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The Burnout Machine

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Re: The Burnout Machine

#71

Post by whstl »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #12
kelseyfrog wrote: post #2

We joined the burnout machine under our own free will. What else did we expect? Moloch's not getting any less hungry.

"We aren't like the other big companies," was a line I heard associated with some big tech companies circa 2006. Implication was that they saw the dysfunction at larger firms and chose to build something different. Fast-forward twenty years, and they're just like them.

I'd argue tech companies today are worse.

Large firms back then were dysfunctional and unproductive, but the amount of stress was minimal compared to tech today.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#72

Post by Apocryphon »

No time like the present, and I know that the tech labor movement has been going on for a while, but it's a real shame that this idea didn't get more traction a few years ago at the peak of worker power.

LarryDarrell on July 8, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizin...

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384298

Re: The Burnout Machine

#73

Post by SequoiaHope »

film42 wrote: post #11

I think unions need to work on their marketing. I resonate with all of these problems, but the "fixes" sound like a politician saying, "elect me and I'll solve your problems." What's the A+ example out there of a unionized engineering team that has been able to find a great work-life balance, great benefits, and a fun product development life-cycle that is profitable or clearly on its way to profitability? Show me th…

One of the problems with real world union examples is all the laws that weakened and destroyed unions over the years. Even if there were few or no examples of thriving unions today because of issues with the legal regime, that does not strictly imply that better conditions are not possible. For example wildcat strikes and sympathy strikes have been illegal since 1947, putting more power in the hands of union management and taking power away from unions. That’s both unfair from a libertarian perspective (if workers want to strike there should not be a law preventing them from doing so) and it undermines the concept of worker power which unions otherwise aim to uphold.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

So it may be instructive to look at past examples when unions were strong and compare the working conditions of workers in unions and workers not in unions. Or to look at unions in other countries like Germany where they have board seats and better legal accommodation.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#74

Post by wyager »

test098 wrote: post #66
wyager wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But tech isn't a blue collar industry, and this is about tech unions.

love those flying goalposts. i guess "tech" is different enough from other kinds of labor that it's special? ok: IFPTE, UAW, CWA (which just recently welcomed workers in the video game industry: https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/video-game-workers-launc ...) edit: Alphabet Workers Union under CWA, Riot Games under UAW, Tech Workers Coalition

Yeah but the question is "are there any examples where unions obviously helped the workers". You responded "blue collar unions", where there's a pretty common perception that they did help, but when it comes to white collar unions you can only come up with examples that aren't really known for having done anything. UAW isn't even white-collar.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#75

Post by jas39 »

There is nothing wrong with unions, but they are a response to an imbalance in bargaining power. In places with lots of smaller employers, there is much less benefit.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#76

Post by rockemsockem »

swatcoder wrote: post #42
protonbob wrote: post #20

The author seems to think that everybody works this way. In reality, many of us work 40-45 hour weeks with no on call and low amounts of meetings. These jobs are in the boring (military, banking, insurance etc) sectors but I make a good, not great, living.

The author is clear that they're talking about "billion dollar tech companies" for an audience of those people called to them. You're right that these are not the only place that people can write software and that many of us have recognized for a very long while that these are noxious places to write software, or that they were eventually going to become so. Billion dollar FAANGs and their smaller, cargo culting, sha…

I strongly do not think that things like 80 hour weeks, abuse, uncaring managers, and especially AGILE of all things are super common at FAANG. If you join a startup (in any industry) I think there's an understanding that you will probably work over 40 hours a week and that things will generally be hectic. Many companies will openly advertise this and tell you if you ask.

I really found myself wondering who the audience was for this. The person who works hard, produces quality engineering artifacts, and DOESN'T have options at other companies? I don't think that person exists?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#77

Post by Cyph0n »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #58
film42 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Show me examples of teams who took that bet and how it paid off.

Are you working 7 days a week in horrific circumstances? Do you have children as your colleagues? No? That’s due to unions and labourers fighting for the rights you currently have.

Unbelievable that this had to be spelled out. Do people actually think that current working conditions and employee rights were bestowed upon us by benevolent capitalists?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#78

Post by rockemsockem »

Muromec wrote: post #13
terminalbraid wrote: post #3

Have there been successful general-software unions formed before? I see and hear this idea relatively frequently, but never past that. I sort of feel like most people don't stay at a place long enough to get cohesion or see enough they don't want to stay in the first place, good people chase better job offers (and congratulate themselves for doing it on their own), less good may stick around longer because they can't…

I work in a union shop and I admit that it doesn't seem to have all the problems I have with the big tech. People seem to care and have passion, but don't pretend to work 80 hours a week, some of them at least. Some of them are decades older then me. Nobody is ever fired, but it somehow pays well above the median pay, but not comparable to the big tech.

Where is this myth about 80 hour weeks at big tech coming from? Is it all Amazon folks assuming it's the same everywhere else?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#80

Post by shagie »

wyager wrote: post #60
test098 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St... pretty much every team in blue collar industries which have been able to negotiate better working conditions, better pay, and more time off.

But tech isn't a blue collar industry, and this is about tech unions.

I'd point to Kickstarter United - https://kickstarterunited.org

How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry ( 190 points | Oct 7, 2020 | 369 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24711814

Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts ( 179 points | June 17, 2022 | 305 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31780972

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