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Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

nytimes.com

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Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#61

Post by Dirlewanger »

bbddg wrote: post #43
Dirlewanger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it is because the gap between the skill floor and ceiling is absolutely gargantuan. Unions work best when the skill gap is narrow, and ascension to different levels easily measurable. The more I think about it, software engineering is almost completely antithetical to the idea of unions. Traditional engineers have so much structure around their fields because the laws of physics govern a large part of…

You think the laws of physics don't apply to software engineering?

It does, but only at a very low level. Most in the profession are several layers removed from directly worrying about how fast the bits are moving on a CPU, and are more concerned with adhering to sound design and algorithm patterns.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#63

Post by SEJeff »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #38
ng12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

Even in a seller's market unions will still provide you with leverage you couldn't get otherwise. Unions aren't only so the dispossessed can bargain for more, they're so any group can bargain for more. The one example I always give is of my mom starting out working in the 70's. Her employer was not unionized but had several unionized competitors in the city. Because her employer didn't want to bother with union negot…

I find there are more than enough people that want me (as a software engineer with 10+ years of low level linux / unix experience) and wish me to be very happy.

If I ever was forced to join a union, I'd quit on the spot and go find somewhere else to work. I worked for Comair (small airline owned by Delta) during a stewardess strike, which ultimately caused the company to sell planes and eventually go out of business. Big unions like the teamsters don't give a crap about their members, only their power and greed.

It was said a year or so later that the teamsters were talking to other airlines saying, "Don't give us what we want and we'll pull a Comair on you". All of the Stewardess union members, airplane mechanics union members, and pilots union members were furloughed aka given indefinite non-paid leave due to the profit imbalance that the highest paid stewardesses in the industry caused on a sub-par airline.

No thanks unions. There is enough free market for what we do that they aren't necessary.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#64

Post by thrillgore »

ng12 wrote: post #5
chollida1 wrote: post #2

I thought this was interesting because if knowledge workers like journalists can do so, why not programmers, or what ever term you'd prefer to be called?

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

Because you're looking at this like a "grr i'm angery because i'm underpaid," which couldn't be further from the truth. I'm becoming frustrated in this position not over pay, but the complete tone-deafness from management over planning, estimation, and overtime. This has been consistent everywhere i've worked -- pay has never been a factor.

If programmers need a union, its not for pay. It's to get management and executive expectations back in line with reality. I'm tired of 60 hour work weeks, and poorly managed pet projects. And I damn well don't want to risk a career change.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#65

Post by mywittyname »

untog wrote: post #17
ProAm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is interesting that programmers (as a whole) seem resistant to it. Mostly because our working conditions are not bad, we are more or less paid fairly, there are a lot of options to move around. Also it'd be bad if we had other people negotiating on our behalf, for what we probably feel is less pay than we are worth, and the concept of seniority would ruffle and stop a lot of newer grads from getting higher payin…

> the concept of seniority would ruffle and stop a lot of newer grads from getting higher paying jobs over people that have been working already for 25 years in the industry. That's not a required part of a union. I think one of the misconceptions people have is that if you have a union it looks and operates exactly like one on a Ford factory floor. If you formed a union it could do exactly what you want it to do, an…

The people with political influence in the union might not be those whose views align with the more technically proficient members of the group. I anticipate a developer union being another vector for leeches to grasp onto productive developers and (indirectly) siphon off their well earned money.

I've seen the types of developers that thrive in political climates. They manage to get paid way too much money to make poor decisions about subjects they read the wikipedia article on just before the meeting. I honestly believe these are the types that will rise through the union ranks and will use their power for harm and personal enrichment.

Union interviews will be all be standardized and will consist of: drawing UML diagrams, naming 24 design patterns in 30 seconds, and white-boarding a blockchain Rubik's CryptoCube solver implementation.

Points will be deducted if the solution is not an abstract OOP design that can extend to n-dimensional Rubik's CryptoCubes.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#66

Post by tylerhou »

bbddg wrote: post #43
Dirlewanger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it is because the gap between the skill floor and ceiling is absolutely gargantuan. Unions work best when the skill gap is narrow, and ascension to different levels easily measurable. The more I think about it, software engineering is almost completely antithetical to the idea of unions. Traditional engineers have so much structure around their fields because the laws of physics govern a large part of…

You think the laws of physics don't apply to software engineering?

The poster you replied to never said that. He said that the laws of physics matter far more to traditional engineering than software engineering. Unless a software engineer is working on algorithmic complexity, low level hardware/security, or distributed systems, real world physics usually don't matter too much.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#67

Post by Avshalom »

davidw wrote: post #44
ng12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

> a seller's market Is it as much as we think? It seems that big companies in Silicon Valley had no qualms about talking among one another about not "poaching" developers (what a lame term poaching is). I'm not terribly keen on the idea of unions either (or immigration restrictions for that matter), but we should damn well be sure that companies are not colluding.

If it was a seller's market we also wouldn't have threads about month long interviewing processes.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#68

Post by throwwwwaway9 »

ng12 wrote: post #5
chollida1 wrote: post #2

I thought this was interesting because if knowledge workers like journalists can do so, why not programmers, or what ever term you'd prefer to be called?

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

>>Why do we need a union in a seller's market?

Take a look at big tech earnings http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-revenue-employ... . It may look like you're getting a lot, but there's a lot of room left for even greater salaries and (still) insane profits. Maybe even double them.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#69

Post by ucaetano »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I thought this was interesting because if knowledge workers like journalists can do so, why not programmers, or what ever term you'd prefer to be called?

> I thought this was interesting because if knowledge workers like journalists can do so, why not programmers, or what ever term you'd prefer to be called?

Because unions have no standing across international borders.

Re: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave

#70

Post by Apocryphon »

ng12 wrote: post #5
chollida1 wrote: post #2

I thought this was interesting because if knowledge workers like journalists can do so, why not programmers, or what ever term you'd prefer to be called?

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

"Everyone has a job there; every week there's a new article about how tech interviews suck or how difficult it is to hire good engineers."
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