You know what's pretty inarguably a real "meritocracy"? Professional sports players. And they're all unionized.
Tech does not meaningfully or significantly adhere to any ethos of meritocracy; it is exactly as political as anything else. The part that really melts your brain is when you realize that the "meritocracy" myth is peddled so the people who don't realize they're bad at politics are losing.
Sports leagues have nothing to do with how most companies operate.
Wage suppression, limiting our ability to grow and expand into different areas, and controlling the ability to exert control over what the work we do is used for--these are reasons to unionize.
If companies are colluding, that’s the issue where the government needs to intervene.
Professional athletes are genetic freaks first and foremost - look at the dropoff from college football players to professional players. It's not talent that determines who makes it, it's genetic ability. The absolute worst NFL team in history would decimate the best college team in history just because of the difference in size, speed, and strength of the people on the professional team.
The NFL uses the standing vertical jump as a test of athletic ability because it's one of the only tests that can't be trained. No matter how much stronger or more explosive you get, your standing vertical jump pretty much stays the same. And guess what, people who make it in the NFL are the ones with the highest standing vertical jump.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shortest_players_in_Na...
Is that your position or did I read too far into it?
Sorry, I meant "meritocracy" in the way that the tech crowd does, not a, y'know, actual one. Because they rarely if ever exist in practice.
It's funny, because I would hold that a good bit of what we consider "technical aptitude" is innate, if not strictly "genetic". I don't mean stuff like that old Dartmouth CS study, though. Speaking for myself, I have a level of general memory recall that, while not what you might call "eidetic memory", is very, very good. "Remember the behavior of an API I used cursorily five years ago" good. And from a pure value perspective, that I can dredge weird stuff like that up, that I can make connections between disparate stuff based almost entirely on having too much junk in the drawers of my brain, are why I deliver value in tech roles. If anything, my ability to quickly and with self-discomfiting detail remember the failures of code I've written are more valuable than the code I write today. ;)
And I have had that kind of weird memory recall since I was a kid. I don't know if it's "genetic", but I didn't do anything to make it happen. Which leads me to think that if "being tall" rules one out of a meritocracy, stuff like that, or the weird permutation of brainscape that makes one better able to latch onto stuff like algebra or able to better visualize systems--all of that stuff functionally should, too.
Which, to me, is yet another ding in this idea of "meritocracy". It's all a dart board.
In my previous experience with unions in North America, incomes tends to be compressed towards the middle. You get rid of the very low and very high income earners. Maybe this is just an implementation problem and isn't inherent to unions, but in practice here, it does seem to be common.
That said, there's a risk - even a high one - that Union Executives, over time, become rent seekers instead of advocates for their members. It's like government, every Union gets the executive it deserves.
Not necessarily. I'd imagine that a union could negotiate its pay-scales any way it likes, which could take into account "meritocracy" in many different ways. That could include ideas that are totally foreign to existing for-profit company practices, such as a peer-controlled meritocratic bonus implemented via the union itself.
> Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective bargaining that has set salaries and annual increases?
Here's a hypothetical: In a non-union shop, regular engineers get paid $100k, while 10x engineers get paid 120k. In a union shop all engineers get paid $150k. Should the engineers reject a union so the 10x engineers can get paid more than regular engineers, even though that means everyone makes less?
Also: Are the 10x engineers the people management chooses to pay more? Is management good at recognizing merit? When they recognize it, do they choose to compensate it accordingly? Or do they make the good business decision, and pay the meritorious employees the minimum amount of money they'll be happy with. For some 10x engineers, that could be 2x salary. For other 10x engineers, that could be 1.05x salary. For some 10x engineers, that could be 0.75x salary.
I think that one key aspect of your comment is that you're taking about a 10x. Which can be generalized into a question: should a solution be rejected if it leaves a well-off minority less well-off than they are now, regardless of how much good it may do otherwise?
I, personally, think the answer to that general question is no. That answer may be hard to swallow if you're part of that well-off minority, but I don't think that changes the truth of the matter.
However, that doesn't mean that a union would or should force that guy to take a pay cut.
> I feel people will always want more money for performing better, or get incentivised to perform at the exact right level of that compensation and not more. I am curious what other people think on this.
I feel that people will always want more money regardless. I also feel that compensation is actually a poor motivator for performance. I think the real motivators for performance are internal factors (such as a desire to improve oneself, to avoid annoyance with badly made things, or to be challenged rather than bored).
