Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

The recent flowering of union membership in the tech industry really warms my heart and makes me hope that this is the start of a pro-union resurgence nation-wide that reverses the conservative anti-union backlash that has dominated the US for decades.

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.

View on HN

My concern as a libertarian is that unionizing tech will lead to calcification, decline of agility and innovation, and diversity of business structure. There's no question that the U.S. has been more innovative in tech than other countries over the past few decades. That's thanks to an entrepreneurial culture that encourages risk taking. Unions attempt to limit risk to employees. In doing so, they limit the agility of organizations. That is a significant trade-off worth pondering and debating.

We're back to upside and downside risk. If you want "flexibility", you have to offer more. The US west coast startup culture has done OK at giving staff a share of the potential upside. The games industry, on the other hand, is notorious for even successful games resulting in studio closures, and employees exposing themselves to the risks of crunch time being rewarded with layoffs.

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.

Your last statement is unfair. The gaming industry might be different, but the general software industry has among the best benefits, working hours, perks, offices, work-from-home flexibility, stock compensation, etc of any industry. And we achieved that without a union.

Funny, I feel the same way about MBA mills and slash and burn private equity firms.

That's a pretty universal viewpoint. Even the most business-friendly people would be skeptical of someone saying that private equity "warms their heart", or talking about how we need to stop MBA-busting and reverse the "liberal anti-MBA backlash".

And don't forget "let 9 fail to find 1 unicorn" VCs!

That’s why you have wildcat and general strikes. Courts rubber stamp union busting? Good luck getting your trash picked up or your grocery store stocked. Europeans figured this out a long time ago.

I would argue you still need popular support as people might find that behavior abusive. I know I'd be willing to organize dump runs in the event my trash was not being picked up for a reason I didn't agree with.

Yeah it only works when the have a monopoly on public infrastructure that they didn't pay for and get to hold the general public hostage for its use.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com