Comment by noego | Hacker News Reader

Comment by noego | Hacker News Reader

This is going to be a unpopular opinion. I think a tech union would likely be good for the average tech worker - and bad for absolutely everyone else, broader society included.

Cartels and price-fixing agreements are extremely lucrative, which is why they were commonplace until outlawed by antitrust legislation, and why cartels like OPEC still operate today. Unions and collective bargaining are no different. Unions are equivalent to a cartel of labor-suppliers, and collective bargaining is identical to price-fixing.

Just like with cartels and price-fixing agreements, unionizing would likely benefit the average tech worker. It would also have an extremely bad effect on innovation, bureaucracy, and cost-of-tech-development which would spill over to consumers in the form of higher prices.

I'm in favor of breaking up big corporations, as well as implementing a wealth tax, raising the top tax rates, and strengthening the social safety net. But I don't think encouraging the formation of cartels and price-fixing agreements is in society's best interests.

The only parties that I'm aware of which are forming cartels (and getting slapped on the wrist for it) are American software companies. Seems odd to accuse not yet existing entities of the same crime that their opponents have been already convicted for.

Furthermore, a lot of software companies are filthy rich. If anything, American corporations are squeezing the last drops of profit through creative (read borderline criminal) accounting, outsourcing, faux-contracting and other creative arrangements. Said additional profit is not shared with the employees, invested in society or used in any productive way.

How is it benefiting anyone that Apple is buying back stock for example or that they have hundreds of billions parked somewhere?

Just because corporations are getting away with bad behavior doesn't mean we should encourage a free-for-all. I've already endorsed breaking up big corporations, more vigorous antitrust enforcement, and increasing taxes on the wealthy. There is such a thing as a right way and a wrong way to fix a problem.

This comment is worth discussing about because it actually criticizes the macroeconomic effects of unions, not just another "well I don't need a union and I don't want to be stuck paying dues" personal complaint. It's an interesting point for union proponents to debate, and perhaps a next-gen tech union should try to address the concerns.

Another solution to add to the ones you mentioned can be the promotion of founding tech companies run as worker cooperatives, similar to Mondragon in Spain. If tech companies leadership will flirt with anti-hierarchial management fads like flat organizations and holocracy, why not putting their equity where their mouth is and allowing the workers themselves to own the means of production?

The macroeconomic effects of unions have been overwhelmingly positive. Workers across the entire spectrum of the workforce enjoy and take for granted many labor rights and leisure opportunities today that simply would not have come into existence if it wasn't for heavy activism by unions back in the day. For example, did you know that the 40-hour workweek became standard in 1937 because of a militant labor movement?

Maybe that shows that its the right level to address these issues? Were unions the right way before because doing things globally wasn't realistic. But could it be today?

Like, if employers don't give enough vacations, is the solution to unionize and bargain for better vacations, or could we agree that everyone needs more vacations and just encode it as labor right?

Sure seems to work well for my colleagues in Dublin, for one.

Then you get your cake and eat it too. Everyone's better off, and we don't have to deal with the negatives of unions.

How do we agree that everyone needs more vacations? Too many voters are swayed by the talking points of the wealthy who tend to have a lot of influence in the media we consume. The counterargument can even be phrased in ways that are made to look like it supports the "little guy" rather than the oligarchs that are promoting the message, for example: "More paid vacation means small businesses will have more difficulty remaining competitive, and they are the cornerstone of the US economy. Don't limit our freedom by imposing this unamerican law"

Unions were the right way in the past because employers were typically the most powerful actors in society, with the ability to sway the actions of government. Unions represented an opposing force to their employers, reigning in that power. Today, employers are still the most powerful actors in society -- arguably even moreso than before -- and some kind of worker organising or other form of bottom-up/grassroots power is needed to counter the abuses of power by the wealthy. There are already good examples of gains being won by unions or similar organisations in tech. A good example of a modern conception of worker power in tech is the tech workers coalition:

https://techworkerscoalition.org/

> How do we agree that everyone needs more vacations?

Certainly not at the major tech employer level with their tech workers? A software engineer can already work at any of these and get vacations benefit similar to what's law in those European cities, and that's not doing any movement at the government level. And my non-tech colleagues at the same companies have the same benefits for the most part (commission sales folks probably excluded, but that field is unique)

So you're suggesting we organize to even out the power with our employers to...get something we already have so that...this influence that's currently not spreading will bubble up?

In the past, these things happened on a scale larger than the union itself, but in which the union took part. Things like the eight-hour day were achieved by movements led by coalitions of multiple unions. Having a powerful tech union that supports such movements would make it significantly more likely that we could get legislation for more progressive reforms passed.

By macroeconomic I'm referring to the post upstream about how unions function as cartels and price-fixers. I do not believe that is true, but it seems like an argument that union supporters ought to debunk.

Why would unions set prices they might set a floor price in some industries SAG IATSE, BECTU.

And they might take a lead in setting industry best practice eg around $700 for a 1 in 4 on call minimum call out of 4 hours and TOIL at OT rates

This reads like you're equating collective bargaining with salary negotiation, but there are a ton of other dimensions where negotiating as a group would be beneficial. I've worked at a number of companies where I was well paid, but had an expectation of overtime. The environment of crunch produced a product that was so unstable I had to be on call, and was occasionally awoken in the middle of the night by things that would never have made it to production if there had been industry-standard practices in place.

That's where collective bargaining could come in handy in software. There needs to be some recourse for when shitty companies abuse its employees.

You know all the advanced research and tech used in the UK telecom industry system post ww2 (first electronic exchange etc) was built by union employees.

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