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Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

nytimes.com

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Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#51

Post by crimsonalucard »

ahelwer wrote: post #43
negamax wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will share my thoughts. Happy to be challenged and discuss more. I think instead of looking for a past era solution we should look for a completely new solution set. Why not work on creating open systems. May be instead of getting a leverage over employers, tech people should contribute and create parallel systems. Which instead of creating monopolies help anyone challenge the status quo easily. I think it already…

The idea that unions exist only to get a larger slice of the static profits pie is, itself, a zero-sum view :) When employees feel represented and empowered, when we have real ownership in the company - not just a few thousand $ in stock grants while billions are spent on dividends/stock buybacks, but an actual seat at the table where decision are made - then we want the company to succeed. We will work harder and be…

I agree with you 100%. But to be unbiased I must also mention that it does leave room for some slackers who can take advantage of the system.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#52

Post by LarryDarrell »

duxup wrote: post #16
LarryDarrell wrote: post #9

I used to be all around anti-union. Now that I'm older I regret that position. There are bad unions and there are good unions. Sometimes they can be corrupt, but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with. It's an imperfect solution, but it's the only one that seems to work. The idea that we are all lone super stars that need to negotiate for ourselves is not only selfish, bu…

> but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with I'm not convinced that is the case, nor is it an either or (union or corporate powers). Your protection by the union depends on what the union negotiates... beyond that their ability to effect change pretty much stops there. Then you are again at the mercy of your employer. I've had first had experience with "oh yeah they can d…

My worry is that without premature organization, the next recession is going to make the "tech worker shortage" a permanent thing of the past. We'll never have as much negotiating power as we do now.

If say there was a Tech Workers Union/Guild/Association, we might have been able to protect the older workers at IBM, or the outsourced workers at Disney. Maybe there could be a push back against open offices and poorly implemented Agile. As it is, we're just better compensated workers floating from job to better job.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#53

Post by ahelwer »

malvosenior wrote: post #29
ahelwer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This current state of affairs gives employees a lot of power, as you observed, but it's important to realize it will not last. The downturn will come. The question is whether we want to use our current ephemeral labor power to protect ourselves when the downturn comes, because organization will be 100x more difficult when things go to shit and people don't think they have the luxury of risking their career to build a…

If a downturn comes, it will be due to larger economic reasons. If firms aren't profitable and need to cut costs, having a union that makes that more difficult could actually exacerbate the downturn. I'd rather have to lay off under performers and keep the company in business, than go out of business and have everyone lose their jobs.

Corporations are run so they suck as many profits out of the company as possible during the boom times, then "cut costs" (aka dump overboard the workers who created those profits) at the slightest change of the economic winds. Unions change that equation; corporations won't be able to run that strategy, and will maintain a cushion to get through the inevitable downturn.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#54

Post by rexpop »

negamax wrote: post #7

The benefit in tech is options. Don't like your job, get another one. Don't like your boss, get another one. For many locations it's just the matter of turning a button on Linkedin or for many people sending some emails. That keeps people idealistic, vocal and demanding of the behavior from their employer/bosses. This is not the norm in other business functions. Unfortunately.

> Don't like your job, get another one.

You're describing what Beverly J. Silver's "Forces of Labor" [1] refers to as "marketplace bargaining power," one of labor's "structural" (ie endemic) sources of political leverage.

> Marketplace bargaining power can take several forms including (1) the possession of scarce skills that are in demand by employers, (2) low levels of general unemployment, and (3) the ability ofworkers to pull out of the labor market entirely and survive on nonwage sources of income.

Marketplace bargaining power is valuable, but it's not perfect, safe, infallible, or free to exercise--especially if one is here on a precarious visa.

Additionally, as the tech job marketplace expands into the global economy, marketplace bargaining power approaches 0 (think: outsourcing).

> Labor's marketplace bargaining power has been undermined by the mobilization of a world-scale reserve army of labor, creating a global glut on labor markets. Moreover, to the extent that the global spread of capitalist agriculture and manufacturing is undermining nonwage sources of income and forcing more and more individuals into the proletariat, marketplace bargaining power is undermined further.

