How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry
kqed.org
kqed.org
Why have we decided that untrustworthy, sometimes poorly managed organizations are acceptable when operating in the interests of shareholders, but not when operating in the interests of workers? (Note: I have never been part of a union, so this question is asked from position of ignorance.)
I don't know if kickstarter counts as a pure "tech company". They use technology, but they don't create it. Their customers are activists, so it's not surprising that their employees are, too.
Tech is absolutely not a meritocracy.
It is quite possible for a talented engineer to rise quickly out of university but nearly impossible for a talented surgeon or industrial engineer without a decade+ of effort.
Maybe that makes them better surgeons, or maybe not. But it seems to me that ageism in tech complicates comparisons to fields which value experience instead of youth.
If you don't have grey hairs, you simply are not considered for the top jobs at all in certain industries. YOE (years of experience) is nearly everything for some professions, tech is surprisingly quite robust in that regard.
The difference is between commodity labor and creative, talent-driven, or IP based production, and it seems clear which is a better metaphor for software engineers.
"Although the concept has existed for centuries, the term "meritocracy" is relatively new. It was used pejoratively by British politician and sociologist Michael Dunlop Young in his 1958 satirical essay The Rise of the Meritocracy, which pictured the United Kingdom under the rule of a government favouring intelligence and aptitude (merit) above all else, being the combination of the root of Latin origin "merit" (from "mereō" meaning "earn") and the Ancient Greek suffix "-cracy" (meaning "power", "rule")... In this book the term had distinctly negative connotations as Young questioned both the legitimacy of the selection process used to become a member of this elite and the outcomes of being ruled by such a narrowly defined group."
The assignation of "quality" in people is a corrupt and folkloric reflection of the preferences of those in power, and that phenomenon is becoming ever more pronounced as industries consolidate.
That is what I did. I studied programming for a bit, started getting among the top in online programming competitions, applied to Google and got a really high salary. Anyone who is intelligent enough can do it if they have a computer with internet access.
People sometimes counter with something along the lines of:
> Just because you could do it doesn't mean others can do it, you are just an exception!
Yeah, exactly, other people are dumb so they can't become among the best of the world in these competitions within a year. If they could they would easily get similar jobs as I did though, there was no luck or privilege in what I did just talent. So the problem isn't that meritocracy doesn't work but that merit for these tech jobs is so unevenly distributed.
"Meritocracy" as a word is sometimes used by corrupt people, but that is like North Korea calling itself a democracy, it isn't a problem with meritocracy.
It's also worth noting that the same Wikipedia article that the parent poster points to says that the concept of meritocracy predates Young's coining of the word by centuries and also details its history of successful application by many societies in various eras.
Some existing blue-collar unions have work rules like that, but I think it's a fallacy that a tech worker union would necessarily work exactly the same. To say so would be like condemning (say) Apple (as a business) by using examples from Radio Shack.
I think the main reasons for tech workers historical opposition to unions was:
1. Tech workers had rare, in-demand skills which gave them market power not enjoyed by most workers who have unionized. This is by far the biggest reason.
2. The influence of narratives different genres of free market propaganda. I think the concept of a impersonal self-regulating free market has a special intellectual appeal to the kind of people who like to design technical systems, and a lot of the mass-market works that espouse it are written for the benefit of the capitalists that benefit most acutely from that system. This is a secondary reason, but makes the first reason far more effective.
3. The influence of startup culture, which (temporarily!) creates jobs that blend worker and capitalist. Relatively few people find themselves in these kinds of roles, but they've gotten enormous amounts of publicity relative to other tech jobs.
However, not all unions operate on that model. One major example: the Screen Actors Guild
> According to SAG's Mission Statement, the Guild sought to: negotiate and enforce collective bargaining agreements that establish equitable levels of compensation, benefits, and working conditions for its performers; collect compensation for exploitation of recorded performances by its members, and provide protection against unauthorized use of those performances; and preserve and expand work opportunities for its members. (Wikipedia [0])
Actors have a lot of freedom to do what they want... For example: they can work on a big budget movie and make millions, or they can take the minimal fee and do a small low-budget artsy film. They can also write/direct/produce the movies that they act in. The guild's contracts just require that they be treated and compensated certain ways (both up front + residuals) for their acting roles.
IIRC, there are in the movie industry. I think writers, directors, etc. all have their own unions. Also given the nature of construction jobs, I'd be curious how construction trade unions compare.
Different companies in different industries can have quite different structures and cultures (e.g. McDonald's vs GM vs Google). The instantiated example of McDonald's didn't mean future companies had to be like it, and I see no reason why the instantiated example of the UAW means that another type of union structure/culture can't be created for another set of circumstances.
Plus you can't work on whatever you want - you are only allowed to work with producers that have an active agreement with the SAG (Global Rule One).
Yes and no.
1) Rules aren't interchangeable, undifferentiated things. An employer's rules are meant to mostly benefit the employer. Rules a union adds would be to mostly benefit its members.
2) A union can get employer workplace rules changed in its negotiations, if its members objected to them and they have enough negotiating power.
3) That "second group of people" could possible include you as a union member, and if it doesn't, it's a group you would have far more influence over than company management.
Reasonable people might debate what should and shouldn't be a union's responsibilities and powers - would we want closed shops to exist? what about job demarcation rules? should the union set rules around hiring, firing and promotions? - but everyone could agree a union should make sure you don't have to have sex with the producer to get a role.
And yet, the Me Too movement reveals this abhorrent behaviour has gone unchecked for years? Obviously, the blame lies with the perpetrators of the crimes - but it was a damn big oversight by the SAG.
Everybody thinks they're the actor in the hollywood comparison, and they're not. They're more likely the tech guy holding an outdated lamp under union rules.
I don't know. That reasoning sounds a bit like saying you don't need software engineers anymore because your application runs on a microcomputer, not a mainframe. I'm sure there's more to a lighting technician's role than "hold lights because they're hot."
> Last year corridor crew did a video where niko broke down how much money he could save by moving to LED lights and cutting the mandatory crew requirement and run small films at affordable prices.
Bosses don't like unions, and if you take the perspective of a boss, you probably won't like them either. What else is new?
> Everybody thinks they're the actor in the hollywood comparison, and they're not. They're more likely the tech guy holding an outdated lamp under union rules.
It beats getting dumped onto the street and pivoting suddenly into burger flipping. The point of unions is to protect its workers, not minimize employer costs. If a job is becoming truly obsolete, then the union could force the employer to retrain their workers (like what happened in this video: https://vimeo.com/127605643) or buy time for a more gradual transition.
Heck, if workers trusted they weren't going to get screwed by labor saving technology, they might not resist it as much.
Saying bosses dont like unions therefore dismissal of discussion is missing the point.
My view is too much of unionizing is underpinned by coveting other people's success and wanting to feel good after being burned.
The pareto principle and distribution of wealth isn't going to change, some unions are going to be paid off for how much discontent is felt. Which has some virtue, and not enough virtue.
Because they could make it easier for those workers. It's not like the business that laid them off is going to do a good job of that, if it's not compelled to, and retraining can be expensive and perhaps unaffordably so for someone who just lost their job.
>>> Last year corridor crew did a video where niko broke down how much money he could save by moving to LED lights and cutting the mandatory crew requirement and run small films at affordable prices.
>> Bosses don't like unions, and if you take the perspective of a boss, you probably won't like them either. What else is new?
> Saying bosses dont like unions therefore dismissal of discussion is missing the point.
No it isn't. I'm sure there prosecutors that have plenty of complaints about defense attorneys. Maybe some guilty people do get off free because of them, but we don't oppose defense attorneys because they make things hard for prosecutors. Unions serve opposing interests to bosses, so bosses' gripes should not be the main focus.
