Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA
cwa-union.org
cwa-union.org
> 90% of the workers indicated their support for joining CWA and authorized CWA to be their bargaining representative
> about half of whom work in the New York City headquarters and half of whom work remotely throughout the country
> Employees at major American tech and game companies have grown increasingly active and outspoken about workplace issues, including sexual assault and harassment, ageism, unequal pay, “crunch time” (i.e. long-term overtime and overworking), poor treatment of contract workers, inadequate racial and gender diversity, and lack of transparency and inclusion in decision-making around controversial contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
> “We appreciate that unlike so many employers, the Glitch management team decided to respect the rights of its workforce to choose union representation without fear or coercion."
> CWA was founded by telecom workers, and supports media workers through its Newsguild-CWA and NABET-CWA sectors.
There are more potential employees than potential employers, and most companies will survive understaffed longer than US laborers will survive unemployed. Inherently, the negotiations favor the employer. The more output the employer has stolen from its workers, the more of an advantage it will have. Unionizing and collective bargaining balances those scales.
This is exacerbated by employers either overtly colluding with each other (as in the lawsuit several years ago over tech companies having an agreement not to hire each other's employees) or simply setting compensation to "industry averages" and following "industry best practices".
To the extent that every big tech company behaves the same as every other big tech company, there's effectively only one big tech employer.
If the industry you work in sucks, jump ship? That's not exactly great advice when you've spent decades honing your craft in a certain industry. Even if someone did genuinely want to switch, game development skills aren't necessarily easily transferable to other kinds of development, even if it helps.
That advice makes sense if a company you works for sucks, but if an entire industry is broken, you can't just tell people to suck it up and find a new industry.
This needs a lot of qualification. Even someone doing scripting probably has picked up coding fluency at least. Programming game engines and networking code is definitely tackling complex problems and could at least get a mid-level dev role. I think 3d asset creation is probably the most game-specific role, and even that is something that is used by special effects companies and design firms.
> That advice makes sense if a company you works for sucks, but if an entire industry is broken, you can't just tell people to suck it up and find a new industry.
You absolutely can tell people to suck it up and find a new industry. This mentality is why the game industry can get away with bad work life balance and low job security. Because people keep working there. If the game industry was starved for talent, then they'd have to offer better work experiences.
Game industry working conditions are generally significantly better than VFX and can be better than design firms looking for similar skillsets.
There's typically more focus on analytics and the science skills over artistic skills (sorry graphic artists, environmental artists, etc.) obviously, but backend developers in gaming often have a lot of useful overlapping skills and knowledge in terms of systems design, design patterns, sets of problems, etc.
Pay is good, work/life balance is great, intellectually stimulating, it's challenging yet enjoyable (though arguably not as fun as game development). In many cases, industry borrows or leverages work from the gaming industry quite a bit.
A step further and the defense industry/military industrial complex would also love to have more game developers--though tech has a pretty anti-government pro-business vibe overall (not surprisingly).
Unionization is not going to fix the management training problem.
If workers unionize [1], they can force bad management out, or curtail its badness, or in extreme cases - replace management with collective ownership.
[1] - in an independent, non-corrupt union.
Also, I have no idea where you get the idea that unions can somehow force collective ownership. The company belongs to the shareholders, unions don't magically get to take other people's property.
I will say that the horror stories and bad press coming out of the video gaming industry will possibly have a chilling effect for new grads who would otherwise jump straight into it. Eventually management will run out of non-union workers to hire. Or the non-union workers themselves will demand better treatment.
Very rarely do employees receive equity as compensation.
Non-voting shares, yes. Voting shares are usually only given to very senior people, if ever, and not nearly enough to form anything close to a controlling ownership of the company.
> I will say that the horror stories and bad press coming out of the video gaming industry will possibly have a chilling effect for new grads who would otherwise jump straight into it. Eventually management will run out of non-union workers to hire. Or the non-union workers themselves will demand better treatment.
Decades of game development suggests otherwise. Like acting, it's people's dream job. And when the supply of labor exceeds the demand workers do not have leverage.
I think you need to qualify the claim that these experiences are worsening. In fact, from most of the veteran developers I've talked to report the opposite: before the proliferation of the internet crunch time was way more serious since patching was not a viable option. Nowadays it's pretty much the norm that games have significant bugs for the first week or two and still need to mature after release. This creates greater room for error and less pressure to fix every bug before release.
