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Tech Workers' Values

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Tech Workers' Values

#261

Post by concede_pluto »

st3v3r wrote: post #163
EduardoBautista wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley (especially SF) is all for diversity...as long as you think exactly like they do.

Wrong. There's little tolerance for bigotry. There's nothing wrong with that. Having the opinion that a class of people do not deserve the same rights as others is not "diversity" or "having a different opinion". It's bigotry, plain and simple. What you want is for no one to call you out for espousing terrible views. You want freedom from consequences of speech, not freedom of speech.

In practice "little tolerance for bigotry" means you might get fired for supporting a viewpoint held by the majority of Californians.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#262

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #214
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much like America, we think we're all temporarily embarrassed millionaires. The reason that old canard doesn't carry a lot of weight around SV and the other tech hubs is that a lot of rank-and file, non-manager techies actually _are_ millionaires.

While the capital class makes billions off their backs, colludes with each other to restrict wages and labor mobility, and exploits H1-B subcontractors to do more of the same. Why settle for this?

> While the capital class makes billions off their backs, colludes with each other to restrict wages and labor mobility, and exploits H1-B subcontractors to do more of the same.

You do realize that you're on a site run by Y Combinator, where a few people with an idea can transform into a multi-million dollar startup or even a multi-billion dollar business[0] for all to see? It should be rather self-evident why tired, old classist rhetoric doesn't get taken very seriously, particularly on a startup-oriented site like HN.

"Why settle for this?" I ask you in turn: why would anyone in SV settle for the stifling mediocrity and onerous rules of a union when millions are out there to be had for any with the courage and drive to try for it?

[0] "Including more than 400 active companies–Dropbox, Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe, Twitch, Homejoy and more–the market capitalization of Y Combinator startups exceeds $30 billion, according to the accelerator's president, Sam Altman." -- https://www.fastcompany.com/3033215/the-value-of-y-combinato...

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#263

Post by alphonsegaston »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #262
alphonsegaston wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the capital class makes billions off their backs, colludes with each other to restrict wages and labor mobility, and exploits H1-B subcontractors to do more of the same. Why settle for this?

> While the capital class makes billions off their backs, colludes with each other to restrict wages and labor mobility, and exploits H1-B subcontractors to do more of the same. You do realize that you're on a site run by Y Combinator, where a few people with an idea can transform into a multi-million dollar startup or even a multi-billion dollar business[0] for all to see? It should be rather self-evident why tired,…

>You do realize that you're on a site run by Y Combinator, where a few people with an idea can transform into a multi-million dollar startup or even a multi-billion dollar busineas

Of course. Why preach to the converted? And if you think "classists arguments" are outdated in an era of inequality unseen in the US since the 19th century, perhaps look more to history.

>why would anyone in SV settle for the stifling mediocrity and onerous rules of a union when millions are out there to be had for any with the courage and drive to try for it?

Because under the conditions of contemporary Capitalism, believing in venture capital as your ladder to the moon is as mythically fictitious as your description of unions.

Don't get me wrong - technology and its impact on society is as revolutionary as was industrialization. But it's also obvious that a similar class of robber barons is attempting to subvert this revolution into a new Gilded Age. In that era, the laboring classes, through their solidarity and protest, stopped their children and families from being worked to death, their land being poisoned, and generally having their futures stolen from them. What you have the privilege of calling "stifling mediocrity" is only because of their sacrifice.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#264

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #263
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While the capital class makes billions off their backs, colludes with each other to restrict wages and labor mobility, and exploits H1-B subcontractors to do more of the same. You do realize that you're on a site run by Y Combinator, where a few people with an idea can transform into a multi-million dollar startup or even a multi-billion dollar business[0] for all to see? It should be rather self-evident why tired,…

>You do realize that you're on a site run by Y Combinator, where a few people with an idea can transform into a multi-million dollar startup or even a multi-billion dollar busineas Of course. Why preach to the converted? And if you think "classists arguments" are outdated in an era of inequality unseen in the US since the 19th century, perhaps look more to history. >why would anyone in SV settle for the stifling medi…

> Because under the conditions of contemporary Capitalism, believing in venture capital as your ladder to the moon is as mythically fictitious as your description of unions.