> My view is too much of unionizing is underpinned by coveting other people's success and wanting to feel good after being burned.
My view is that unionization is underpinned by the fundamental imbalance between unorganized workers and organized business.
You are not showing a desire to discuss specific, measurable, realistic and timely issues. You and most unionists here have a view of a utopian union that is above criticism and does not need examination.
Which supports my view that this is about feelings and not about the problems people proclaim to want to solve.
What problem of unorganized workers? Healthcare? Retraining? Okay lets campaign for healthcare and lower college fees. Lets pick up the debt jubilee ticket some economists are calling for. Lets make government pay for code bootcamps and have corporations underwrite months of health insurance out of work.
No none of that will work because it does not give totalitarian control of workers to unions. Nor will it allay feelings of jealousy.
I'm not "dismissing anybody/somebody/everybodies' view out of hand," but observing that you can't make everyone happy all the time. Bosses will be unhappy with unions, because oftentimes unions go against their interests and reduce the power differential when they deal with individual employees. However, there's more than just the bosses' interest at play, so it's a mistake to focus on that.
This may not be a win-win situation, and it may be just for shareholders and business owners to lose a little.
> You are not showing a desire to discuss specific, measurable, realistic and timely issues. You and most unionists here have a view of a utopian union that is above criticism and does not need examination.
No, that's not true. I don't have a utopian view of unions, but rather an objection to their out-of-hand rejection based on a couple of cliched complaints about specific instances of the type. That's also a double standard, since if we'd applied a similar standard to corporations, that concept would have been rejected long ago. I think innovation in the area of unionization is possible and welcome, but I don't have all the answers.
At this point, were at the step of merely trying to get the idea of unions put back onto the table. It is not reasonable to insist that an idea (in this case tech worker unions) be fully worked out before the first step toward it is made.
> What problem of unorganized workers?
To be blunt about it: capital is organized. When a worker deals with it, they're almost always dealing with some kind of institution, not an individual, which means they're almost always in a greatly weaker position, with all that implies. Why is it such a problem for workers to have institutions of their own to create some balance?
> No none of that will work because it does not give totalitarian control of workers to unions. Nor will it allay feelings of jealousy.
Attributing desires for worker organization to "jealousy" is a far worse dismissal than anything I did in my comments.
What would you want power for. What problem are you trying to solve. If you say individual vs collective, institute or corp for a third time without introducing an issue to be tackled, there is nothing to talk about.
Attribute the desires to anything other than power and the jealousy tag falls away.
Corporations did not start as they are, they were tiny teams of people off to do one task. How can I say any different about the implications of a new org structure like unions.
My union in Europe doesn't really do that much in my day-to-day work. As a skilled worker in demand we're generally treated very well.
But for the broader questions they are nice to have. For instance they recently spear-headed the abolishing of anti-competitive contracts. That's something a lone worker probably cannot achieve.
When I graduated they said what I should expect to be paid. Which was useful as I really didn't have that much information (compared to the companies), and it also helped to anchor the pay as no graduates would settle for lower. And the union could reveiew the contracts and see what we should push back on before signing. That in itself probably helps keeping everything straight, as the companies know they cannot get away with abusive contracts so they won't even bother trying.
In US in particular unions seemly often have power not only to defend workers but also to define workplace rules and even to veto decisions of the CEO of the company and whatnot.
Also in US unions were first born in a extremely violent manner, with both sides actually killing each other, and the culture there is thus much more antagonistic, unions and companies are perceived as literal enemies, where even violence is actually possible (not that people would use violence currently but people might not forget violence of the past).
From what I heard European unions have a more "cooperative" relationship with the company.
Yes, they are. I've been working a booth at a convention showing off some tech and asked a passing worker for an extension cord. The response was that they asked on the radio, but the only person available to perform this role was on lunch so it'd be at least 45 minutes until I could get an extension cord.
I have had this happen in many different situations when working with union members.
Anecdotally, I do not want to be a part of any union that has these types of rules.
you replied to this with a one-off anecdote to spread fud
It's not universally bad but, as someone else said, organizations become about themselves and their leadership. A former GF was in a union and she had very few good things to say about hers. [ADDED: That is an anecdote. I state no opinion about unions generally.]
> Yes, they are. I've been working a booth at a convention showing off some tech and asked a passing worker for an extension cord. The response was that they asked on the radio, but the only person available to perform this role was on lunch so it'd be at least 45 minutes until I could get an extension cord.
While the anecdote is true, it's also FUD, because there's no good reason to expect a tech worker's union would work like that. It would exist to solve tech worker's problems, which are different than those of a convention center worker. If tech workers would chafe at rigid role definitions, a tech worker's union that they control would not impose them.
Name a union, any union, that does not impose rigid role definitions.
The fact is, there aren't any. Their entire purpose is to categorize employees into roles as a basis for bargaining. If every worker was unique, then collective bargaining would be impossible. The entire point is to group people together and bargain for the rights of that group, and to sign up every member of that group to the deal that was obtained.
I worked at Northrop Grumman a decade ago as a developer and a lot of the non-tech people were unionized. There were certain things I was not allowed to do because it was the job of some union person. For example, moving equipment was prohibited. When I changed desks I wasn't allowed to move my phone, PC, or monitors, I had to let the person whose job it was to do that, do that. It only happened twice, but in both instances I was without a computer and phone for a day or two, even though my old desk wasn't too far away. It was annoying and seemed illogical.
1. abolition of non-compete agreements
2. ownership of code we write when we're not at work
3. standards for privacy and security enforced by working engineers and not by management
Maybe your list is different than mine, but if you can think of anything we might want that goes against the profit motive of corporations, a union (or a guild, or whatever you want to call it) is a proven way to get these things. The Writer's Guild of America guarantees the screenwriters of a movie are credited, for example -- imagine all software had a list of the people who made it!
A union isn't just that, though is it?
It's also a beast in its own right, with its own politics and power struggles and debates and meetings and people taking a paycheck from your union dues.
A union doesn't even necessarily act in your interests. It acts in the interests of the majority of members, who may be out to actively harm your interests. And versus its own survival a union is never going to put your interests first. Why would it?
> If we don't want BS work rules, we don't have to have them.
Right but what if your colleagues what these BS work rules? What if you're junior and they want pay by seniority?
>with its own politics and power struggles and debates and meetings... A union doesn't even necessarily act in your interests. It acts in the interests of the majority of members
If your going to chastise the process of advocating for your views then complain that somehow they don't get taken into account then I don't know what to tell you. If your concerned that the interests of other members are outweighing yours, then participate. If you don't want to deal with it, don't join the union.
>people taking a paycheck from your union dues
Oh my gosh, contributing to something that you get value from... what a crazy concept. If you don't get value from the union, then see above; change it or don't join.
>Right but what if your colleagues what these BS work rules?
Why does the assumption automatically go towards "unions would be TERRIBLE"? Most devs don't like to put up with BS, so why do you think a union made up of devs would somehow institute a ton of BS rules just because it's a union. Again, if you don't want BS union rules, then make sure the union doesn't institute them by actually participating.
>What if you're junior and they want pay by seniority?
I hate to break it to you, but that's called the real world.
At the end of the day, a union is about shifting the balance of power and advocating for the things the union sees as valuable. What are the things you'd change about tech employment if you could? How could a union be more effective at achieving those changes? A union doesn't have to just be focused on pay scales and bureaucracy.
Please, stop bringing up historical anecdotes as reasons why a tech union wouldn't work. It's funny how you don't bring up things like strong health care and training as anecdotes on the other side.
The question of whether or not there will be "union shops" or not is still yet to be seen. Whether or not there would be is a question of the union and the employers (i.e. TBD).
"with 46 employees voting in favor of the move and 37 opposing it".