Take this story for example. Linkedin lists Glitch's size as 11-50. The highest employee count I've found claims 120. This is small fish in a very large pond. This press release name drops Google, but these companies are three orders of magnitude apart in terms of size.
1. https://craft.co/kickstarter
2. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
And when change occurs, whether a social trend, or new product type, or whatever- the pioneers tend to be smaller examples rather than high-profile, no?
Again, don't conflate discussion and attention with actual change. People who produce the news always have to select their topics, so saying that the news is selectively focusing on something is a tautology. The real question is why people are selecting these topics - and you'd have to direct that question to media producers.
The reality is that approval of unions is not outside of historic trends. The last 10 years has seen a marked increase, but that increase started from historic lows. The current approval rating is not abnormally high [1].
> And when change occurs, whether a social trend, or new product type, or whatever- the pioneers tend to be smaller examples rather than high-profile, no?
In the case of unionization no, not at all. Early unionization efforts were not only industry-wide but society-wide (except for the exclusion of blacks and immigrants). Groups like the Knights of Labor and American Federation of Labor sought to organize all American workers. Big changes in society are usually made by big groups. The reality is that the fact that 350 workers unionizing in a field of millions has near zero effect.
1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/241679/labor-union-approval-ste...
Finally, I never said "high-profile" had to mean FAANG. These two are high-profile cases that gets public attention- not necessarily because the media is manufacturing a narrative, but because Kickstarter, for its small size, is a household name. And Glitch is the successor of Fog Creek Software- this company, as well as Anil Dash and Joel Spolsky, are certainly high-profile names in the tech startup scene. We're not discussing some unknown boutique consultancy.
And I agree with manfredo, I started in the industry in 90s, and crunch was already there. If anything, the situation improved in mid 00s, with CA strengthening exempt employees classification and later 00s with ea_spouse lawsuit. E.g. mandatory crunches are gone, it used to be that people were forced to stay late and come in on weekends even if they had nothing to do but good luck pulling this now. Nowadays people mostly crunch either because their bonus comes out of the game's sales (and/or metacritic score, like in EA) or because they are paid OT.
You're talking about the large, collaborationist unions we know in the US - e.g. those in the AFL-CIO - where "the union" is an external entity to "the unionizing workers"; and often with the bureaucratic motivations you describe. I specifically mentioned that's not the kind of unionization I advise.
Also, payment is just one of many issues in a workplace. The basic need for a union is that the company's owners have the mechanisms for thinking, discussing, deciding acting collectively and concertedly, but its employees do not. That's what a union should be.
On that basis, employees may want to tackle issues like:
* Treatment by managers/management * Workplace culture * Physical working conditions * Workforce size vs. "squeezing" of existing employees * Advancement opportunities within the company/organization * Professional standards
and so on.
Finally, remember that a gaming development house has a lot of employees other than developers per se: QA, art, production, administrative etc.
> Nowadays people mostly crunch ... or because they are paid OT.
If people make a good salary, they don't work overtime because they don't need to. There must be some kind of psychological pressure in that direction. Overwork should be avoided.
- who have joint interests and may wish to discuss things, take decisions, and act collect
>If people make a good salary, they don't work overtime because they don't need to.
Sure, they don't need to but, nevertheless, they like their fat bonuses.
And then immediately be sued by the union & former employees for retaliation under the labor acts. Businesses already tried that sort of shenanigans
Management is under no obligation to accept union terms, and is free to hire non-union work if the union terms are not competitive.
This does not sound right - this effectively gives unions the ability to extort companies with impunity. I'll believe this claim that companies are prohibited by law from hiring a non-union workforce if you back it up with a source.
(If you literally only have 2 employees, the employer might not meet the threshold to be covered under the NLRB.)
cite: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employers/b...
Right, it's illegal for a company to say "we're not going to bargain with you collectively, at all" but it's not illegal to decline the bargain that employees offer. The company at least has to sit at the table and consider their option - it does not prohibit companies from listening to the collective bargain and declining to accept it.
In an industry known for abusing its employees (which, BTW, does not extend to software engineering in general, in my opinion - software engineers are treated well almost everywhere else), you _need_ pushback to end abuse. It's as simple as that. Even if unionizations fail, they still serve as a signaling mechanism - if things get bad enough, they'll start succeeding, and that's the outcome employers would like to avoid. The solution is simple: they should pull their heads out of their collective asses and start treating employee abuse as a real problem. If there's no downside for them to not doing this, they won't do it. It's as simple as that.
