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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

>It always made 100x more sense to me on some factory floor in the early 20th century than it does in a tech startup like environment in 2020.

Why does that make more sense? The point of unionization is collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is effective whether you have 30 rockstar ninja developers or blue collar workers on a factory floor.

In either case the collective action helps amplifying the workforce's ability to negotitiate. It's the developers who create the company's value. It's time they see that they actually have the power to determine how their companies are run.

Google's employees frequently protest when their management decides to engage in unethical practise like say, developing censoring software for the Chinese market. Instead of throwing a tantrum and leaving the building and holding a protest they could imply unionize and leverage their position.

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Are you exactly equal to the worker next to you? If so collective bargaining makes sense because a good deal for everybody is the best deal you can get. If not, then collective bargaining is keeping some great people down.

The fact that you said rockstar developer says you believe that there are some non-rockstar developers who are presumably worth less.

Note that athletic unions do not bargain for wages in general (they will put in minimum and sometimes maximum, but not individual wages)

I used the term rockstar developer sarcastically. No I don't believe that the differences between individual developers outweigh the benefits of bargaining collectively. What I do believe is that there's a great reality distortion among developers that makes them think they're more unique than they actually are, which is a culture the tech sector has deliberately cultivated. Just like say, the image of the "nice CEO" who comes to work in a hoodie and pretends to save the world rather than doing what shareholders ask him or her to do. It's all just a stunt to obfuscate hierarchies.

And I'd stress again that I think the biggest thing to bargain for isn't necessarily wages, it's control over how these firms conduct themselves. Tech workers, almost more than anyone else, seem to have forgotten that they can be stakeholders in their firms.

Collective bargaining doesn’t need to bargain for equal wages. There’s all sorts of things that would be easier to collectively bargain, such as: - Allowing monetary gain from side projects - Eliminating non-competes - Establishing routes to stop unethical projects

Among other things. Pay can certainly be part of the conversation, but collective bargaining in general, as you pointed out in the case of athletic unions, doesn’t mean each individual is getting the same wage.

Why do you equate collective bargaining with collective negotiation of wages?

It is the second comment [0] on this thread that I reply conflating those aspects into one as if that is how every union and collective bargaining work, why?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22360416

“Are you exactly equal to the worker next to you?”

From the point of view of management one or two levels up from you, you are viewed as exactly the same. Most companies have narrow salary ranges for each level and you get more money mainly by being promoted. In a union shop this is no different.

This suggests that you are unfamiliar with modern compensation structures at tech companies. Stock awards are the major differentiator. In a union shop, this is very different.

In a union shop, you can vote on how payscales will vote and campaign for a system that you believe is fair. Without a union, you have to take whatever the bosses offer.

No, you have to take whatever the market offers, and the market forces are more powerful than an individual boss, for better or for worse. In a tech hub, it’s overwhelmingly “for better” as far as workers are concerned. Otherwise, their company doesn’t survive.

You are still within a structure with different levels set by management. Not much different from a union.

Management gives different people different raises. They do regular reviews to decide how much those raises will be, and not every person gets the same raise. Therefore management two levels above me does in fact believe there are differences. They show up over the years both in how fast you move to the top of your level, and in how fast you move up to the next level.

In a factory union shop you get a raise based on years of service, and promotions are tied to new skills. (If you currently put tires on and become a certified welder you will get a raise even though you don't weld anything). Again, not all unions force pay scales like this, but unions that don't lose one of their reasons for existing.

”In a factory union shop you get a raise based on years of service, and promotions are tied to new skills. ”

That’s not how it works for example in Germany. I worked in a union company We had several pay levels and I negotiated with management to skip a few. No difference to the non union company in the US I am working now. The only difference is that the employees aren’t involved in setting pay levels and working conditions.

Did you work in a factory job? That is putting bolts in, or making the same cut on an assembly line, or other such repetitive manual labor job? A position where the limit how fast you can go is the speed the line is set at/the slowest person on your line? A position where you are setup for success for the quality standards?

Unions do exist in Germany for non-factory workers and they can measure performance and pay accordingly. This weakens the union a bit because employees do not stand for each other as much as you can get a head even if the next guy is bad.

Early 20th century predates OSHA and most federal labor regulations in general. Its not that collective bargaining in the abstract is worth less, but there are far more federal guarantees.

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