We have before us, in the form of Y Combinator and other accelerators, many examples of successful businesses started using VC by ordinary people such as you and I. And, as a former resident of Detroit, I quite assure you that my portrayal of unions comes from observing their behavior over quite some time and I am far from alone in having first-hand experience with their, shall we say, drawbacks. So forgive me if I fail to see the "mythically ficticious" bits here.

I will agree that many modern worker protections do stem from the risks taken and sacrifices made by organized labor nearly a century ago and that we ought all to be grateful for that indeed. However, that was then, this is now. History is fine but what unions are in the United States today is something that many software professionals, including myself, don't wish to be a part of.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#265

Post by x0x0 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #255
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much like America, we think we're all temporarily embarrassed millionaires. The reason that old canard doesn't carry a lot of weight around SV and the other tech hubs is that a lot of rank-and file, non-manager techies actually _are_ millionaires.

"A lot" if you measure in absolute numbers. Very few if you measure in percentages. Remember, the median salary for a tech worker stagnated between 2000 and roughly 2012 or so, and even since then has only really risen because a few huge firms pay high salaries. Your average tech-worker still makes an upper-middle class salary that won't even buy a house in the Bay Area, Seattle, New York, or Boston.

Exactly.

All the rampant stupidity on here and elsewhere about how well tech employees are supposedly paid is simple to vanquish: divide by the median home price within a 30 minute commute of the office.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#266

Post by stale2002 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #250
stale2002 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winning me over is easy. Give me a better deal. If the union job pays 50% more then I will take it. I'd have to be stupid not to. But don't expect my loyalty to the union. As soon as it become a better deal to do something else, I am going to do that thing. I don't care about solidarity, or "crossing the picket line" or whatever. I will take the best deal that is offered to me.

That is really surprisingly self-sabotaging. People in labor movements don't spout slogans like, "An injury to one is an injury to all" because we're trying to moralize. It's because when workers at one company have their salaries suppressed - by collusion in hiring, by wage theft, by death-march management - the market rate for their labor goes down overall. When any one company can abuse its workers, we all lose fr…

Then these people who don't want me to sabotage their movement shouldnt force me to join.

They should leave me alone and not get in the way of the contract that is between me and my employer.

If they force me to join with BS closed shop contracts, they can expect me to explicitly and purposefully sabotage their movement in any way that I deem fit.

They do not represent me. I do not want their help. I do not want them to negotiate for me.

And hopefully these people who do not represent me will learn their lesson with regards to forcing people to join their movement, knowing that they can expect purposeful sabotage in retaliation.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#267

Post by [deleted] »

oddlyaromatic wrote: post #198
stale2002 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome. They can do that, and I will work for the multitude of companies and startups out there that will not unionize. You can't unionize every startup in the world, and non unionized employees will be able to demand a premium. Other people are free to burden themselves with union rules, and I will be free to accept the higher salary that I can command because my competition is hindered. It is a competitive advanta…

It's people like this commenter who need to be won over if a union would have any chance in tech. But I don't know how to do it. At my first ever job everybody at the company was an automatic member of a union (it was a grocery store in my home town). I knew that when I took a paid break, or a vacation, or got time and a half for night work, I was benefiting from industrial action taken by those who went before me. I…

[deleted]

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#268

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #264
alphonsegaston wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You do realize that you're on a site run by Y Combinator, where a few people with an idea can transform into a multi-million dollar startup or even a multi-billion dollar busineas Of course. Why preach to the converted? And if you think "classists arguments" are outdated in an era of inequality unseen in the US since the 19th century, perhaps look more to history. >why would anyone in SV settle for the stifling medi…

> Because under the conditions of contemporary Capitalism, believing in venture capital as your ladder to the moon is as mythically fictitious as your description of unions. We have before us, in the form of Y Combinator and other accelerators, many examples of successful businesses started using VC by ordinary people such as you and I. And, as a former resident of Detroit, I quite assure you that my portrayal of uni…

>We have before us, in the form of Y Combinator and other accelerators, many examples of successful businesses started using VC by ordinary people such as you and I.