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-un...
Unions are also about leveraging power. While someone can try to start a union with any number of people, how much they can actually negotiate is going to hinge a lot on that number. Is 55% of the workforce enough to have significant leverage? I don't know and it depends on what the union wants. Would the union be able to reach an agreement with the employer that would force the others to join the union? That would seem like quite a stretch to me.
This isn't an option in USA unless you live in a right to work state. The US left pushes hard against right to work, meaning everyone will be forced to join workplace unions when/if they are formed. This includes basically all tech hotspots including California and New York, if your colleagues organizes a union there you will be forced to join. This include this Kickstarter union btw, likely a lot of its members don't actually want to be a part of the union.
Because right to work is a union-busting tactic
>meaning everyone will be forced to join workplace unions when/if they are formed
This is wrong in a number of ways. First off, the formation of a union does not require that all employees instantaneously join it. Second, the union still needs to have an agreement with an employer. So if your workplace doesn't unionize, it doesn't matter if the one on the other side of town does. It doesn't magically just flip an "isUnion" bit and completely change everyone's employment situation in one fell swoop.
>if your colleagues organizes a union there you will be forced to join
If you workplace unionizes, then you _may_ be forced to join. There is no guarantee that a union would force joining to keep your job, although historically that has been the case. Much of that was due to a lot of the improvements that unions were negotiating for being very hard to "split" between union an non-union members (i.e. safer machines in a factory were a benefit to everyone, not just union members). In a tech union, who's to say that has to be that way. If unions negotiated for things like always having the latest hardware for members, it would be easier for non-union members at the same shop to be given whatever hardware your employer decided. Basically, a tech union may not be bound to the same constraints as traditional unions might have been.
>likely a lot of its members don't actually want to be a part of the union.
But if it's members don't want to be part of the union, then why is there a union. Part of that statement doesn't jive with the other.
No it isn't, right to work exists in the entire EU since EU enforces it. Union participation is still way higher here than in USA. Obviously right to work isn't hurting union participation that much, or unions would be dead over here.
Banning right to work is just there to protect corrupt unions from members being able to leave a corrupt union on their own.
> But if it's members don't want to be part of the union, then why is there a union. Part of that statement doesn't jive with the other.
Because other members wanted to be a part of the union. If 70% wanted the union but 30% were forced to join then those 30% still didn't want the union afterwards, it is that simple.
Are all states right-to-work?
On the other hand I wonder if it might have inadvertent effects on other things, like maybe free software.
There's also a strong libertarian or at least individualist strain of thought in both Silicon Valley culture and in engineering which presumes that those high salaries are because of one's inherent 10x rockstar ninja abilities, and not because of market conditions. Also often a trend towards apoliticism, wanting to just be left alone to code and not engage in the dirty tribalist business of politicking.
Finally, there's a widespread conception that "unions have failed, unions just can't work." This despite that labor unions did work in the past, do continue to work outside of the U.S., and somehow an industry focused on disruption and innovation is unable to improve on unions.
Do you have any evidence that the Kickstarter Union has done anything in the direction you're talking about?
It sort of reminds me of the Sierra Club in SF. I recall it being some sort of enviro org but now all they discuss is housing and all the outdoors guys are sad about it. I'm sure when your organization is parasitized and similarly subverted, you will feel sad too.
But not all the tears of your founding members will undo the harm done. No, better the bomb remain unbuilt².
¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702393
² And I went to the Chase Bank near Avalon Street in San Francisco the other day. Avalon Street wasn't called Avalon, originally. The story of how it became Avalon, how another became Peru, and yet another became Excelsior provides a nice backstop to any weakening of my resolve. Unions are a Brazen Bull.
Those guys are waiting on the sidelines and they're stronger than you so when you make the weapon they will take it from you and they'll point it at me. You're no opponent to me, but I've got the Maginot Line and you're the Low Countries. So when I see the Wehrmacht prep the Sichelschnitt, I can either sink the Low Countries or I can extend the Line. And I'm all out of bricks.
And of course you don't see those comments. They rarely speak the truth which they think, but every now and then it glimmers through a crack¹.
Why do I say your argument relies on an abstract notion? Because you've not provided any evidence that any of the efforts to unionize in the U.S. tech industry- whether the Kickstarter union, or the TWC, or any other fledgling efforts to organize- constitute an actual threat to immigration. Sure, you've provided evidence that there are anti-immigrant voices in the industry, and that is definitely a cause for concern. That said, you haven't established any material link that the two distinct phenomena are connected. There's no evidence that anti-H-1B nativists are agitating for unionizing in tech. And no, the US Tech Workers Trojan horse [0] does not count. The only comment you cite is yourself making the case for them and one commentator agreeing with you. Hardly an entire Know-Nothing movement.
But tech is dominated by rampant xenophobia from the have-nots. They fear the Chinese, the Indians, the god-knows-who-else. This much is clear. While they are weak and disunited, their force is dissipated in online froth. If they are united, they can probably move mountains.
So, while the status quo is undesirable to me, I'm not all that keen on your providing a platform for xenophobes to unite. Preventing this egg from hatching is the optimal play.
Alternatively, you could adopt a measure of good faith: A founding immutable tenet of all these organizations can be that they will always act to increase the number of legal immigrants that can arrive in America. It's pretty easy to demonstrate that the bomb cannot work against me and all those millions who I count similar to me.
So show me.
I understand that there is an undercurrent of right-wing reaction in Silicon Valley. TechCrunch was breaking the news on neoreactionaries as early as in 2013, and recent political developments have only accelerated right-wing radicalism since then.
That said, by refusing to do something to advance worker power in the fear that it might be used by xenophobes seems like a fundamentally defeatist attitude to take, and rather ignorant of who's who. Xenophobes are not the ones pushing for tech workers to organize.
I'm asking for the equivalent of an ignition interlock device. It is not the world. It merely prevents subversion against the cause. Easy to do. Shuts down my line of argument entirely and honestly, I'll be fine with that.
The only other comments I found were by union proponents, who celebrated the fact that with unions, it wouldn't matter if someone was an immigrant, or how many immigrants worked in the US, because unions would protect them and native citizens alike and equally[3]:
> I feel like rather than pitting immigrants against native born workers, and trying to come up with the perfect arcane rule, we should have sectoral bargaining where the workers could negotiate pay standards directly with their employers. Then it wouldn't matter where someone is from, because they'd be covered by that contract, and the government could get out of the way of the labor market.
To me, it seems like you're projecting anti-immigrant sentiments on people who are both pro-immigration and pro-union.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24704597
But you can win me over trivially. Take your union. Add a single immutable tenet: This union will always act to increase legal immigration in America. Now you have a union I will support. After all, if you're pro-immigration, this is merely a formalization of your position. It's a win-win.
I think you will find that most unions support immigration, and provide protections for immigrants.
For example, the largest union in the US, the AFL-CIO, is currently running a "Protect All Workers" campaign[1] specifically for immigrant protections:
> In recent weeks, the federal government took vital steps to address our national health emergency and mitigate its economic damage by passing a series of COVID-19 bills. Unfortunately, millions of immigrant workers who help to build, serve and feed our nation were excluded from the essential coverage and benefits in these bills.
> Congress is currently at work on a fourth COVID-19 bill, and it is vital this one addresses the needs of our nation’s immigrants. It should lift immigrant restrictions on emergency Medicaid testing and treatment, extend work permits for essential workers under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and temporary protected status programs, provide cash payments and other vital benefits to all taxpayers, and halt immigration policies that elevate risk in our communities.
I highly doubt that any of the anti-immigrant posters in the H1B thread would agree with any of those benefits being given to immigrants of any status.
Though that might seem superficial and only skin deep, however the AFL-CIO has been promoting immigration reform for years[2].
