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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

#661
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because software dev is a volatile market. It doesn't matter how "talented" you are, it's about your rank in the social circles and it shows in the product. There is now far more devs than there is work for them. This is a planned strategy to reduce salaries. If you're "talented". Make your money and get out asap.

> it's about your rank in the social circles How is this relevant to programming?

You're not getting a job in programming without a social in. The people hiring you don't understand the job. That's what happens when things become big, bloated, and need to be popped. Tech has control of all modern nations down to the military and infrastructure. Nobody is tangibly regulating and pushing back on their power.

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

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not meaningless if you want to see women making at least as much as men regardless of the job and their skills. That’s the obvious implication of such statistics.

But is that really a valuable goal? The market determines wages, and usually it's willing to favor sacrifices like a 24 hour oncall rotation. Don't those people deserve for the value of those sacrifices to be reflected in compensation? "Equal pay for equal work" is a much more compelling goal in my view than "equal pay for unequal work". Not to mention it's incentivize companies to cut the roles with artificially inf…

> is that really a valuable goal?

Congratulations, you've taken a swing at this troll's strawman.

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

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Long-term metrics investors care about (revenue) are publicly shared with investors

https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2024/08/Q224-Earnings-Relea...

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

#664
post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is always good at any cost.

I am not saying that, I am saying that if a division can be run with half the people, there is nothing wrong in firing 40% of the people in that division, just to have a little overhead in case of emergencies.

This squeeze for efficiency is killing society fast, mark my words, no one but the most desperate will be willing to play that game to the end.

It will of course also increase desperation, which will make it seem like it sort of works all the way until it obviously doesn't.

Humans have to be put back at the top of the priority list, your line of reasoning is one better left to computers.

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

#665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why companies don't overhire women to save on labor costs. The only explanations I can rationalize is that management isnt aware of the pay difference, or they are aware but they're more sexist than they are greedy.

Same reason Republicans voted more heavily against Jim Crowe laws/for the civil rights act. Green is the only color that matters.

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

#666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing is impossible to control for, though. How can you tell whether someone's success or lackthereof (including via degree of responsibility) comes from earnest evaluation of merit or social bias? I have a difficulty imagining trusting any kind of confident assessment of the bias at hand.

Yeah it's really difficult, but that doesn't mean you should just give up and take the average. There was a case recently in the UK where Next (high street clothing chain) were paying their warehouse staff more than their shop staff for (apparently) similar work. The shop workers had a higher proportion of female workers than the warehouse workers (something like 70% vs 50%). Next claimed this was because the market…

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

#667
post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that really a valuable goal? The market determines wages, and usually it's willing to favor sacrifices like a 24 hour oncall rotation. Don't those people deserve for the value of those sacrifices to be reflected in compensation? "Equal pay for equal work" is a much more compelling goal in my view than "equal pay for unequal work". Not to mention it's incentivize companies to cut the roles with artificially inf…

> is that really a valuable goal? Congratulations, you've taken a swing at this troll's strawman.

It's not a straw man. In the UK, the government has stepped in and mandate that two different jobs be paid the same, in the pursuit of pay equity.

Specifically, they forced Next to pay their warehouse workers and retail workers the same. When the retail workers were asked why they wouldn't just take jobs in the warehouse, they responded to the effect of "it's a less pleasant job, you'd have to pay me a lot more money to do it." Yet the UK mandated equal wages on account of the fact that more retail workers were women, and market rate wages created a net pay disparity (though women and men in the same roles were paid the same).

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/09/eq...

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

#668
post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colonial and post-colonial intervention. Control of the resources or territory wasn’t magically delivered to the people with equity. The colonial infrastructure of control was turned over to local friendly interests and their successors. (Through revolutions, coups, etc)

So what's stopping these countries today ?

You're trying to move goalposts (unsuccessfully) if you pretend that "today" is meaningful in geopolitics. If a country was a colony => invaded after independence + has a currency tied to and manipulated by the former power's currency + has internal powerbases built off the colonial satrap structure and corporate equivalents in oil etc ... it's the height of naivete to think it will "shake it off" a mere 20-30 years later, because some version of democracy was installed.

These are as a category unstable political situations and it is vanishingly few who manage to develop their way out of it. More common is descent into further chaos, with major powers standing by to ensure that it does not disrupt resource extraction.

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

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men Such statistics are meaningless without more context. For example, are women over-represented in entry level positions? Do they work the same hours? the same overtime? And so forth. Articles that present such statistics are pushing propaganda.

I've always wondered why companies don't overhire women to save on labor costs. The only explanations I can rationalize is that management isnt aware of the pay difference, or they are aware but they're more sexist than they are greedy.

One explanation I've heard is that companies don't extract the same value from women as they do from men because society's sexism causes managers and peers to assign "low value tasks" disproportionately to women even when they have the same job description as their male counterparts.

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

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why companies don't overhire women to save on labor costs. The only explanations I can rationalize is that management isnt aware of the pay difference, or they are aware but they're more sexist than they are greedy.

Because the reality is that when you adjust for type of job, experience, and hours worked the wage disparity effectively disappears: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/08/01/are-wome...

That is from 2017 and focuses on 3 European countries only.
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