Why don't we have more smaller unions in America, but instead these GIANT mega unions?
I get collective bargaining is better with more numbers, but it feels like there is no way to have a "new" union exist?
US labor law differs from European labor law, and it essentially encourages/requires a small number of conglomerate unions, each of which have exclusive representation within a company, rather than a larger number of independent unions which can coexist within a single company.
It is all the same with the large corporate unions. They are designed to be run by those cozy with the ruling class and stifle actual workplace democracy.
Somebody is making a lot of money this way. They donate to both parties.
The system is fundamentally flawed - the problem is that these interventions were never thought through or even authorized. In the past, amendments had to be passed for the government to do new things; now it can do anything since everything is related to interstate commerce.
Other countries have much less liquid labour markets, or have bargaining powers of unions backed by governments, so they don't have to grow so much to make a difference.
How does this bigger union give them any more bargaining power against glitch?
* The more removed bargainers are from the rank-and-file, the less understanding and emotional motivation they have about many of the issues the workers face.
* Larger unions are easier to corrupt and influence - at least if they have a centralized, hierarchical structure (which US unions mostly do). And that is true even if this structure is democratic (i.e. central governing bodies are elected).
* Larger unions are more difficult to reform and recuperate from past organizational failings than small ones.
* The capitalists and the state absolutely _detest_ more radical / tougher unions. So do the more collaborationist unions. While they might tolerate smaller ones - larger ones threaten the stability of the entire system, and will thus be met with harsh, violent suppression, and "member-stealing" / "workplace-stealing" campaigns much sooner.
Case in point: Industrial Workers of the World in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl...
Also, if carpenters work for UPS, should they be in the carpenters union or the Teamsters? Large industrial unions do away with such jurisdictional problems.
Organizing a union is also fairly hard, and staff of established unions are more likely to have the skill set to teach you how to have convincing conversations with your co-workers, make sure they stick together, keep everybody from freaking out when the boss starts threatening to fire people, etc. It's also good to have them around to provide financial/legal support if the boss follows through on those threats.
[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide-to-d...]
There's also an uncanny valley effect, where ignoring a problem entirely means that your employees may have needs they aren't aware of, and as soon as you shine a light on it, their job satisfaction is actually lower until you get it right.
I think a couple of my bosses understood this intuitively and would invite us to participate in developing solutions. We are much more patient with ourselves than with others.
It is, in a word, fractious.
The best solution I've seen for this is to keep most of the windows in public spaces. If I go for water or to the bathroom, I should get daylight. Impromptu meeting spaces and lunch spots: daylight.
The thing is, developers say they want daylight at their desk, and then they realize that they can't actually work in natural light (this has gotten better in just the last few years, but I've been watching this happen for 20), and so the people who 'own' the windows end up closing the blinds to work in peace.
The worse this ever got, we had the top floor of a building and so many blinds were closed all day that we might as well have rented space in the basement for half the price/ft²
So now if I am to get any daylight it is at the sole discretion of someone already on an ego trip? No thank you.
Move the desks so that people can see daylight but aren't in daylight. All the windows stay open, your AC bills are a little lower, and the steepness of the pecking order is not quite so brazen.
https://medium.com/make-better-software/beyond-open-offices-...
... except that there is so little workspace that I had to stare at the picture for about fifteen seconds to figure out if they did, in fact, have any employees at all.
All State University of New York graduate students are also represented by CWA. [1] Out of the lowly salary I earned as a grad student, I had to pay dues to them throughout the entire five years I spent in grad school. I never felt like they particularly cared about us or got to see a return on this investment.
They made a show of coming by the campus once in a while, especially when elections were happening, but other than that I can't recall a single time where I felt it was beneficial to be part of the CWA.
Anybody privy to the info how it fared?
Also I assume there’s a formation/founding cost. How does that work?
Founding, organizing, and legal stuff for newly forming unions can be handled by the larger organization (e.g. CWA) using pooled dues from existing unions within that organization.
Unfortunately, with larger unions, or those with weaker consciousness and mis-perceptions of what a union is supposed to be - there's alienation between the member worker on one hand and the union and its operatives on the other, and then dues payment seems to be something transactional: "What will you get me in exchange for what I pay you?"
This probably wouldn't translate well to software. But it works great if you are installing ducts. Same goes for plumbers and electricians. My sisters first husband was a union electrician. That is why I looked into getting a union gig. I hate job hunting.