Here's what they say about immigration on their site[3]:
> Since our nation’s founding, immigrants and refugees have enriched the fabric of our communities, our workforce and our labor movement. Like it was for generations of immigrants before, the labor movement is the natural home for new immigrants struggling to achieve economic security and win social justice, and our commitment to building an immigration system that represents the needs and interests of all working people is fierce and unwavering.
> The only way to stop the race to the bottom in wages and standards is for working people of all races, religions and immigration status to stand together and demand an end to policies that put profits over people. The entire workforce suffers when millions struggle to support their families without a way to speak up on the job, and ramping up fear in our workplaces only serves to increase exploitation. Instead of deporting immigrants, we need to ensure that all working people have rights on the job and are able to exercise them without fear of retaliation. Enacting meaningful immigration reform is critical to our long-term efforts to lift labor standards and empower workers, and the labor movement will continue to stand in solidarity with all working people.
> America's labor movement is never backing down, not an inch, on its commitment to full immigrant rights in this country.” -Tefere Gebre
> $900B: The amount in lost revenue over 10 years that mass deportation would cost the federal government.
[1] https://actionnetwork.org/letters/protect-all-workers-3
[2] https://aflcio.org/resolution/labor-movements-principles-com...
Today, they feel this. When tomorrow they must cast us aside to win something more essential to them, will they stand strong? They didn't in the past. Why would they now?
Even 2 million strong they are subject to Stolper-Samuelson.
Given the anti H1-B sentiment often displayed in various places, should any of the foreign-born here trust that a software developer union would remain pro-immigration? I wouldn't; there's too much historical precedent.
If it will offer clarification, I speak in the context of America.
https://techworkerscoalition.org
https://logicmag.io/the-making-of-the-tech-worker-movement/f...
https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/13/14264804/palantir-immigra...
If you think any of these groups are going to produce something that can be turned into a nativist movement, then you don't seem to have a clear idea about the state of modern politics.
The hesitance indicates to me a desire to tack into shifting winds: useful, perhaps, to you who only has goals accidentally coincident to mine, but deleterious to me. But that's overly judgmental, perhaps you simply haven't had the time.
The schism is fixable. I will wait, acting only to preserve the trenches as they are. But until then it remains a schism.
When has a modern day labor union operating in the tech industry harmed you in the past?
The modern day / ancient day distinction is akin to the difference between the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and The Kingdom of God: it is obvious to adherents and invisible to those without.
Creating distinctions temporally does me no benefit. What has been can be once again. What was done to my great-grandparents can be done to me. The entities that did these things can revert to their atavistic forms. Except, except, except if they fix their forms forward. Something I will gladly accept.
Given that the FLDS is an excommunicated body that is infamous for continuing disavowed practices, it shouldn't be too difficult to distinguish between them even among Gentiles (there's an HBO show based on them).
> Except, except, except if they fix their forms forward
Except, labor unions, like nearly any other social organization (even churches!) have changed and modernized over the past century. Your insistence that those present and visible changes are false is bordering on irrational zealotry. It drains both energy and meaning out of a debate and clearly you want to persist in your indefensible concern trolling. Sous vide? Sola fide.
Some might say that unions are better, but that has not been true historically in the US - they have a long history of corruption, power-grabbing, leadership with incentives that aren't aligned with the best interests of their union members, extreme resistance to change that would fix problems, centralizing so that your workplace's specific concerns are irrelevant to the union (since your workplace makes up such a small percentage of the union), protecting crappy employees based solely on seniority, and generally stagnating the company (sometimes making it less competitive).
When I think of strong unions in the US, I think of police, teachers, federal employees, and professional sports. Not exactly examples of unions as positive forces.
Europe has a totally different union model that is interesting and seems to work better, but it isn't really an option in the US.
Can you say more about what prevents a union in that model from being formed in the US?
TL;DR, the prevailing theory is that it's cultural.
> SUEDEKUM: Culturally, there is a sense [that] you have to be flexible when circumstances change, when new challenges arise. This is deeply embedded in the German approach of doing things.
> MARIN: That is part of a cultural thing: people trust each other.
> This culture, Marin says, also manifests itself in management style. Her research has shown that German C.E.O.’s are more willing to grant decision-making power to lower management. And that, she argues, improves quality. Because those are the managers who have the best sense of what customers want. This requires C.E.O.’s to have quite a bit of faith in their managers.
> You may be surprised to learn that German workers willingly accept a wage lower than the one their union negotiated. But they’d learned from history. Specifically, from their own history at the end of the Cold War.
In the US, unions are required to represent a legally-defined "unit". Generally this constitutes a group of workers with a well-defined role (e.g. line workers in a factory, butchers in a supermarket, graduate students in the UC system, teachers in California, etc.). When such a unit wishes to unionize, the members in the unit vote whether to establish a union. Assuming a sufficient number vote in favor, a union is formed that becomes the sole, exclusive, permanent (until dissolution) representative of all members of the unit during contract negotiations. This means that all members of the unit, including non-union members, are represented by the union for contract negotiations and it is illegal for anybody else, including yourself, to negotiate on your behalf (technically it is illegal for the business to negotiate with anybody other than the union, but this is functionally the same thing since any such agreement would be non-binding and then they would get fined for no benefit). In addition, no other union can legally be created that can represent any members of the unit. The only way to get different representation in such cases is to either dissolve the existing union or to vote out the leadership.
Ask the manufacturing sector
Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power, like workers in other industries.
Many software companies offer equity, which makes employers the shareholders. What's good for shareholders is also good for a lot of tech employees.
Also, barriers to entry in software are almost 0. If you can't get someone to treat you well, you can have your own software company paying your bills in 6 months, or VCs funding your startup.
Given all that I personally think the downsides of unions in tech would be much higher than the upsides. I would rather see more laws universally protecting intellectual workers like e.g. non-enforcability of non-compete clauses and alikes.
In USA that is, things can be very different abroad.
[1] https://www.chinabusinessreview.com/trade-union-law-and-coll...
Of course, some would say taking the ACFTU as representative of unions is like taking the East India Company as representative of multinational corporations...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-China_Federation_of_Trade_...
United artists, AFTRA, WGA, DGA, all formed when their skills were in high demand. There's a natural employer/employee power dynamic that even Adam Smith talks about. If his fanboys only read his books they'd know that.
There's an alternative narrative where the government steps in and says hey, you have to allow unions. In practice, while some government support is necessary, this doesn't seem to lead to powerful unions in the same way.
> I would rather see more laws universally protecting intellectual workers like e.g. non-enforcability of non-compete clauses and alikes
One of this must be incorrect. If tech workers have good negotiating power, they should be able to get rid of non-compete clauses. If they can't, see, that's what union can do (at least try to negotiate) for you.
But a law like in CA is much better solution for cases like that, than dealing with Unions, IMO.
In practice though, I fear, they will be overtaken by parasites, will advance bureaucratic BS, political opinions, protections for people who game the system, start mandating nonsense technological choices, hurt the efficiency, and just drive the well-paying industry into a ground, forcing capital to just move software companies into places that are better for business.
Surely this would have been the case for movie studios, given that every actor they do business with is a member of SAG-AFTRA. Movie stars can command multi-million dollar contracts with studios with the help of SAG-AFTRA, and the same union protects everyone down to the background actors. Yet studios remain in the US despite your fear that they'd leave.
But we already have democratically elected representatives that can also do this for us. For instance in California, non-competes are already basically not enforceable thanks to legislative action.
As another example, see the lawsuits a few years ago that were ruled in favor of workers for wage fixing at Google and Apple.
The structures are already in place give these sorts of reasonable protections, why add another bureaucratic, big, slow, expensive, greedy organization into the mix when we can use the processes we already have? (If the argument is that government is not responsive enough, that's a problem for many other reasons too, let's fix it).