Tech workers are then left with other sources of structural bargaining power, which we had better not neglect:

1. http://libcom.org/library/forces-labor-beverly-j-silver

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#55

Post by jjeaff »

rolltiide wrote: post #3

> “Associating unions with blue-collar work and making it a stigma to talk about unions in white-collar circles, that’s very deliberate” This is my observation too, right now there is simply a correlation that doesn't have to be. It doesn't matter that you get paid a comfortable amount, and that another startup delivers snacks all day, and another startup delivers catered food to you: you aren't getting paid what you…

I think that's not the only factor. Unions will also cap wages for the highest earners. And everyone thinks they are going to end up in that 1 percenter salary.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#56

Post by Pfhreak »

dymk wrote: post #27
LarryDarrell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How confident are you that this climate will continue for the rest of your working life? How confident are you that this climate will extend past your working life?

We can form a union when we need to form a union. There's no point in forming one just in case software engineering no longer becomes a sought-after skilled job.

How shortsighted: "We can form a union when we're in a disadvantageous position."

There's plenty of stuff that software engineers could want to improve today around oncall, long hours, IP restrictions, non-competes, pay transparency, parental leave, equity, promotion and career management, educational benefits, age/gender/racial/etc discrimination, health care, etc.

When we're in a position of power is a great time for us to form a union and start tackling some of the second tier of issues (like non-competes). If not now, when?

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#57

Post by Pfhreak »

eswat wrote: post #37
leftyted wrote: post #12

There has to be a balance of power between labor and management. When management has too much power, that power will be abused. When labor has too much power, that power will be abused. Unions make sense when labor doesn't have any power. Do programmers have enough power? I'd say yes. Maybe not across the board but -- in general -- yes. We aren't coal miners, that's for sure.

It depends on the specific industry in tech. Do programmers in general tech startups have enough power? I’d say yes too. Do programmers in the gaming industry have enough power? Definitely not.

And even still where tech workers do have a lot of power, there are plenty of issues that we could use that power to improve (IP restrictions for off hours/open source projects, non-competes, parental leave, etc.)

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#58

Post by [deleted] »

aminadude wrote: post #2

Tangent - there was an article on the NYTimes the other day about how their editorial work was trivializing Bernie Sanders political impact the last election and actually using misleading headlines to distort the truth. I’ll try to find the link (on my phone now). It was pretty eye opening and had links to sources as well as exposing some of these editors and their role working for the Clinton camp. I call this out b…

[deleted]

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#59

Post by duxup »

overthemoon wrote: post #46
duxup wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with I'm not convinced that is the case, nor is it an either or (union or corporate powers). Your protection by the union depends on what the union negotiates... beyond that their ability to effect change pretty much stops there. Then you are again at the mercy of your employer. I've had first had experience with "oh yeah they can d…

IMO the question is--given the capacity for corruption and mismanagement in a union, is that better or worse than an individual negotiating with a corporation? Does the potential for a bad union outweigh the potential for a bad company? I'll just say I don't think unions or the concept of a union needs to be perfect to generally have a positive effect. Maybe I'm naive. I can see your point about premature unionizatio…

>I'll just say I don't think unions or the concept of a union needs to be perfect to generally have a positive effect. Maybe I'm naive.

I can understand that.

Personally I've had experiences with two unions in different industries.

Each time the unions were IMO more of a hindrance to me than anything else. They were for me just another layer of bureaucracy with no more interest in me than a poor employer.

Worse yet they laid down policies that were so general that they were serious problems. Lots of protections for long time union members who simply didn't want to learn new things, etc.

Having said that, I would be interested in some "trade union" type things that maybe do things less traditionally compared to typical unions in the US.

Re: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

#60

Post by malvosenior »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #48
malvosenior wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a downturn comes, it will be due to larger economic reasons. If firms aren't profitable and need to cut costs, having a union that makes that more difficult could actually exacerbate the downturn. I'd rather have to lay off under performers and keep the company in business, than go out of business and have everyone lose their jobs.

What you say is true, however these things can be negotiated with a union. All a union does is give centralized power to the employees. If employees need to be cut for survival or salaries need to be lowered temporarily than these are things that an employer can provide proof of to the union and together with employees as a union work something out. A union prevents the laying off of employees as a profit boosting me…

Someone else made this point elsewhere in the thread but I think it's a good one: As engineers, we have the opportunity to move into management and become entrepreneurs at a rate much greater than traditional industries. I've moved between high level IC and senior management a lot in my career. I've also started my own company. I don't think that profile is unusual for senior people in our industry. As such I'm likely to look at solving problems from all sides and negotiating with a union to "prove" that I need to lay people off sounds extremely troubling from an operational and efficiency standpoint. As a high performing IC I'm never at risk of being laid off unless the company really is in existential danger. As a manager I need to be able to let under performers go or lower costs as needed.
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