In the years I did it I worked for five different companies. I didn't have to run around dropping off resumes and doing practice tests. I just got a call from the union and was told where to go to work. And I made significantly more than my non-union counterparts. Easily more than the dues I had to pay.
Unions don't sell themselves to companies in the first place.
The same reason your criminal defense attorney doesn't sell themselves to the public prosecutor's office.
No, I'm implying that working for an actor’s counterparty compromises your ability to represent that actor in adversarial interactions with the same counterparty, which is a core function of unions with respect to employers as it is with defense attorneys with respect to prosecutors.
> companies certainly have the option to hire employees that do not work for unions.
Not in the US; even where union shops are prohibited by state right-to-work laws, adverse employment decisions on the basis of union membership or union-related activity by an employer are prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act. That is, in some cases, employers are allowed to hire employees who aren't members of a union, but they aren't legally permitted to hire employees because (even in part) they aren't members of unions.
In the US, do you think companies have not moved manufacturing from union plants to non-union plants? Do you think they have not moved manufacturing out of US plants? Do you think this does not have to do with union membership?
I believe the adversarial view of unions and employers results in inefficiency and waste. I was suggesting an alternative view of unions and employers, but I believe I now understand you: you think this is impossible.
Unions (or their leadership) perceived as serving management are removed, invariably and swiftly, by their constituents, whether through decertification or leadership elections.
If you try to UBER union electricians you are probably going to be in for a rude awakening.
What's the rude awakening that I should expect?
Put it this way, when I worked at startups that owed me a raise they couldn't afford, I've offered several times to take a 0% raise in exchange for a 10% reduction in hours. Not a single company has taken that offer and several thought I was trying to be funny.
I was not.
It depends, some unions have it as a percentage of salary, others have a set rate per position (all juniors pay X, all mids pay Y, etc.), and yet other have a single fixed amount for all members.
That, at least in the US, is the common case. It is also extremely tempting - and I say this as a past union activist - to go for this option.
2. If, however, the union values its independence from the employer, then union dues are collected either:
2.1 By hand from time to time (much harder, but you get independence from the banking system), or
2.2 Each member signs a standing transfer order, transferring a certain amount of money from their account to the union every month/quarter/year. It's still a challenge to collect anything from non-members, despite them enjoying everything the unionized workers have achieved.
Regarding 2, is there any reason the union achievements must apply to non-union workers as well?
* Unions putting a lid on actual rank-and-file demands and initiatives.
* No or rare collective action.
* No solidarity action with non-unionized workers, workers from oppressed social groups etc.
* Political support by unions for the regime in general and for dominant factions within government in particular.
* Employers acting in concert with union by dues checkoff and requiring new hires to join (or go through the union to be employed).
* Legislation enshrining this arrangement, or preventing legal action against it.
... which explains why I didn't mention this consideration.
1. Union activities are fundamentally based on a perception of a common cause, common interests, common destiny of all workers - in your company, or in general.
2. It is a much weaker achievement to get an employer to give some people some more. The more meaningful struggle (and in fact - what is often the only real game you can play) is the struggle of "what is an employee doing some kind of work entitled to" - that is, a struggle over what's standard, what's necessary, what's appropriate vs unacceptable. But if there are two categories of rights/benefits, the better category is always that of privilege, and you've never convinced the employer nor yourselves that you are due any of those things by virtue of your being a worker. At most it is by virtue of some kind of alliance with the employer at the expense of the underprivileged.
3. The more fractured the modes of employment are, the more leeway managers and personnel dept. people have to manipulate and apply leverage to individual employees: "Will you be in status X or status Y next year? Hmm, let's see. Well, you did A, and we didn't really like that. I don't know if I can authorize you being a Y" and so on. Also, you (= the union) will be playing cat-and-mouse with the employer all the time about who gets employed in what status exactly; and the more combinations you get the harder it is to keep track of everything and also have a credible and actionable perception of what's it like for the various groups within the rank-and-file.
I kinda wish proper guilds would become a thing in tech. I feel they could solve both the craftsmanship and workers rights problems but oh well...
Because kids romanticize it and think that their job will involve playing video games all day.
--EDIT: It's also worth noting that if you are on the digital content side of game dev like modeling and mapping there's not a ton of alternative options for practicing those skillsets professionally, unlike programming.