I am skeptical about this. At public companies, it seems like in general shareholders do an ineffective job at reigning in management. See e.g. all the discussions around executive pay, as well as the proportion of shares that are held through passive funds.
Within tech in some cases (e.g. FB) extra means were taken so that shareholders have even less control than is typical.
Within private companies, employees with vested options typically have far less visibility into company finances than do the VCs, and certainly don't have a board seat or the ability to vote. I.e. being an employee shareholder at a startup often gives you no ability to see whether management is actually working in your interest, and certainly no special input into corporate governance.
But the point is - if the company granted me some equity, than I participate in the upside and even if certain decision seems not perfect for me as a employee, and they "just benefit the shareholder", I am too a shareholder, and at least I might get some dollars to wipe away my tears.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/07/an-ipo-could-make-these-work...
https://www.barrons.com/articles/snowflake-showed-that-ipos-...
And that's assuming if the equity ever actually does become worth anything. Or if they even get equity.
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2020/03/30/laid-off...
What?
If that actually describes you, then yeah a union membership isn't for you. For the rest of us, this doesn't really apply though...
> Also, barriers to entry in software are almost 0
One of these statements has to be false. I think it's the second one.
It's true that software has few regulatory or credential barriers. However not everyone is cut out for a career in tech. In fact very few are. This natural moat keeps the supply of workers lower than other industries, making unions less necessary.
Nonsense. Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay all colluded with each other to keep tech worker compensation below its market rate[1].
Good luck negotiating a group health plan that an employer buys as a single employee.
> Given all that I personally think the downsides of unions in tech would be much higher than the upsides.
I would rather go with the facts, and not how you in particular feel about the issue.
The facts are that white collar employees that are union members have higher pay[2], better benefits, more time off, and report higher life satisfaction[3] compared to their non-union peers.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
[2] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf
[3] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160449X16643321
Unions could also help in the world of game studios, to stop the deeply harmful practice of "crunch".
Of course they do. Because Unions drive competitiveness down, decrease efficiency, increase costs and so on. A lot of people would be very satisfied if they didn't have to work as hard and their paycheck would be pretty effortlessly guaranteed, and competition within the industry was kept in check.
But everybody else have to pay for it . And then naive socialists who advance labor unions forget about it, and start another campaign on why can't blue collar workers afford any white collar services anymore. Why are public teachers collectively not doing great job despite second in the world spending per student. And then riot on the streets why some cops are shooting people for no good reason, after years of people reporting their abuse. (I'm not saying that unions are the only or even main reason, but they sure do contribute to the problem).
Why are public teachers collectively not doing great job despite second in the world spending per student.
US government spending on education is high. However, US average teacher salary is ranked 7th in the world (Canada pays better, apparently). You're trying to attribute this spending inefficiency to teacher unions, where the problem is poor government spending (educational-industrial complex). Selling to governments is a big business; more software, more technology, more programming. Education in America has become commercial industry. That spending should probably be on teacher training programs instead.
https://naibuzz.com/10-countries-with-the-highest-teachers-s...
In fact to claim a union could have avoided this situation is backwards: unions create cross-firm wage fixing agreements as part of their core policy goals.
The facts are that white collar employees that are union members have higher pay[2]
Averaged across all industries, yes: because they engage in industry-wide wage fixing. That's great if you can't command a high rate yourself, sucks if you can as you're chopped down to their level.
But we're not talking about all industries, we're talking about the tech industry. And if you compare the tech industry vs other industries, there are no unions (except this one) and there are high wages.
How exactly do you see something like this coming to fruition without labor organization? There’s no way federal law like this happens without some sort of coordinated effort to compel congress to pass such a law.
Fundamentally disagree with you right there. Civil rights, marriage equality, and countless other freedoms bestowed on Americans came from Federal action. If Congress never passed the civil rights act, we might still have segregated bathrooms in half of the US today. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with legislating at the Federal level.
> California made non-competes non-enforceable.
Yeah, back when they ratified their common codes in the 1800’s, it didn’t happen in the modern era. If such legislation were to pass today, you bet labor organizations would be behind it.
I'm sorry but that is not true at all.
Yet doctors and lawyers and pilots have strong unions in all but name. What do you suppose they know that we don’t?
Many software companies offer equity, which makes employers the shareholders. What's good for shareholders is also good for a lot of tech employees.
I’m sorry but this is just naive. Preferred stock and dilution make shares owned by rank-and-file employees nothing more than a rounding error these days. It was different back in the 90s when all the myths around stock options were formed but those days are long gone.
Agree on non-public companies. I've been part of three, one is still going 10 years after I left and two were acquired. Net value of my equity was $0.
Isn't it protection from patients/clients/passengers, not employers, because of how visible they are as individuals and how directly they affect lives?
If your choices are between working for one of several capital-owned tech conglomerates, or accepting their money for the runway to compete in the current business climate, can you really call that an even playing field?
The second and third order effects of labor unions are class consciousness, something that the people on this forum seem to constantly miss.
37 people voted against unionization of kickstarter, that is 37 people who were forced to join a union against their will. "Nobody is forcing you, except if a majority of your colleagues wants to force you of course..." isn't a good argument.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-un...
Presumably, you and your employer entered into some contract in which you are compensated for your labor. If you find the terms unconscionable, perhaps you should petition your legislators to change the labor laws (this is where democracy is appropriate).
As an aside, I do not understand where the notion that <something> + democracy is always going to be better than <something>. I never would have thought back in college that banding together with my fellow physics majors and demanding what we're taught and how we're graded would produce better outcomes; I choose my school/department because of the reputation resulting from the faculty's decisions. I imagine the same goes with most employees at most companies - a lot of engineers want to work at FAANG because of what <ceo> is doing. Democracy works well for things you can't opt out of, like society. I doubt Apple products would be as good if Steve Jobs let every engineer into the boardroom.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23535292
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889
Also, if the consequences to decisions were always attainable a priori, I doubt management would make bad decisions. It's easy to look at Microsoft and say Ballmer dropped the ball on mobile, but then again they still don't have a competitive product to iOS or Android and are doing well. Was Ballmer wrong/right? Is Nadella wrong/right? It was hard to say in 2007 and it's still difficult to say in 2020.
The Audi example is only a good example in that management is listening to a group of employees who are advocating for a position in which the market is already trending (which also happens to have substantial environmental benefits). We wouldn't applaud BP if they opted to do more drilling at the request of their oil rig workers.
For whatever reason, who ever was responsible for putting your manager in place trusts that person; you can appeal to your manager if you think they are making a bad decision or you can appeal to their manager that you think they are ill suited to their position. After that, you've exhausted your options at that company and aren't owed anything further. I would strongly suggest to any job seekers that if having a seat at the table is important to you, assess that when you are interviewing. Find or start a company in which that is the culture.
Now I do have to caveat all this with that I am 30, no kids, and live in decently sized market for tech. I may be more cavalier with my "if you don't like it, then leave" attitude. I find the ombudsman position interesting and was unaware of the history around it and HR. I will have to look into that more, thank you for the knowledge.
And yet, despite startups' attempts to introduce concepts such as transparency, "radical candor", "employee wellness", even radical experiments like holacracy, etc., at the end of the day the core of these businesses are the same old corporate structures.
And amidst the high-paced, high-stakes froth of move fast and fueled by the promise of dumb money, many firms end up having mgmt. that shall we say, are more susceptible to mistakes, and persist in them despite discontent from the rank and file. And despite performative attempts to promote open discourse and welcome questions, they often don't listen to that discontent. So those truly unhappy just jump ship. Which is fine to some extent, but it just feels like it's contributing to an unsustainable throwaway culture.
