Comment by logfromblammo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logfromblammo | Hacker News Reader

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It wouldn't be so bad (for us) if a union could force the company to use their arbitrators. But honestly, it would be better for everyone all around if the labor laws were stronger and meaningfully enforceable--in an actual civil court.

We deserve better, people. Richie McJobsCreator isn't going to just give away money for better working conditions at his company to a bunch of whiny nerds and unfashionable geezers. That could have otherwise gone straight into the owners' pockets, to... er... create more jobs!

If we can't get the 22-year old naïfs to join up with the 40+ greyhairs, they're also going to work 18 years and then receive discriminatory firings and have trouble with rehiring only halfway to their retirement age. Did you want to have kids and help pay for their tuition? How will you feel when you get fired for being too old, just as your kids are taking their entrance exams?

Wake up. Consider unions, or figure out how to pressure your politicians. Definitely think twice about working for a company that has no older employees. If you wait until you get your pink slip, and I have already been unemployable due to excessive experience for a decade or more, I won't be much help to you. I'll also feel obligated to say "told you so" every time you drop spare change in my cup.

I'm glad the good people at Pro Publica thought this was such an important issue and made that enormous effort to pull together actual data. That is an example of reporters doing their jobs. Over the past couple years on HN, it has been a rough slog to get this issue acknowledged by a lot of people. I've seen comments that would raise this issue aggressively downvoted, or at least pushed back against, hard. I'm not sure what it is exactly--- perhaps we as Americans desperately need to believe in meritocracy-- it is almost spiritual how much we seem to need that as a community. In fact, we are so in love with the idea that job awards, promotions, and continued employment in tech are meritocratic, we will just ignore data to "clap harder" in an attempt to make it so. So, now here is the data, thank goodness. No one can really say it is anecdotal any longer. And logfromblammo is correct- we all need to come together on this one. The labor laws respond to collective action-- that is how we got many of them in the first place. If we really need meritocracy so badly (and I think we do need to find a way to reward skill more accurately, or people get demoralized and that leads to even bigger problems, as it is right now...) we need to push hard for 1. actually blind interview practices (there is so much proof that this works to include marginalized groups- take a look at the screened auditions in major orchestras) 2. removing the ability of companies to "legislate" away labor protections from their employment contracts. 3. figure out how to act as a collective force to protect fair labor laws. Since we are a community of people who deftly wield software, I don't see that collective action should be much of a problem here. Ideas like the collecting of data (Pro Publica) and The Pursuance Project (Barrett Brown's organizing and collective action tool) could provide an idea of the way forward. But logfromblammo is right: we all need to wake up! first.

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