Personally, I think once you make enough money, the extra compensation is more a form of recognition than anything else. Recognition doesn't have to be in the form of money, it's just that a souless corporation only cares about money, so money is the only way you can extract recognition from it.
And you are right, compensation is definitely a form of recognition, and perhaps there are better ways to do it. Just not sure how you bestow that recognition in some reasonable way. So what other form of recognition conveys your actual value to a company? What else can be done here?
One thing people would probably stop doing is chasing wealth and career to the detriment of their private life, and that might be a net negative to corporate spreadsheets and economic growth, but probably a net-positive for society.
I say to both my leftist and rightist friends to please spend some time analyzing Scandinavian societies. They are much more advanced than us on a lot of social issues, and a lot of their successes are directly applicable to our societies, too.
Real 10x programmers spend most of their time levitating, anyway.
Apart from the fact you get diminishing returns on work quality for those sort of hours...
That person is neglecting their family and/or partner, or at the very least their own health if they're working those sort of hours. Where do they find time to work on personal relationships or do exercise?
It also skews job expectations by creating an atmosphere where other employees are pressured into working those sort of hours, with the same resulting problems.
If someone has no attachments, no outside interests, no interest in maintaining their health, and genuinely has that sort of energy and desire for work, let them pick up a part-time gig separate to their main job.
How many startup founders have worked 60+ hours a week to get their business off the ground?
Law is famous for getting ahead by having more billable hours.
We already have an informal FAANG guild: 1) their salaries are higher 2) FAANG on the resume = already vetted 3) mastered the interview rigmarole
So it seems that efforts by employers to collude in the job market led to something that resembles a professional guild.
I've seen that other commenters have already pointed out that the two are not incompatible.
However, with the risk of getting some downvotes, I would like to challenge the primacy of meritocracy itself.
I don't mean to say that people shouldn't do a good job at work or that they shouldn't try to continuously improve. But I think that an environment and a mentality of continuous competition between individuals is not necessarily beneficial. For one it can cause tensions, frustration, anger, alienation at an individual level, but I think in the long run it can actually harm the company itself.
I'm curious what you guys think about this point of view.
IIRC, the authors of Peopleware [1] (fantastic book, btw) agree with you. They identified some pay for performance ideas for knowledge workers as "teamkillers" (e.g. tempting management ideas that end up destroying the social fabric that makes an effective team stronger than the sum of its parts).
https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-...
If they didn't have a union movies would look different. Maybe better for the customer because you get to see your favorite star in 10x more movies.
"SAG-AFTRA members are entitled to a variety of benefits, including contracts/collective bargaining, eligibility for the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan, SAG-Producers Pension Plan, the AFTRA Retirement Fund, the iActor online casting database, and much more."
https://www.sagaftra.org/membership-benefits/member-benefits
This seems like an important benefit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_(entertainment_indust...:
> Residuals are royalties that are paid to the actors, film or television directors, and others involved in making TV shows and movies in cases of reruns, syndication, DVD release, or online streaming release. Residuals are calculated and administered by industry trade unions like SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America, and the Writers Guild of America.
Per the wiki page, these rights were won and have been maintained by striking and union-lead contract negotiations.
1. Non-competes. If you're an actor, the studio that you did your first film with doesn't own you for the rest of your life.
2. Getting paid for your time if you're called out for a shoot, and the shoot doesn't happen, because the director's dog ate the script, or some other non-sense that you have no control over.
3. Getting paid for your time if you're called out for a shoot, and told to hang around for 8 hours, so that you can do your 5-minute scene.
4. Getting paid if you're a theatrical understudy, have learned your part, and are sitting on-call, ready to step in if the main actor is sick/vacationing/etc.
5. Getting paid more for understudying more roles. Someone who understudies two principal roles has to be paid more than someone who understudies one other chorus role.
Prior to unionization, violations of these were incredibly prevalent across the industry. Studios who took advantage of actors were rewarded by the market, and anyone who tried to push back on these practices was black-balled from the industry.
Despite having to pay actors for their work, and not treating actors like chattel, the entertainment industry has not yet fallen apart.
If anything, employees who believe their workplace should be a meritocracy can protect and provide force to that belief via a union.