> After that, you've exhausted your options at that company and aren't owed anything further.
> I may be more cavalier with my "if you don't like it, then leave" attitude.
But what about the end user? The customers who will be failed if the company does? And what about the product itself? If someone who works on it feels like company leadership isn't making the right choices, and if their concerns are echoed by a good amount of the workforce, shouldn't they at least be given the chance to appeal to the board?
It just feels highly hypocritical that an industry that sees itself as so forward-looking and enlightened, so flexible and boundaries breaking, just ends up conforming to the same corporate fiat structure at the end. It really belies the messaging of being able to "make a difference."
Arguably it was achieved first and foremost because increase in productivity caused by capital investments actually made it economically possible.
I mean, I don't deny that 19th century capitalists required a little bit of a "push" for it to actually happen, but it's debatable if it was actually necessary and wouldn't just happen naturally.
> class consciousness
That's a part of political opinion, that I just don't share. I was born in family of a blue collar family of a coal miner and school janitor, now I'm a intellectual worker, and in a way I already joined "evil capitalist class" and hope to entrench myself in it even more with time.
Thinking in people having assigned "classes" is just so a low-resolution way to look at complex reality, that it is just not helpful.
> If your choices are between working for one of several capital-owned tech conglomerates, or accepting their money for the runway to compete in the current business climate, can you really call that an even playing field?
I just don't think labor organizations help with anything. What helps is having more options (competition), better social mobility (access to education and knowledge) and general economic prosperity that allow entrepreneurship (taking risks). Labor unions typically work against all of it.
I do know that field is not level, but I just think naive ways to trying to level it make more harm than good.
> I mean, I don't deny that 19th century capitalists required a little bit of a "push" for it to actually happen, but it's debatable if it was actually necessary and wouldn't just happen naturally.
Well, given that, with the subsequent increases in productivity since then, the work week could could easily be reduced by another day (32 hours work week), but no such change has yet happened naturally, I don't see why you would believe that it would have happened then either.
> I just don't think labor organizations help with anything. What helps is having more options (competition), better social mobility (access to education and knowledge) and general economic prosperity that allow entrepreneurship (taking risks). Labor unions typically work against all of it.
And yet, before mass labor organizations you had children being forced to work, and everyone working longer hours for 6 days a week, with no worker safety laws to speak of; and, with the hard struggles of labor unions (which included getting shot by US military forces!) you live in a world with worker safety regulations, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, etc.
Basically, I think your post shows exactly what class-consciousness does for you. Most working-class people can see very well how stacked the deck is against them, and have few illusions about how explicitly the current system is working to keep them down (their biggest illusion is that they can't do anything about it, or that it's foreign workers' fault - both of these the result of explicit propaganda/PR efforts). But if you manage to move into the capitalist class, your perspective often changes, as your seems to have, and you start believing the system as it is works well, and actually start to work for it - like you are here, trying to convince people that unions would be harmful for our own interests.
To be clear, I am in no way accusing you of not believing what you are saying! I am just pointing out that it is exactly an example of class-consciousness at work: since you are part of the capitalist class, you believe more in the good of the capitalist class as the one likely to bring the most benefit to everyone. Myself, part of the working class, believe that the good of the working class will bring more overall good in the world.
Unions are owned/compromised of workers. Workers vote on issues that affect them.
Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power, like workers in other industries.
Absolutely true, but if demand wasn't so high and supply wasn't so short, what happens to worker leverage and treatment?
Many software companies offer equity, which makes employers the shareholders. What's good for shareholders is also good for a lot of tech employees.
Equity compensation is a result of the pressures of a competitive labour market. If companies could get away with not handing out equity, they would. But since the other guys are paying so well, they are forced to up the ante.
Also, barriers to entry in software are almost 0. If you can't get someone to treat you well, you can have your own software company paying your bills in 6 months, or VCs funding your startup.
An exaggeration. You're not getting hired at the big players without a degree and/or significant experience. Software engineering != entrepreneurship. The majority of software devs would not be able to pay their own bills after 6 months of working on their own projects. Most projects fail.
There is a reason all the big sports leagues are unionized with player associations (also highly skill specialized, limited labour supply pool). They are able to negotiate for 50% of league revenue and establish protections. There are downsides; the highest earners are giving up their ability to earn true market wage (ex: a salary cap creates a wage maximum on an individual). But in general I've never heard a pro athlete say that the union has not given them measurable benefit and otherwise higher long term gain.
"We the people" is a founding myth, and it's our myth, but it's still a political myth similar to the divine right of kings, a way of justifying the rule of the many by the few. The leaders are not the masses, no matter what anyone pretends.
(I'm not saying I have a better idea, but let's not be naive about principal-agent problems.)
A representational "democracy", compared to other systems, has the least potential for corruption.
If unions do in fact give workers more representation/power, than game theory says it is a worthwhile trade off, as we expect average worker gains to be net positive of any corruption losses.
In direct democracy, a decision still needs to be made on what to vote on. As an example, if you look at California propositions, these aren't necessarily all that well drafted. Often propositions are created by business interests and approved by people coming out of stores who aren't thinking very carefully about what petitions they sign.
And after that point, you're putting an algorithm is in charge of making the final decision. This isn't necessarily better than having a leader in charge, because the leader can maybe think of creative compromises and the algorithm can't.
If you study voting systems you'll see they all have flaws, and they are all very simple-minded algorithms compared to people. Whether they actually capture the "will of the people" is impossible to say since the "will of the people" isn't really a thing. There are just people with a lot of different opinions.
Athletes' unions exist to protect the players at the bottom, who are just talented enough to play at the professional level but aren't superstars, like the offensive line in football or the bench players in basketball.
Notably: many of the athletes' unions predate the era of the monopolistic sports leagues. (The modern NFL, MLB, and NBA are all the products of the mergers of smaller leagues, and their players' unions formed before they achieved monopoly status.)
How do we test this hypothesis? Do we know that tech companies couldn't afford to double the wages of all their staff, or is that an assumption we've made based on high wages relative to other industries?
I imagine the likes of Apple could certainly pay their devs a lot more.
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/08/research-rev...
Not just their devs, but all of their workers.
Yes, a lot of engineers at FAANG make more than $400k total comp. People seem to have a hard time believing that, but it's true. And according to that chart, only two companies actually make that much profit per employee.
Seriously markets only go up (and the absurd inflation of tech company stock prices since 2008) is a deep, deep problem with society which will inevitably end.
Companies exist to reward their shareholders. Employees at most companies get paid as little as possible, as long as they don't quit. At tech companies, employees are shareholders and therefore they get to be part of the group of people that the company exists to reward.
If you approach your stock compensation with that understanding, you'll be fine. If you expect the stock to only ever increase in value then you are being stupid. In my experience, tech workers at public companies are pretty savvy about their stock compensation. At startups, it's another matter...
This is the problem as I see it: $400k sounds like a good compensation, but we have no idea if that's as high as FAANGs would go. Maybe all those engineers could be on $800k if they'd negotiated better.
We don't, and can't, know the answer to this problem. And frankly it doesn't matter if those engineers are happy with $400k, and FAANG companies happy paying them that, then everybody comes away feeling like they've won. I'm just wondering if, as a whole, engineers are actually leaving a lot of money on the table because using the 'market rate' is really the average of all the negotiations that have come before, and if the average engineer is bad at negotiating that means everyone is basing their salary expectation on lots of previous low offers that people shouldn't really have accepted.
This is really a pricing problem, and everyone knows pricing is hard.
If I have to split $2,000,000 between you and me, but you don't know how much money there is, then you might be happy with me giving you $400,000. That's $400,000 you didn't have before. Hell yeah, $400k! That's loads. The fact we're both going away happy doesn't make it right though. There's a big disparity there. If you found out that I'd kept 4* what you got you'd have every reason to be pissed about it.
