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New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

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Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#461

Post by triceratops »

robertlagrant wrote: post #385
xingped wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a weird response. Do you collectively interview for other jobs? No. Would you tell any other union this? No. Collectively bargain for your current job and raise the standards for everyone now and in the future. I don't know why tech is so hyper-individualist.

It doesn't raise standards. It squishes them at both ends, particularly the top. That might be what you want, but tech salaries have bloomed massively because there isn't a union. You might say "that's over; now let's lock in our massive salaries", but I doubt it'll work that way. Tech isn't hyper-individualist. It just leans slightly to the individual, because any half-decent tech worker is worth a lot to an organis…

> tech salaries have bloomed massively because there isn't a union

I presume you support free markets, so I'm surprised that supply and demand never crossed your mind as the reason for high tech salaries.

Professional athletes, actors, and screenwriters enjoy both high salaries and union protections.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#462

Post by ncr100 »

skapadia wrote: post #333

Highly talented software engineers are still hard to find. If you find one, pay them well and do everything you can to retain them.

Some people care about highly talented software engineers.

But not all corporations do. Many just want somebody to make the app go boop. Or the website show a bigger picture.

Rhetorically, Wouldn't it be nice for those people if there were Fair rules that protected against abusive hiring, abusive firing, abusive management, which can wreck a person's career trajectory.

We technology people invest our brains into specialties. We solve the specific problems of a business. There is no one size fits all solution in our industry. So as we specialize for each job, if that job terminated us unfairly, that would just suck. So Unions may help balance the scales when working for the powerful corporation.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#463

Post by paperplatter »

cess11 wrote: post #419
morgante wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things like making sure that AI isn't used in certain capacities to reduce the staff size wouldn't be unreasonable. Yes it would. Explicitly demanding inefficiency is exactly why unions are terrible for innovation and progress.

That's a strawman. The demand you're quoting is to not fire people.

Keeping employees they don't need/want is an inefficiency.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#464

Post by slt2021 »

abecedarius wrote: post #451
slt2021 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

becoming a good engineer takes a lot of years too. your average 4 year college degree does not guarantee you become an engineer, plenty of new grads are without jobs. the best engineers I know have been coding since middle school and by the college graduation have 10+ experience coding at internationally competitive level. this is comparable to medical profession. if you ever meet an exceptionally good engineer - jus…

Has anyone studied career satisfaction among licensed doctors versus unlicensed software developers? It seems very common for doctors to feel locked into a choice they now regret. In equilibrium a barrier to entry benefits the marginal successful entrant not at all.

these are people who go to medical profession for money and prestige.

same regrets exists among engineers who go to CS for money and faang jobs, and then realize how miserable they have become in the process of chasing the gold

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#465

Post by umvi »

ryandrake wrote: post #382
jimbokun wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men > * Black women and Hispanic or Latina women, who make up just over 6 percent of the Tech Guild, make 33% less than white men in the unit > * Black workers, who make up 7 percent of the union, earn 26% less than white workers Do they work equivalent jobs with equivalent experience?

If not, then that's also an equity problem. If the "dog jobs" are mostly offered to women and minorities, that should also be called out as a problem for employers to solve.

I think it's more like:

- african americans are statistically more likely to originate from lower on socio economic ladder than, say, asian americans

Thus when you get a bunch of job applicants, you might get an asian american with a Yale degree (James) and an african american with a community college degree (John). Affirmative action or other DEI pressures might force you to hire both James and John, but James will probably be able to outperform John due to higher initial degree of education. Furthermore, James may have had parents who networked and ensured he got good internships and experience growing up while John didn't have that opportunity.

So it's not that the company is offering John a "dog job", it's just, James's capacity to perform in current role and take on new responsibilities is at a higher initial state than John's, so it's not unthinkable he would climb corporate ladder faster than John given those initial advantages. Pay gap is a natural consequence that follows.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#466

Post by slt2021 »

loeg wrote: post #428
slt2021 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

programmers are close to doctors than plumbers: high comp, high knowledge industry, constant learning Doctors have cartel though, instead of union that protects their jobs by limiting number of residency slots that limits number of new licensed doctors

The AMA is functionally similar to a union for Doctors.

AMA does not negotiate paying wage though.

it only limits as a Cartel to limit the supply of new doctors (and keep foreign licensed doctors away from the market) - this is typical cartel behavior, not union

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#467

Post by Rinzler89 »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #458
Rinzler89 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> the reality is much simpler than you're making it be. The present day issues aren't caused by skin color or race This strongly implies that racism is no longer a meaningfully impactful problem. That would not be true. > Core issue is not social, it's economical masquerading as social... If this were meaningfully true, police & justice stats for poor white populations would be indistinguishable from poor black and b…

>This strongly implies that racism is no longer a meaningfully impactful problem. That would not be true.

That was the point I weas trying to prove from the start. The moment you point the fingers at the causes of our massive problem (ruling elite, economy policies, etc) and away from racism, people will immediately accuse you of discrediting racism as a problem. I never said racism it's not a problem, I said as a society we have much bigger problems that impacts everyone, not just this or that group.

Like I said above, the elite take 9 out of the 10 piece of the wealth pie, give half a piece to one class, half of piece to the other, and say "hey look, the other guy's class is why you only have half a piece, go fight him over it to claim back what's yours", and you keep focusing on that other half piece instead of the other 9 pieces.

If you can't afford a house anymore, and inflation ate away your savings, and your wage has stagnated, it's not because one skin color made a targeted attack on precisely other skin color. Like I said, it's haves vs have nots now, not one race vs another.

>Planned and coordinated division is most visibly on display when a marginalized group is suddenly, widely demonized.

Who is currently being demonized, where are they being demonized, and who is the one demonizing them?

>False rhetoric and tightly crafted language indicate that fascism is a factor.

Can you point that out where you see it? And please let it not be Twitter or other social media garbage.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#468

Post by IncreasePosts »

ryandrake wrote: post #382
jimbokun wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men > * Black women and Hispanic or Latina women, who make up just over 6 percent of the Tech Guild, make 33% less than white men in the unit > * Black workers, who make up 7 percent of the union, earn 26% less than white workers Do they work equivalent jobs with equivalent experience?

If not, then that's also an equity problem. If the "dog jobs" are mostly offered to women and minorities, that should also be called out as a problem for employers to solve.

Not really. Imagine if it takes 20 years to acquire some senior status, and the world was 100% sexist/racist/whatever 20 years ago(so only white men were allowed) but 0% now, you would have a bunch of white men as senior rank even though the world isn't sexist/racist/whatever any more.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#469

Post by yodsanklai »

ryandrake wrote: post #382
jimbokun wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men > * Black women and Hispanic or Latina women, who make up just over 6 percent of the Tech Guild, make 33% less than white men in the unit > * Black workers, who make up 7 percent of the union, earn 26% less than white workers Do they work equivalent jobs with equivalent experience?

If not, then that's also an equity problem. If the "dog jobs" are mostly offered to women and minorities, that should also be called out as a problem for employers to solve.

I don't know if employers can solve the issue of not finding qualified candidates coming from minorities if there are very few such candidates.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#470

Post by dehrmann »

paperplatter wrote: post #231
maximinus_thrax wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, why is there such a thing as insider trading?

I doubt the SWEs have useful insider info at a company of this size.

Long-term traffic graphs can serve as good proxies for metrics investors care about.
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