I'm still however not sold on the idea that tech in general needs unions, but am open to the idea that it may be a variable need company to company for certain groups of people.
Just don't make me have to join one, because I am fairly convinced it's not in my best personal interest and same for a lot of other tech workers like me.
Glitch isn't a startup. It's a 20 year old company with probably rigid rules.
"Bargain as a team" is called "collective bargaining" is called a "union". Just avoid the indirection and call the thing by its name.
[0] Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico).
Management was basically incredibly incompetent, for a long time, and were so unfair to employees at the company that they felt this was the only option. There is a Tweet stream a couple months ago from someone who left the company who highlighted the amazing degree to which they were unfairly reviewed and unfairly criticized, alongside how much work product they were expected to produce (which was unreasonable). I have enough corroboration to say that the tweet stream as written is fairly unbiased, and that their experience was common. My understanding is the employees felt backed into a corner.
I think unions can be very, very valuable, but I think needing one at a small company that took a series A round quite recently speaks more to management failure than anything else. I'm happy that they unionized, because it sounds like they needed to, but I am so fucking disappointed that it was necessary.
EDIT: Medium, not Twitter; sorry. https://medium.com/@scientiffic/on-the-aftermath-of-quitting...
This is something I wish had been in the article. Even something vague, like "Employees reported they were unhappy with management and the performance evaluation system. The union with CWA will work with management to blah blah blah".
Agree that it sounds like a management failure.
Thanks!
seems to be a correlation - back then like 10 years ago HN had various FG blogposts/articles appear on the front page relatively frequently while in recent years i don't remember any.
That said, I have no idea if that's why Glitch has fewer articles or not. It could also be different culture; the FogBugz, Kiln, and Trello teams have all gone away. I don't think I even know anyone who works at Glitch these days. They may just emphasize blogging less.
"Management was basically incredibly incompetent, for a long time, and were so unfair to employees at the company that they felt this was the only option"
Why not just quit and get a new role? I don't really understand how being unionized under terrible management is desirable.
on a secondary note, there is nothing wrong with living in a democracy and wanting representation in your community. Our work is a part of our community as much as any other space, especially since we spend so much time there and center our lives around it.
I don't think this is true. Rather, they don't buy the myth that unions have no downsides. Therefore you choose not to willingly accept such downsides until necessary. Arguably medical coverage is always necessary and is a poor comparison.
[^1]: A particularly egregious example from the factory where my dad works as a maintenance person: they have a machine that cuts cardboard; to service the blade, they need 3 people: one to remove the bolts holding the blade in place, another to remove the blade, and yet another to service it (and then the first two must replace the blade and the bolts, respectively). There must be three distinct people (IIRC because they're from different unions or something similarly silly) by contract (not because removing the bolts or the blade requires special training), which generally involves a lot of waiting for each person to be available--something that could take half an hour often spans multiple days.
[^2]: Another particularly egregious example from my father-in-law's IT office (he has since retired): employees generally laze about doing little; they aren't allowed to browse the Internet or play games, but some bring in books and one woman literally sits staring vacantly at her black-screen monitor for hours on end. No idea why electronic idleness is okay, but reading, etc are okay.
He had to occasionally adjust controls that were slotted (potentiometers). He had a little screwdriver that he kept in his pocket to make that easier. The electricians filed a grievance with the union because he was carrying electrician’s tools.
I think there is some good in unions. I think there is also some bad.
The important thing to remember though is that bad experiences in of themselves are no reason to write off a category of organization, or to assume no improvement is possible. Where would our industry be if we just assumed riding taxis would always be a bad experience, or making payments?
[0] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-...
"Managers and supervisors are also not protected by the NLRA, and cannot join unions or be part of the bargaining unit. These employees are considered to be part of a company’s management rather than its labor force."
I don't know when I'm going to get sick, and I can't get rid of the sickness, so I buy insurance to compensate.
I know what I'm getting myself into when signing a contract with a company, because there's a contract. I can leave when I want and seek employment elsewhere.
Unfortunately, conservatives have been mostly successful in gaining control of the courts, so expect union-busting measures to be rubber-stamped by them.
There is likely to be much conflict between labor and owners.
I know the ideal libertarian corporate structure has a single CEO making a huge salary controlling a vast collection of precariat workers who are paid the bare minimum to avoid them becoming homeless, or slightly less, but this is .. unpopular with everyone else.