That's what I'm suggesting FAANG companies might be doing - giving developers $400k, which makes them very happy, while keeping a far greater amount for themselves that could have been distributed between the workers at the company had those workers negotiated better by having greater knowledge of the system.
I don't even know if that's really a bad thing if that's what's going on. The line that I originally quoted ("Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power") just made me wonder if it's actually true that demand for tech workers has really driven wages to a natural equilibrium, or whether we just think that's true because $400k sounds like a lot.
Do you honestly believe that every penny a company makes ought to be given to its employees?
If not, then why should employees expect to make more than the market rate for the labor they provide?
I didn't suggest anything of the sort. I said that maybe companies are paying their employees much less than they could, and that maybe employees aren't getting a good deal despite wages being high relative to other industries. I didn't say that all of the value an employee generates should go to that employee - just maybe it could be more than does right now.
If not, then why should employees expect to make more than the market rate for the labor they provide?
"Market rate" is basically the median negotiated salary for similar roles. There's an assumption that a salary is like a price, and supply and demand will drive that price up for in-demand skills. This is the part I'm challenging. I don't know if price theory works for salaries where one side of the market (employers) has far more information and leverage than the other side (developers). If most developers are bad negotiators then getting a "market rate" salary means you, as an individual, are being paid the same as the other bad negotiators, and you actually lost out on getting a higher salary.
It could be that using the market rate to derive the appropriate salary for a job actually keeps developer wages lower than they could otherwise be.
At this point this is all just futile speculation though, and no one is going to change anything so we might as well just accept it.
Ok, then most FAANG engineers are far above the market rate. If they unionized they would probably lose money when the union tries to level everyone out.
We all know people at companies that give devs 'lesser' titles (and lower wages) and then expect the person to do the work of the higher title role.
> Many software companies offer equity, which makes employers the shareholders. What's good for shareholders is also good for a lot of tech employees.
> Also, barriers to entry in software are almost 0. If you can't get someone to treat you well, you can have your own software company paying your bills in 6 months, or VCs funding your startup.
Points 1 and 3 apply, perhaps, to Silicon Valley, but not as much in the rest of the world. I currently work in the Netherlands - there are plenty of jobs and the pay can be good, but at the end of the day you're just another worker. The disparity in negotiating power is still enormous.
Point 2 is mostly not that relevant (outside of SV). Even if you get some equity, it will be peanuts. I worked at a company that had a very successful IPO. We all got a few stock options, enough to make a few tens of thousands of euros if you sold them at the right time. The actual shareholders (the ones with decision power) made from tens of millions to billions. The disparity is enormous.
I just don't want to be forced to be a member or forced to give a chunk of my paycheck.
Kickstarter and now Spotify have both been about editorial control. Not hours. Not wages. Not roles.
If you include IT workers and programmers in certain non-technology companies, I think their position could be improved by unionization.
If you include engineers working for technology companies, unionization is less needed. This group has good working conditions on the whole. Personally when I have been frustrated with corporate work-life, it is usually for reasons that unionization would make worse (office politics, byzantine procedures, unproductive coworkers).
Using the second, narrower definition above, tech workers are paid well and we get to sit in comfortable chairs in air-conditioned offices all day long. I mean, if you work for a startup company it will probably lose money and yet you are paid, sometimes handsomely. It's not as if management is exploiting you if you keep getting paid while the startup is steadily going bankrupt.
Maybe I've just been lucky, but I have felt fairly treated by management. If management is not trying to fleece workers, why add the process of a union?
One should definitely be thankful for the blessings and privileges one gets, but painting it in those terms overlooks that tech workers still have a lot of grievances. Maybe they're not as important as ones experienced by workers in other industries, but they're still valid. After all, we see articles on burnout and psychological stresses on HN every week.
> If management is not trying to fleece workers, why add the process of a union?
In addition to the general improving labor conditions issues that get brought up, I think unions could be interesting experiment in tech. The tech industry portrays itself as cutting-edge, progressive (not necessarily politically, but as a cultural outlook), empowering. Yet I've definitely seen situations where there was just constant alienation between employees and management over the latter's business decisions and product prioritizations. In those cases, what leverage can workers hold over management, besides just leave?
And I know for a fact that there will be discrimination on grounds of age, sex, race and disability based on experience in the uk tech industry.
There's also the issue of representation at grievance and discipline hearings.
Anything that infringes upon personal freedom in any way is seen as a negative.
This is not a tech ideal so much as a capable person's ideal, because capable people are by definition surrounded by people less capable than they are and often dream of nothing more than to rise above them, through merit and hard work.
Merit and hard work gets you places in tech, hence anyone remotely capable is mostly satisfied with the status quo.
I suspect it's due to the fact that while unions help the whole, they can remove the individual leverage during negotiations for salary and working conditions that many, especially seniors, want to preserve. Unions are often seen as a step towards developer commoditization which, like hour tracking, puzzle-based interviews, and other practices that de-individualize devs, is frowned upon by many. Some people just don't want to have to bargain collectively.
Granted, while some unions allow all sorts of single-employee exceptions, one can bet a company would choose to treat the goose and the gander the same when given guidelines on what the lowest common denominator is.
> Many in our industry are quite jaded about the poor behavior of large corporations
Yeah, but not _their_ organization, or they'd go elsewhere (jobs are not currently very constrained).
The thing is, acting in the interests of shareholders is often acting in the interests of workers as well. Many workers are compensated using stock (RSUs/options/etc) which makes them shareholders. Even if that weren't true, for publicly-traded companies, employees are free to invest their compensation into company stock if they so choose and can then both vote on shareholder resolutions and share in the company's success (or failure). And even if that weren't the case, acting in the interest of shareholders helps sustain jobs and create space for raises by attracting investment.
With unions, there are a few major issues I see, at least in the US implementation of unions:
- First, they often institute parallel management systems and sets of rules that govern the business. It can make work more complex/rigid. These rules also often tend to favor employee traits like tenure. Over time they turn into something of a pyramid scheme, with the newer employees indirectly subsidizing more senior employees.
- They can create unnecessarily inefficient labor. For instance, I've heard stories from friends in manufacturing about how only certain employees are allowed to perform certain mundane tasks under the guise of 'safety', even though anyone could do it. It can be infuriating to hold work or delay customers due to rules like this.
- Unions erode individualism and localized control in favor of institutional control. Unions can become a conduit for implementing political stances as a result. For example, the NEA (largest teachers union in America) has taken a public stance on supporting critical race theory, including introducing factually incorrect/biased material like the NYT's "1619 project" into classrooms (https://neaedjustice.org/the-1619-project-resource-page/). [Note I am not looking to debate this point here, but am just offering it as an example of activism using a union as a way to route political stances broadly, instead of allowing independent localized control]
- Unions erode competition in the market. This is especially problematic for public sector unions, where taxpayers have no choice but to fund a particular public organization. In general, I do not favor unions having exclusive rights to labor at a company. If there were multiple unions competing alongside non-union workers, that would be a more balanced/healthier situation.
Ultimately I am not sure why unions have special provisions under the law. Workers seeking unionization are all free to form their own company renting out their labor services to customers. They get to act as a group, and negotiate as a group, but are still subject to choice and competition. Under this model, for those who don't agree with a union for whatever reason, they have the freedom to sell their labor as individuals or as a company. This seems like a much better situation than having large number of workers subject to tyranny of the majority within the bounds of an exclusive union contract.
E.g. I'd like to do more work and be paid more and rewarded more, with none of the union pay grades BS. I'd like people to be fired based on incompetence, not seniority.