Well no. We have many examples of successful businesses started using VC by people with family money to subsidize away the risk to their living expenses.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#269

Post by spangry »

chimeracoder wrote: post #196
spangry wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the what (I think) the parent post is getting at: if you're going to form a union, form a union . As in, a labour monopoly. This might sound radical, but I think there is good reason for developers and tech workers to consider this. There are strong network effects and nearly unlimited economies of scale in most tech markets. In these cases, given enough time, the end result will be a monopsonist employe…

> In these cases, given enough time, the end result will be a monopsonist employer.[0] This results in lower employment, lower wages and, ultimately, the replacement of labour with additional accumulated capital (e.g. ML algos) and/or cheaper substitute labour (e.g. imported foreign workers). Unions that have closed-shop contracts with employers are, by definition, monopsonies on labor. Employees are required to be u…

Sorry for the late reply. It's true that unions tend to have more success forming in monopsony employer situations, usually because of the labour force abuses that tend to follow. The other context where unions have high coverage (and tend to be unusually militant) are industries where the job carries a high degree of risk for the worker.

Historically this risk has almost always taken the form of physical danger (e.g. miners, steelworkers, construction workers etc.). Whether intellectual labourers will be motivated to organise by less proximate, but no less real, risks (e.g. the risk of being automated out of a job, being denied ownership of one's own IP/thoughts etc.) remains to be seen.

The other interesting factor is that there seem to be parts of the tech industry where a worker produces orders of magnitude more surplus value for their employer than they are paid for their efforts. I suspect this may have been a factor in the unionisation of screen entertainment workers and professional sports people (particularly when radio and TV turned those markets into 'winner-takes-all' markets).

And I'm not sure I'd personally characterise many of the markets in the tech industry as competitive. The most lucrative markets seem to be either dominated by a de facto monopolist (e.g. search, social networking) or duopolists (e.g. Windows vs OSX, GFX cards and CPUs, the android and iOS platforms etc.).

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#270

Post by pseudalopex »

chimeracoder wrote: post #239
pseudalopex wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NRTW's definition of "right to work" appears to be the common definition. It's also the common definition of "open shop". Minority unions can bargain only for their members -- but as far as I can tell, members can't commit to be bound by the outcome, which undermines the union's bargaining power. Even then, the prevailing legal opinion seems to be that they can't negotiate terms that structurally favor members over n…

> NRTW's definition of "right to work" appears to be the common definition. It's also the common definition of "open shop". Not quite, because you can have an open shop in a state that doesn't have a right-to-work law. Right to work laws only ensure that workers have the ability to dissociate from the union without losing their employment. > Minority unions can bargain only for their members -- but as far as I can te…

> you can have an open shop in a state that doesn't have a right-to-work law

"Right to work" laws are also called "open shop" laws because that's what they mandate. Of course unions can choose not to collect agency fees in other states.

Going back to the beginning, you claimed that unions can negotiate closed shops. The Taft-Hartley Act outlawed closed shops, NLRB v. General Motors made union shops equivalent to agency shops, and 28 states forbid agency shops.

> Alternative way of phrasing that: Only unions which represent the majority have the ability to compel all members to accept whatever terms they negotiate.

No, those statements aren't equivalent. Plenty of other negotiations see parties authorize their representatives to agree to terms within certain parameters. Plenty of contracts commit the parties to accept the result of some process.

> They have to represent them for things like grievances, yes, but that doesn't mean that they can't pick and choose which subgroups they advocate for in negotiations over others.

They can't choose members as one of those groups. If other groupings correlate with membership, sure, they can get away with some favoritism. You originally claimed they can exclude non-members entirely.

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