341–350 of 377 posts
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*chomping at the bit. Ironically, China has also proven that you can't easily import expertise. At best, you can "steal" it over a long period of being the current industrial center's gopher.
Not sure what the original was (now edited), but it's actually "champing at the bit", historically. Chomping is also correct enough today, descriptivistically speaking.
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You present a very long list of evidence that proves the current status of the market is not competitive, and illuminates the power imbalance. We probably agree that this is not a self-correcting state. AFAICT, the difference in perspective is what to do first, with some of us recommending more unionization, and your take being to fix the competitive landscape. IMO, unionization is in the hands of the workers, and is…
> IMO, unionization is in the hands of the workers, and is easier to accomplish compared to addressing competition when - as you noted - there's regulatory capture. If you form a union and then the company goes bankrupt, or lets you go on strike forever and hires replacements or offshores the work, that hasn't helped you. If you form a union and the employer is a monopolist, now that company gets even less efficient,…
And we've come full circle to the bogeyman again. Before we get caught in a loop I'll reference historical record of positive outcomes actually happened, and I'll sign off from this circular debate.
What if you form a union, and with other unions force employers to accept a 5-day working week, instead of 6 or 7 days per week? Or striking until 8-hour work days are the norm instead of 12 or 14. What if you fight employers for decades to end child labor amd ultimately succeed? All these things are examples of actual changes effected by pressure from organized labor to improve the lot of workers. It wasn't "free markets" competing for labor. Perfect competition doesn't exist on planet Earth, especially for labor.
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> 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?
As a non gaming engineer, I dont want a union, what I really want is solid (really, harsh) enforcement of basic common sense labor rules for exempt workers like weekly working hour limits, no after hours scheduling or minimum notice/severance period for layoffs & many other abuses. Problem is tech industry does not wants to give an inch and workers don't complain because of higher pay and 'lottery ticket' effect. I f…
I feel like you said you don't want a union and proceeded to describe exactly what a union is supposed to be. You are 100% a software engineer lol
The challenge with having good worker protection laws and high minimum wage is that at some point local labour becomes less competitive with foreign low cost options. Then you'll need tariffs or other import rules to keep your local industries alive.
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> 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?
When unions gain too much power and the company can no longer respond effectively to market forces (particularly with hiring/firing), leading to the collective ruin they were talking about.
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I feel like you said you don't want a union and proceeded to describe exactly what a union is supposed to be. You are 100% a software engineer lol
Those things can also be part of law, see Europe. The challenge with having good worker protection laws and high minimum wage is that at some point local labour becomes less competitive with foreign low cost options. Then you'll need tariffs or other import rules to keep your local industries alive.
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OK, so if you don't want a union, but you want to achieve goals which are typically fought for by unions, what exactly is the alternative mechanism you propose for achieving these goals? This sounds to me like "I don't want memory protection, what I really want is for my computer to solidly enforce common sense memory barriers", or "I don't want defense attorneys, what I really want is courts to provide common sense…
Did you miss the last sentence or had your mind made up already by then? the reason I don't want a typical union is because they work out well where there is a clear separation of labor & capital. labor get paid wages & capital makes money off the invested assets. problem with tech is that in a tech ventures labor is a part owner and capital too (engineer equity). introducing a 3rd party (unions & union leadership) i…
Is the first sentence of your comment not your thesis? Or am I to read this as you changing your own mind during this comment? I'm confused. You literally started your comment with "I don't want a union".
> they work out well where there is a clear separation of labor & capital
Citation needed. I've studied a bit of labor history, and this is the first I've heard of such a claim. Unions work poorly when they are corrupt -- the same as any democratic system. I'm not aware of other categorical failures of collective bargaining. Please enlighten me.
> Imagine having a set of union rules to follow when distributing equity to early stage engineers? how do you decide equitable when by definition you are on cutting edge of tech & innovation.
I'm not sure what problem you think the union would create here. Equity is simply another form of compensation, and unions have dealt with non-salary compensation for decades (licensing, branding, likeness, etc). It's really not a problem.
If there are union rules that must be followed, then that would be your answer: you follow those rules. Isn't that strictly better than not having any rules, and simply getting whatever the CEOs/VCs give you? Historically, workers do much better in a union than without.
Union rules are created and voted on by its members. If the workers don't want rules regarding equity, they won't create any. If they do, then they would be worse off without a union to help enforce them.
> unions arent exactly 'shining beacon of honesty and integrity' either
They're democratic representation for workers, no more, no less. (Every time there's an election result someone doesn't like, I see "Ha, democracy isn't perfect, either!" comments from other countries. Yeah, zing, you got us.) Unions have proven to be a shining beacon compared to billionaire CEOs, for sure.
> Look all I want is just some basic labor laws are followed [...] you know the good old law enforcement. its really not so hard if you actually want to do it.
You're using generic "you" here as a linguistic trick. Workers want labor laws followed, but they're not the same people working in "good old law enforcement". Unions are the mechanism by which workers are effective at getting labor laws followed, and new laws passed.
You still have not proposed any alternative mechanism besides suggesting that people who have no incentive to do a thing should start doing a thing. You claim it's not hard. That may be the single hardest thing to do in this world.
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When unions gain too much power and the company can no longer respond effectively to market forces (particularly with hiring/firing), leading to the collective ruin they were talking about.
this doesn't happen because the union is very much interested in keeping the company afloat
They wouldn't intentionally push it to fail, but they could easily push it very close to failing and then something else pushes it over the edge, happens time and time again.
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You're trying to minimize the power of the union by quoting dollar amounts, when the whole point of the union is to have power, and the whole point of unionization is to defeat superior dollar amounts by capturing the organizational memory that money cannot buy. You cannot replace your entire gamedev team at once without destroying what makes your company, your company. You cannot respond to your entire gamedev team…
>You cannot respond to your entire gamedev team refusing to work other than by replacing them or by getting them to stop striking. Funny thing. Pay people fairly and don't abuse them, and they don't strike. If they are striking, I have a lot more suspicion towards management than the workers.
Sure most of the time people are fired for good reasons and most of the time people strike for good reasons, but not always.