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The Burnout Machine

unionize.fyi

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Re: The Burnout Machine

#571

Post by echelon »

azemetre wrote: post #558
echelon wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overseas countries with worse labor laws. It's the same thing that happens with industrialization. This will naturally happen over time anyway, but unions will accelerate the trend.

I don't understand how you can make these comments but not thread the needle that the problems you are worried about is strictly the result of capital. Acting as if labor creating a union means Capital should just pack up shop and leave is an extreme power imbalance. This imbalance not only justifies the need for collective bargaining, but that there should be more regulations wielded against Capital to stop this imb…

The capital flees almost in its entirety to non-union countries once unions grow in power, that's why.

Go ask the IATSE (film) folks how many jobs they're getting this year. (All their jobs left to developing economies in Eastern Europe and Asia. Cast gets flown out, but the crew are hired and based overseas.)

Unions contributed to the decline of US steel, US shipbuilding, US automotive, etc.

A worker can be both fungible and highly compensated. None of us are irreplaceable, and nor should we be. A union tries to put in artificial barriers where businesses need flexibility, and businesses really don't like that.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#572

Post by joquarky »

From the article:

> Push for Ethics: Let’s make sure that any union platform we build isn’t just about wages and hours, but about ethics too. We need to have a say in what we’re building and how it’s used.

This was the most important part of the article for me.

I just passed the CISSP; and while studying for it, I was very impressed with how much emphasis ISC2 put on human safety/welfare, which is something that I feel like our industry is lacking more than ever lately.

From https://www.isc2.org/ethics :

> Code of Ethics Preamble:

> The safety and welfare of society and the common good, duty to our principals, and duty to each other, require that we adhere, and be seen to adhere, to the highest ethical standards of behavior.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#573

Post by azemetre »

echelon wrote: post #571
azemetre wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how you can make these comments but not thread the needle that the problems you are worried about is strictly the result of capital. Acting as if labor creating a union means Capital should just pack up shop and leave is an extreme power imbalance. This imbalance not only justifies the need for collective bargaining, but that there should be more regulations wielded against Capital to stop this imb…

The capital flees almost in its entirety to non-union countries once unions grow in power, that's why. Go ask the IATSE (film) folks how many jobs they're getting this year. (All their jobs left to developing economies in Eastern Europe and Asia. Cast gets flown out, but the crew are hired and based overseas.) Unions contributed to the decline of US steel, US shipbuilding, US automotive, etc. A worker can be both fun…

The union had no choices when capital decides they want more money.

Look at what you're arguing here dude. You're blaming workers for trying to protect their jobs when the issue is that capital is too powerful and needs to be regulated more.

Even more odd you're mentioning shipbuilding an industry that use to have its workers centrally planned by the US government to provide educated skilled labor but was killed off in the 80s by the pro-corpo Reagan admin.

I do agree with you that we should do this more, regulate companies harsher while giving more protections to workers.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#574

Post by [deleted] »

ArnoVW wrote: post #568
nekochanwork wrote: post #530

I am an engineering manager for a large team of developers. Part of my job is to estimate the cost and potential revenue of big projects. I have a spreadsheet of everyone's salaries (including bonus compensation, other perks). I've done the math at my own company: average developer salary is approximately $100k. Our largest teams have 10 developers, so about $1M in labor costs. These teams work on projects that bring…

Interesting approach. Did you ever try to include other factors into the model ? Such as : * cost of sales (and crm, and billing) * cost of infra * taxes (on income and profits) * taxes (on salary) * cost per employee (office, PC, software licenses) * cost of loans needed for the investment Would be curious to see how big the ratio remains.

[deleted]

Re: The Burnout Machine

#575

Post by joquarky »

bgilroy26 wrote: post #548
dkarl wrote: post #540

I have a hard time with this pitch because I've watched people burn out working alongside me, on the same team, for the same boss, on the same problems, for entirely personal reasons. I've also been in shitty situations with shitty bosses that caused me a lot of stress, and it's hard to point to any clear lines that were crossed. I haven't heard any proposed union rule that would protect me in those situations, just…

If factory workers could delete the processes and equipment they work on with the press of a button, they would be bought off too Paying tech workers high wages reflects the need for them to side with capital when it comes to protecting assets I had an Ask HN last weekend that did not get any responses but I would still love to learn what governance prevents workers from deleting key software products and their backu…

> what governance prevents workers from deleting key software products and their backups

Separation of duties, principle of least privilege, and zero trust?

Why would any worker have access to delete both the repo and its backups?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#576

Post by [deleted] »

tmoertel wrote: post #348
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if tech workers don't acknowledge their privelege, they shouldn't be shocked when no-one else turnsout to support them It's hard not to read your comment as anything but virtue signaling, and doing so in a way that makes everyone worse off. You seem to think being a part of a union means you think you have a bad job and everyone should pay special attention to you. Forming a union does not mean you are asking f…

> Forming a union does not mean you are asking for anything, it means you are giving yourself protection to ask for things in the future without being fired. The way I've always done it is that if I want something my employer won't give me, I find someone else who will and go work for them (or start my own company). What's wrong with that model?

[deleted]

Re: The Burnout Machine

#577

Post by tmoertel »

maleldil wrote: post #482
tmoertel wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forming a union does not mean you are asking for anything, it means you are giving yourself protection to ask for things in the future without being fired. The way I've always done it is that if I want something my employer won't give me, I find someone else who will and go work for them (or start my own company). What's wrong with that model?

You might find yourself in a job market where that isn't possible.

Okay. If I'm in a job market where what I want isn't possible, what does that reality suggest about my demands, the market, and the people who ultimately set the prices in that market (i.e., the public)?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#578

Post by paulcole »

ever1337 wrote: post #551
paulcole wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always proportional to the value you provide. You just don’t like the proportion lol. What specific proportion do you think is fair? And how do you calculate the value you provide?

The workers will decide and they will dictate it to you as you have done unto them.

So as a worker, what specific proportion do you believe is fair to dictate?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#579

Post by joquarky »

legitster wrote: post #114
stared wrote: post #100

Software engineering is one of the ways of playing life in "easy mode" (I moved from academia over a decade ago, and I know the difference). This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels like it lacks perspective compared to virtually any other occupation. > We’re living in a world where billion dollar tech companies expect us to live and breathe code, demanding 80 hour weeks under the guise of "passion…

> This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels it lacks perspective with virtually any other occupations. On one hand, misery and happiness are relative. On the other hand, try telling a construction worker how hard our lives are sitting in chairs clicking buttons. My dad used to have to do things like hot tar roofing to pay the bills. So I still consider it a blessing to get to work in software. I thi…

> My dad used to have to do things like hot tar roofing to pay the bills. So I still consider it a blessing to get to work in software.

It is a blessing, but it’s also important to recognize who tends to end up in the tech industry.

Many of us are well-suited for software work because disabilities or other constraints make many other careers inaccessible.

The alternative is poverty.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#580

Post by lblume »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #545
lblume wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Class consciousness is about realizing that societal classes correspond to their relation to the means of production, not the concrete wage being earned. The majority of developers is part of the proletariat, at least according to Marx.

In an actual class conflict, when a group of working poor people knocks on your door and notices that you are a little too well dressed, a little too well fed, lacking the calluses and fatigue from working two low wage jobs, a little too well spoken and educated, a little too bourgeois, do you think they will be interested in discussing the minutiae of the Marxian definition of the proletariat or weighing the metrics…

That is why all vaguely successful revolutions have been based on a Leninist-type vanguard party based on an educated "elite" claiming to lead the masses. For better or worse, their implementation of Marxist ideas was fairly consistent.
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