701–710 of 724 posts
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Except afaict the big agile consultancies underpay relative to tech industry big names. Source: fmr pivotal labs
Sure - there are overheads in running a company where people like to work, and there's only so much that can come from the top line in a consulting business.
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> Nepotism. We had an open position we couldn't fill for over a year because one of the union leader's son was graduating soon and that position was reserved for him. I don't know of any industry where this doesn't happen. Certainly in tech there's plenty of anecdata about nepotism in hiring, no unions required. > General complacency. Raises and promotions for the most part weren't based on performance, but rather te…
Nepotism and complacency both exist in non-union work places sure. Just from my own experience, and hearing stories from those around me, they seem to be both more prevalent and more severe with unions. Of course this is anecdotal and I don't have data to prove one way or the other. All I can say is, given the choice I'd rather not be in an union for my next job. I think if we want unions to be more common place and…
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>People don't join unions if they are going to be worse off materially. Tell that to anyone whose workplace unionizes against their wishes and lives in a "closed shop" state. (Yes, closed shops are illegal, but agency fees lead to essentially the same thing). Being forced to pay a fee to a union that does not represent you and that you did not vote to join is absolute bullshit.
You can say that about any job, union or non union. You don't join a job not knowing it's a union job. But in a non union workplace, if you don't like how things are you can change them. Good luck doing that without a union.
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> Nepotism. We had an open position we couldn't fill for over a year because one of the union leader's son was graduating soon and that position was reserved for him. I don't know of any industry where this doesn't happen. Certainly in tech there's plenty of anecdata about nepotism in hiring, no unions required. > General complacency. Raises and promotions for the most part weren't based on performance, but rather te…
> Average union wages are 18% higher than non-union wages. Couldn't this be because you raise the wages of all the underperformers and lower the wages of the top performers? If you have a team where a few rockstars make $100K and the average and underperformers make $60K, the average pay could be said to increase if you simply make everyone's wage $72K. But that sucks for the top performers and really is only a good…
> a few rockstars make $100k
My problem with this narrative is that I have never worked somewhere where the "10x rockstar" was actually that, or wasn't also toxic in some other way. All we have here are competing versions of anecdata about high-vs-low performers.
I also take issue with the reverse causation you seem to imply - that somebody making 60k is a low performer. That seems to assume that companies are good at actually identifying performance and compensating fairly for it.
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> Average union wages are 18% higher than non-union wages. Couldn't this be because you raise the wages of all the underperformers and lower the wages of the top performers? If you have a team where a few rockstars make $100K and the average and underperformers make $60K, the average pay could be said to increase if you simply make everyone's wage $72K. But that sucks for the top performers and really is only a good…
It could also be because everybody got an 18% raise across the board. This is an under-researched topic in employment statistics and I would love to see a better understanding of cause and effect behind wage discrepancies in union and non-union positions. > a few rockstars make $100k My problem with this narrative is that I have never worked somewhere where the "10x rockstar" was actually that, or wasn't also toxic i…
I never implied that. The only information I gave you were the respective salaries of the high and low performers. I as a developer know who the average and low performers are but I can only guess at their salaries. I don't want a union boosting their pay while reducing mine in order to raise the "average" pay.
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Higher worker productivity achieved those things, not unions. Those gains so-called 'worker rights' were achieved in countries without unions as well. It's also unmentioned how much unemployment and misery unions also caused in this narrative.
What unionless countries achieved these things? It seems to me that workers in countries with unions tend to have far better working conditions than those in countries without unions. The only alternative to unions to get these things is to get them directly enshrined in law, but in most countries that only happened after unions fought for it.
Beware of correlation/causation. Unions that represent the highest earning workers are the strongest, because the strongest workers already have the highest bargaining power and the highest salaries.
A modern example of what productivity does to working conditions is in SV, where the unionized workers have less perks than the un-unionized ones.
Historically unions are always tied with: import restrictions, protection from competition, minimum wage laws (that dont apply to themselves), unemployment (the best way to increase wages for a union is to cut supply short).
As a nice example, Argentina has unions with constitutional level protections since the 50's, and unemployment is up, working conditions are down, poverty is up, import restrictions are up and minimum wage laws are up: result, 40% of the population works under the table, and union workers have some of the highest wages in the country.
You will seldom find improving working conditions without notable increase in GDP per capita.
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It could also be because everybody got an 18% raise across the board. This is an under-researched topic in employment statistics and I would love to see a better understanding of cause and effect behind wage discrepancies in union and non-union positions. > a few rockstars make $100k My problem with this narrative is that I have never worked somewhere where the "10x rockstar" was actually that, or wasn't also toxic i…
> I also take issue with the reverse causation you seem to imply - that somebody making 60k is a low performer. I never implied that. The only information I gave you were the respective salaries of the high and low performers. I as a developer know who the average and low performers are but I can only guess at their salaries. I don't want a union boosting their pay while reducing mine in order to raise the "average"…
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if any part of the tech industry needs unions, it's content screeners: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...
I'm not sure what could be done. I kinda suspect it is the kind of job that is just inherently unhealthy.
that doesn't mean you can't try to mitigate the worst aspects of it. here are some suggestions to start:
* saner hours
* better pay, so that you can live on 40 hours a week or less of this work.
* comprehensive medical insurance including good mental health care
* free on-site confidential psychological counseling
programmers and other usually direct employees of software companies can have it bad, but they usually don't have it nearly as bad as the content screeners.
> I'm not sure what could be done.
me either, really, but there are some reasonable things we can try. i don't think we should just abdicate responsibility on this because it's hard and those people don't have much power.
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My friend from Europe explained that this is how companies get around labor laws (for example, laws that restrict the number of hours a given employee can work). Companies essentially hire contractors who are paid higher wages which results in fewer actual positions hired by the company. Now there are fewer positions hired directly by the employer so in-effect, the labor laws haven't impacted much. At least that's ho…
I don't understand. What you're describing is individual contracting, no? The comment above described contracting a company with employees. These employees would than drop be bound by the labor laws.
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There is fierce competition for employees in tech, but the hours seem to be normalized at 50+...
Few jobs show so much flexibility as tech. People work as they please, including shortened hours.