? I know that we’re not a monolith and are actually a heterogeneous mix of opinions, but there frequently talk about job dissatisfaction (career burnout, comically stingy equity grants, etc). But when organizing comes up, it’s usually treated with disdain because so many have bought into highly individualistic hustle-culture and the narrative that unions only exis…

I’ve been a manager in tech for the last 11 years full-time Prior to that I was a military commander as a Major in the United States Air Force Before joining the AF I had jobs in construction, freelance web design and car stereo installation in high school The singular difference is the personality of tech workers is “I can do this faster and easier by myself - I have no desire to communicate with other people” It se…

> As a function of that the majority of SWE’s (and frankly this applies to most technical experts who have a very specific niche) have neither of the interest nor the belief that the organization is valuable in of itself

Well, the engineering union I was in as a student member was most interested in selling me the great credit card deals they'd negotiated for their members. They were not into any kind of "class solidarity" nationally, much less internationally. They were at best into securing good deals for their members (and not so much that they couldn't still have a VERY cozy relationship with their employer counterpart). The last straw was when they got into promoting climate denialism. So yeah, I didn't think the organization was very valuable in itself, but was I wrong?

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#247

Post by DrScientist » Fri, May 02, 2025, 9:12 AM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #34

DrScientist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RTO and 5 days working weeks seem to be less effective than nomadic/remote work and 4x10 or even 4x8 working weeks It does depend on how you measure it. Given diligent workers you could argue that working from home is better for 'on task' work, than the distractions of the office - however some of those distractions create value for companies that's hard to measure. I've lost count of the number of times I've had t…

If you look at layouts of buildings for organisations lauded for unusually high output - I'm thinking Bell Labs, Xerox, MIT Media Lab, and others - historically there has been mixed mode: the ability to do focus work, and also the ability to step away from focus and bump into people on the way to get a coffee or lunch. Today's working environment is 40+ hours in open plan offices with too few social spaces or meeting…

Fair points about the modern work environment and the shift to open plan which gives you neither the space for concentrated work that an office does, nor the collaborative space that a company canteen with benches ( not circular tables ) does.

However I do consider there is a general element of selfishness/ social atomisation in the reluctance to return to work - both in terms of travel time costs, and focussing on personal tasks aspects ( ie a reluctance to give other people time ).

Work and how it's done, is at the heart of society - yet the society aspects are being hollowed out.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#248

Post by flmontpetit » Fri, May 02, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #232

flmontpetit wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy how we've abstracted financial serfdom out of the status of being a property owner. Contrasted with renting it surely seems like independence, but whether the bank squeezes extra value out of you directly or through the proxy of a landlord, the end result is similar.

>Contrasted with renting it surely seems like independence, but whether the bank squeezes extra value out of you directly or through the proxy of a landlord, the end result is similar. The difference is public policy. Owning property in the US absolutely elevates you to a higher privileged status above renters. How many homeowners were being evicted from their homes after missing a couple mortgage payments during the…

Fair, and owning certainly puts you in charge of your own quality of life. My dishwasher has been broken for three months and I'm still having to fight to get it fixed. When I own my own place starting from next July I'm just going to fix things like this on my own time and dime.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#249

Post by zackmorris » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:16 PM UTC

mikrl wrote: post #239

zackmorris wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest answer tends to be the right one, so in the face of the inexplicable, the answer is usually ignorance. The tech track works great if one falls into line and doesn't rock the boat by questioning authority or trying to see the big picture. If one clings to original teenage fantasies like the idea that intellectual prowess and financial success eventually bring esteem and a social life. If one chooses to av…

>The tech track works great if one falls into line and doesn't rock the boat by questioning authority or trying to see the big picture Is this true? I thought senior engineers were expected to push back as a matter of course, and staff engineers were expected to think in broad, business needs and translate that down to the code. An engineer who just shuts up and writes code, is so we are told, the first casualty in t…

Ya I mean I can't really comment on such a broad topic in a few sentences without generalizing and projecting from my own experience.

I agree with you, that the best engineers weigh the business needs when working towards a solution.

But I've also seen how the top problem solvers rarely get promoted beyond a certain level. A lot of us got into this to change the world, but ended up settling at middle management.

It's kind of a learned helplessness. It's strange to see the best and brightest commanded by people who aren't necessarily dumb, they just view the work as almost a sunk cost rather than something that pays dividends if done right. So there's this constant constraining of ideas that rubs off on us and gradually diminishes our light. Until eventually we're just another cog in the machine, showing up day after day only to keep things running and not rock the boat. And making up stories about how critical we are to the process without seeing our own expendability.

It's sad to say, but we're about to get tossed out and replaced by AI. I don't think that rising above being code monkeys is going to save us.

So on that note, we're also about to get radicalized. Imagine spending one's entire life in discipline learning the most esoteric knowledge, hoping to get ahead someday, only to find out that there wasn't enough time. Having to watch the most vacuous blowhards become millionaires at the highest levels of power and casually destroy everything we worked towards.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#250

Post by throw0101a » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:18 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #228

throw0101a wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I honestly think the "middle class" idea is just a fallacy. One definition I found reasonable was that it it "starts" with those that can meet their basic necessities (housing, food, transportation, healthcare) and still have funds left over for discretionary spending: * https://ofdollarsanddata.com/the-biggest-lie-in-personal-fin... Where it "ends" at top-end is perhaps more arbitrary (not Top 10%? 20%? 1%?).

I don’t like this definition as much because it includes most people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck with minimal leisure expenditure, right? Like if you by groceries, rent an apartment, have a bus pass, qualify for Medicare, and you have a Netflix account or get fast food (discretionary spending), then you seem to be middle class by this definition. Is that right? Maybe Medicare bumps you out. But ok, you can ge…

> […] then you seem to be middle class by this definition. Is that right?

Middle-class is a spectrum like being "rich" is.