Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union • Hacker News Board

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#311

Post by OptionOfT » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 3:34 AM UTC

This is good news. I'd take it even further. I would like to see a requirement for responsibility in the code we write, like Civil Engineers have.

We have no way of defending our jobs. If we build it and it breaks, it's on us. If we find it unsafe, and provide alternatives that cost more / take longer our job is on the line.

If we feel we cannot humanly review the insane amount of AI slop PRs coming in, because we have a sense of ownership, because it is OUR name on the document, it's on us.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#312

Post by bombcar » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 3:52 AM UTC

wat10000 wrote: post #152

RobRivera wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's try to be honest when we discuss this kind of thing; Unions are like people. They have unique agendas, unique executive decisionmaking trends, and affect their members differently. No single union is 1:1 alike. When I had a family member get a job as a local grocery store bagger, then job stipulated he HAD to join the union and give his dues out of paycheck within 1 month or he would be fired from his job. He q…

Being forced to join the union to have a job there is little different from being forced to become an employee of the company in order to work in the store. It's extremely common to have a requirement to become part of some organization in order to work in a place, it's just that this organization is usually a for-profit business, and typically you only have to join one. People think very weirdly about unions. If you…

Try explaining that to the 15 year old who worked after school each day and after two weeks received a paycheck for $3.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#313

Post by mlrtime » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 3:53 AM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #205

Manuel_D wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The workers aren't drones, they have the agency to choose another job. If a company is underpaying workers relative to the rest of the market, they'll struggle to hire and retain employees without the interference of a union.

> The workers aren't drones, they have the agency to choose another job. If a company is underpaying workers relative to the rest of the market, they'll struggle to hire and retain employees without the interference of a union. The problem is that all employers have certain common interests, and they are generally more organized and powerful than individual workers, which biases the market status-quo in their favor.…

Do you think SWE at Meta should unionize?

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#314

Post by overfeed » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 3:58 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #285

overfeed wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now apply your 2 options to American workers and see which one's feasible.

How is it infeasible to quit working for someone and go work for someone else?

When employers act like cartels and connive to not compete on salary, directly[1] or indirectly[2]

1. E.g. Steve Job's email to Eric Schmidt

2. E.g. the Work Number as a specific instance

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#315

Post by mlrtime » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 3:59 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #193

Manuel_D wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's keeping any one of these Id software developers from accepting a competing job offer elsewhere? Yes, there are scenarios where employees are stripped of agency. E.g a factory owner taking and holding foreign worker's passports. But if you're going to allege that something is preventing these works from accepting competing offers, you have to offer evidence for that claim.

Corporations have been caught colluding to suppress wages by refusing to hire anyone working for one of the other companies. How many of these collusions have not been brought to light?

Aren't there laws already against that? It's happened before but is it common, do we have evidence that it is prevalent in Software Engineering?

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#316

Post by Gud » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:32 AM UTC

NewJazz wrote: post #72

hellojesus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an extent. There is always the chance that the collective action discounts the impact to the business too heavily and ends up driving the company under, making the outcomes worse for everyone. We saw this a couple years ago with Yellow Trucking.

There is always a chance that management's misguided choices impact the business too heavily and drive the company under or at least greatly decrease the value of their output.

Very common.

I work for a factory that produces a type of heavy machinery that is in extreme demand. Any person with any semblance of foresight, would understand that in the near to medium term, this will be the case.

During COVID, there was a large dip(~30%) of orders. In the infinite wisdom of our business leaders, it was decided to shut us down. Coincidentally, our equipment was (supposed to be) transferred to our step-sibling factory, where most of the upper management is from… I say step sibling, although we make similar products, we come together due to a merger.

6 months after our supposed shutdown, after a lot of equipment has been transferred and a lot of good people have gone, suddenly demand was back to normal, and our customer are no longer asking how much our product costs, but if they can have one… and it turns out, our step-sibling can’t make our product very well.

It’s all politics, short-sightedness and personal greed, in upper management, UNLESS MAYBE, they founded the company(and still a big IF).

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#317

Post by sbierwagen » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:34 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #111

Funny how the "story" doesn't link to the announcement it mostly copied from the CWA.[1] Here's the link to the union organizing page.[2] No draft union contract for Id, though. Interestingly, this is an industrial ("wall to wall") union, rather than a craft union such as The Animation Guild. IATSE Local 839, in Hollywood. TAG only represents specific jobs, mostly animation artists. A key point in TAG contracts is ho…

Double time at 14 hours? IBEW local 46 starts double time after 10: https://ibew46.com/media/7641/071724iwtentativelyagreedto.pd...

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#318

Post by nitwit005 » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:40 AM UTC

strifey wrote: post #15

nitwit005 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a factory, the owner has to deal with the cost of all the late or canceled deliveries. With farms, the crops wither on the vines. There's not really an equivalent with most service industries. Software engineers don't even need to be around for the programs to keep running.

Staring down the barrel of being primary on-call over Christmas for a dozen k8s clusters running thousands of nodes. How I wish it were true that we could trust computer programs to just keep running. PagerDuty wouldn't exist if this were true.

If your work place has a long enough history, try comparing incidents on work days versus weekends or holidays. Typically the incident rate is dramatically lower when no one is making changes.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#319

Post by overfeed » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 6:23 AM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #304

overfeed wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I provided a range of leader:worker income/power ratios from 1:0 to 1:1 with no commentary whatsoever on outcomes, because my entire point is that the outcome doesn't matter: at some threshold value and below, the existence of the org itself is immoral. We don't have to agree on where that point is, but its existence shouldn't be up for debate, IMO. I hope we can all agree that a slave plantation should not exist in…

> I provided a range of leader:worker income/power ratios from 1:0 to 1:1 with no commentary whatsoever on outcomes For a slight perspective change, the thing that leads to what they mentioned: They're saying you forgot about the range 1:1 to 0:1.

> They're saying you forgot about the range 1:1 to 0:1.

Color me intrigued! Tell me more about these slave-CEOs serving at the beck and call of empowered workers. I didn't merely forget about the 1:1 to 0:1 range, it's an Outside-Context scenario. I confess I have never encountered - or thought about - organizations with inverted hierarchies. Do you have any specific example of such a thing?

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#320

Post by vkou » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 7:42 AM UTC

mlrtime wrote: post #310

vkou wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument is bullshit, and I'll tell you why. An employer can't fire people for unionizing, but there's no law that requires them to accept a union's negotiating demands ... Or prevents them from bringing in scabs if the union chooses to strike without pay. The existence of a union by itself doesn't do anything . The only power that a union actually has is not showing up to work. And when the union doesn't show u…

>no law that requires them to accept a union's negotiating demands And there shouldn't be >Or prevents them from bringing in scabs if the union chooses to strike without pay. The company should have this right.

They do have this right. Hiring scabs is legal.