Also, do companies really value 10x engineers? Sure, the people who are truly at the top, well known, and know their worth have great negotiating power to work on interesting things and get paid a lot for it. What about everyone else? I'd say that most "10x" engineers aren't getting 10x the compensation. Most people who perform well will get a promotion or something, and that's it. The way tech companies manage workers and handle performance reviews isn't all that different from everyone else. Tech workers are capturing a fraction of the value they generate, and there's no reason for management to admit that.
(Though in practice you're correct: unions rarely exist for jobs with more individualized pay.)
"All Americans would have coverage for comprehensive health care services, including hospital stays; emergency room visits; doctor visits; substance use disorder treatment; dental, vision, and mental health services; long-term care; and reproductive health care. Depending upon income, prescription drug cost sharing would be capped at $200 annually." -- https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/news/20191120/medicar...
"All Americans would have coverage for comprehensive health care services, including hospital stays; emergency room visits; doctor visits; substance use disorder treatment; dental, vision, and mental health services; long-term care; and reproductive health care. Depending upon income, prescription drug cost sharing would be capped at $200 annually." -- https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/news/20191120/medicar...
Obviously, there might be some edge cases. This is where private insurers could still fill a role. I can't imagine that extra/supplemental private insurance could be too expensive, if it had to compete against a unified 350 million+ person insurance pool.
Edit: It is worth noting that the US is pretty unique when it comes to the separated dental insurance coverage plans and main health insurance plans.
The US is not (wont be) the only one which seperates dental (as in infections, teeth removal) from orthodontic like braces and fake teeth.
Maybe important, I'm not American.
Although, universal health plans also mean employees, unionized or not, win the freedom to change jobs because they’re no longer tied to jobs they hate just to remain insured. I don’t think many people are considering or discussing this at large in the conversation about MfA. This will be a huge social and employment benefit for people with families/children, as well as those with existing—especially serious and costly—conditions. It could be something unions will temporarily grapple with in defending their importance.
I have no doubt, however, that something will replace healthcare at the negotiating table. Capital and labor are forever locked in conflict.
Really? From where I sit it's been a central point in discussions about universal coverage as a goal, regardless of mechanism being debated, at least since it was an issue in the Clinton campaign in 1992.
I’m referring to what media coverage I’ve seen—and perhaps it’s heavily related to the area I live (US South) and the media coverage that dominates here—but whenever I mention it and try to discuss that point with others, people often stare blankly. It takes time to even get the concept to click. And there’s a lot of, “I never even thought about that!”
Not to sound dismissive, but if you actually believe that working in tech is akin to a meritocracy, you're either fairly young or you haven't spent a lot of time in a corporation. Both of which being ok.
If you really want to go the “meritocracy“ route, drop salaries altogether. Make employees bid on features and maintenance, and pay them for accomplishing these specific tasks. Paying salaries at all (the same amount every month regardless of productivity) is anti-meritocratic.
Open source is a fantastic counterexample to this. Lots of people produce huge collective value to the industry for $0 incremental salary.
Only if one assumes that management pays based on the same ethos of meritocracy. They generally do not, which is why a force to oppose the management 'union' can result in a return to meritocracy. As with any balancing force, it is possible for the reaction to be far too strong and swing in the opposite direction, but that isn't reason to avoid any attempt to balance.
Although I do agree they are not fundamentally incompatible. You can have a large number of hands within a job level and have the ability to jump bands for example. But then this somewhat goes against the typical union (at least in the US) thinking where there is typically a step progression “up”.
Fundamentally, at least in terms of compensation, this seems to be about how we view money in general rather than specifics of unions. Ie should everyone be paid more or less the same for the same job or should there be wildly different compensation. For unions I typically see salaries clustered, that every senior engineer for example does more or less the same job. Currently in tech the view isn’t that. It’s more the one senior engineer can dramatically out perform another and should be compensated accordingly.
If a "10x" senior engineer moves to another company he will probably seek a job as principal engineer and get a higher base wage than older employees that have less technical aptitude than him.
Negotiated salary bands do not go against meritocracy.
The number of places that will pay you more than they decided beforehand is very small not matter if you are 10x better or not. You will get top of pay range.
Startups wouldn't fall under this because usually you need 20+ people. This would apply to get giants who have systems in place. If you are truly worldclass they invent a position. But for regular developers where there are more than one person sharing the same title this is who the union is for.
The real crime is that employers have convinced you that only rockstars should be making $150k.
There's plenty of excellent software engineers paid pennies to work on difficult problems because they live in countries with very low wages.
And plenty of people in silicon valley being wildly overpaid to copy paste javascript from stack overflow.