I'd like to explain what I like, and what I'm concerned about:
> Employees at major American tech and game companies have grown increasingly active and outspoken about workplace issues,
Very union related, that's what unions are for.
> including sexual assault and harassment,
Already unlawful. They are addressable to the NLRB and civil legal system.
> ageism,
That's vague, but there are protections against this
> unequal pay,
Not sure what this means, pay between workers of the same level of seniority performing the same responsibilities? Overtime? A lot of things factor into equal pay. A junior employee isn't going to make as much as a 20 year employee.
> “crunch time” (i.e. long-term overtime and overworking),
Looks right. These are covered in union contracts
> poor treatment of contract workers,
If they have union membership? Wouldn't it be about defining a standard of what a salaried employee is?
> inadequate racial and gender diversity,
What does that mean? Inadequate to whom? What makes those characteristics worthy but other characteristics not?
I find it very hurtful and insensitive to people who struggle, suffer, overcome odds, from difficult upbringings, but not member of some class or facet. Why reduce the struggle, character, and worth of someone down to those things? Where does this come from?
What does this say to your colleagues who don't have these traits? Do they have life easy? Have you walked a mile in their shoes?
> and lack of transparency and inclusion in decision-making around controversial contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
That is not the kind of decision I think employees should be deciding. Though if a larger organization wanted to allow someone to move somewhere else in the org, that seems fair
> That's vague, but there are protections against this
> Wouldn't it be about defining a standard of what a salaried employee is?
Unions can be an additional safety net/layer of protection/tool against these discriminations and abuses. In a time when HR departments are often derided as existing to protect the company instead of workers, and it often takes either media exposure or self-publishing (as with Susan Fowler) for discrimination against protected classes to be acknowledged, a union could be a place for the discriminated to turn to where HR reps fail. At least then you don't have to hire your own lawyer.
> unequal pay,
This might be a gender gap criticism meaning unequal pay between workers with the same title but of different genders.
> That is not the kind of decision I think employees should be deciding.
Why? The stigma of culture war and political battles aside, why shouldn't employees take part in making business decisions in general?
Basically, no.
That's what's management is for.
They can become manager's if they want to impact that, though.
Are they qualified to understand what they're talking about? If they have a disagreement, is there a reason why they wouldn't raise it via proper channels rather than effect other things that are vital to the organization?
Are they big picture thinkers that have taken the time to digest the system, uninfluenced by social pressures? Some people don't care about their organization's goals, their coworkers, and decide to act out for their own vanity, at everyone else's expense.
And that is one reason why management exists. To answer your question, while they may be wrong, there's a purpose in shielding decision making away from those who lose sight of the org's goals.
The point of the union is when management makes decisions, which can be unfair and uncaring to the worker, that their rights, safety, and livelihood also are represented with fairness. The alternative I offered to you was, in an organization large enough, they could request to move to a different project.
I don't think that analogy is proportional, since that'd make a manager at a furniture store on par with a head of state. But I get it, there isn't unlimited management roles. Because if there were, everyone would be on their own.
If you want to influence and shape business decisions - you want to be a manager.
How do you become one? By showing competence as an employee and joining a lower management position. Successes are how they climb the ladder. Yes, they definitely can innovate, and they can also play it safe.
People in upper management also hop between companies and have similar positions.
Is this clear now or do you need more help to understand?
I do believe that there's multiple problems that unions can address, and one of which is giving workers more say in how their companies are run and in what they're building.
Obviously, not all management is made up of pointy-headed bosses, and Dilbert shouldn't necessarily lead the company. There are definitely places where engineering-first cultures fail. But the status quo is made up of organizations where employee disagreement is reduced to a few pointed questions and awkward moments at all-hands, and if management fails then those employees are cut and execs get to leave with plushier severance packages. And while unions' primary purpose should be to protect the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy, they can potentially be a tool to empower employee decision making. Or at least, to provide a check against management unilaterally making decisions even when the rank-and-file disagree.
Sure, you can just say people can leave, or companies with bad management cultures should deserve to fail. But that just seems like defeatism. It seems like a form of capitalism that promotes throwaway, wasteful behavior. If the employees had valid concerns, but management ignored them, doesn't it seem like a shame for an organization to decline and the product to die because of their mistakes. What about the customers?
Even if unions aren't the best tool for this, an industry that's so obsessed with innovation and disruption and experimentation- coming up with schemes like holacracy for instance- should at least try to address this problem. Bring back board-level ombudsmen, at least. [1]