The only situations when I can imagine my outlook changing is if I become incompetent at my job, or lazy and useless (e.g. I've coasted at a job that I disliked for 6 months or so once, and then left; I imagine for some people it might be cool to coast for 6 years instead under union protections)
To be clear, though, I have no issue if some people think they can improve their bargaining position by being in a union. That should be what a union is, after all. Where I do object to unions is when they come to dominate their field and turn actively hostile to outsiders who don't play their game or, as in my case, arrange things so that people who don't care to be represented by them have to be regardless in order to work in their area.
I am jaded by large/exploitative corporations, but my way of dealing with that is to not work for large/exploitative corporations.
I would argue that most people don't have an aversion to the idea of unions, but more to their practical application (at least in the US). Just like any large organization, things can go off the rails and move far away from the original intended purpose.
But at the same time, you only really hear about the bad unions. The ones that fairly represent their members and partner with management to find common ground (obviously this is dependent on good management as well)? Those don't get talked about much.
I think unions make sense when every worker is basically the same (on a production line for instance). That's because you don't have any leverage otherwise.
Right now, my leverage is "give me my bonus or I'll go elsewhere and the only other guy on this team can't code or troubleshoot for shit and takes every nfl game day off sick". At best, a union would make me share my bonus with him. At worst it would insist he got a bigger one as he's been in this role for years (hint, that's a BAD thing) and I'm newer.
This attitude to me seems terribly short-sighted. Currently tech workers are privileged and can live with the illusion that they are not replaceable. The nature of capitalism however is to instrumentalize human beings and reduce them to what they can produce/consume. Nobody in particular cares about how special you are. If at some point in the future your job becomes less valuable your individual leverage will evaporate. At that point it would be good to have a union to fall back on.
Also, if the whole industry is being offshored or replaced with AI, the union won't be any use as they'll have no leverage either...
In a world of atomized workers, even the ones who can run fast on the treadmill are only good as long as they can run fast. If the treadmill changes or they get tired they're out.
Unions help because they have political power. They can make it so that societies are also about people, not just about efficient allocation of capital.
So you're either disenfranchised or you're a billionaire or you're part of a group like a union that can raise cash and use it for things you care about. That's a good argument to be in a union.
Or it would be, except (apart from a few specialist groups like police unions) unions seem to be amazingly bad at actually doing this. We haven't had pro-worker legislation in decades as far as I can tell. I don't know why unions are so bad at this as (at least IMHO) it seems like a core responsibility AND a major selling point. But they are. We've seen fewer and fewer rights for workers, higher taxes for working people, the removal of benefits for working people, higher student loans, sky high house prices, you name it.
Unions were never as powerful as the capitalist elites. All worker rights were hard-won (often with the price of life) and there has always been a lot of counter-pressure from capitalists. For a while, following the New Deal (in the US) and WW2 globally, workers had a social context that favored them a little.
Starting with the Reagan-Thatcher era though, political power has shifted rapidly in favor of capital. Neo-liberal ideology has become the dominant intellectual lens through which ("well educated") people evaluate the world. Policy makers have likewise shifted greatly towards the right-wing. New Labour in the UK [1] and the New Democrats [2] in the US are essentially center-right groups. Actual leftist positions are considered fringe in the Western World nowadays. This has in turn greatly affected the political power of unions, which are historically left-wing movements.
Leftist movements can gain ground as long as the people with actual power are somewhat amenable to their goals. This hasn't been the case in about 4 decades.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Labour [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democrats
But here we are. Joining a union won't help me in the local or immediate sense and it won't change politics. I don't like the economic or political system. But with zero options to change it, I have to pursue whatever will get me the best return for my efforts. That isn't unionisation sadly. Its a 19th century solution that doesn't seem to fit 21st century problems. :(
It doesn't surprise me too much that this union talk is coming from places like Kickstarter, I mean as an individual engineer at Kickstarter what could you really do to elevate yourself, the site is a solved problem.
Unless they have an interest in branching out into a new product you have very little opportunity to rise above the rest of the team just maintaining the site. The only people who are going to be causing that company to make more money are outside the engineering team and the engineering team are going to be being looked at constantly as a cost they need to reduce.
Most ambitious people would realize this and that they need to move on to somewhere with more opportunity where there is a chance for their individual contribution to shine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5a_00YVVkQ&feature=youtu.be...
My experience with unions. Monitor breaks at CES. Go get another, try to carry to booth. Get stopped because "only union people are allowed to carry equipment inside the convention center". Try to plug in some equipment. Get stopped because "only union electricians are allowed to plug in equipment in the convention center"
I know others who have add similar experiences in the aerospace industry where responsibilities were divided up and person A is not allowed do any work outside of their designated job.
For example, your job is to write UX features, some else's job is to unit tests. You're not allowed to write unit tests.
Why I would I want that?
Can you imagine having a "frontend developers union" which disallowed backend work (or vice versa)? What a nightmare.
Having an organization that can help a worker that is abused, or giving more bargaining power to workers seems clearly positive for the worker.
That could be a bit more irritating for the top management ... But the German example (strong unions, 50% of employee representation on the supervisory boards of large corporations) shows it tend to be, overall, positive for the companies.
https://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Rela...
EU unions are bigger and more general but aren't allowed to force workers to join, ie EU is a "right to work" area. This avoids most of the problems with US style unions and also gives workers more political power since EU style unions are bigger and can therefore more easily influence national politics.
Perhaps am I ill informed (never been in USA, and my friend living there are not in unions), could you give us some sources saying that what you say is the main form of union in USA today ?
> In the end, employees voted 46-to-37 in favor of unionizing
> As of February 2020, the union was made up of 85 engineers, directors, analysts, designers, coordinators, and customer support specialists
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21257585/kickstarter-layo...
If 40% of the workers are not part of the union, seems that you are free to be part or not of the union. And that the union makes sense to the worker, as more than half of the workforce choose to join.
Money helps, but union main strength comes from number of member and support. So paying for it or being member is in all case 2 very different things. And it seems workers are free to join or not, and most of them decided to join.
I don't know the situation of all European countries, but in France, unions gets some money from their member, but they also get some money from the state (ie taxppayers), and some elected union/worker representatives have some work time paid by the company to work on workers representation and union stuff
It was declared illegal in the EU in 2006: https://www.internationallawoffice.com/Newsletters/Employmen...
"Congratulations you're hired. We can either hire you with an official job title of an X at wage V or a Y and wage W, Y is a union position, here's the paperwork"
It's not a "closed shop" but in practice if you want to get paid at a level befitting the work you're doing it is. Since unions are
This was recently ruled illegal in the public sector (Janus v. AFSCME), because of first amendment concerns (the state is forcing you to pay money for union lobbying).
This hasn't resulted in a drop in membership, in no small part due to many unions adopting freakishly Byzantine opt-out measures, e.g. the ones where there's a certain window of 10 days a year that you can leave (computed relative to when you signed your union card, never advertised by the union — and if the employer even mentions these rights the union might attempt legal action under California law which forbids their employer from doing anything to "deter or discourage public employees from becoming or remaining members").
As French taxpayer I am forced to (indirectly) pay for all French political parties, including extreme right. This money gives political parties some freedom to act, to nourish the political debate... seen as a way to straighten the political debate and the democracy ; good for the general interest.
Still the number of members of a given political movement and the share of people voting for it is giving it the real power. And as someone only forced to give (indirectly) some money to a given movement is then entirely different than being force to join such a movement. And that is the same here for union.
Please note that as a worker, you are forced to "pay" for the stockholder. If you are not happy with it you can pick another oragnisation. Same goes for union, you are always free to join a union free company...
And indeed, the force people to join bit was outlawed in EU in 2006, but it was never particularly popular outside UK anyway.
But the important part is: they need to balance the needs of all three parties: the country, the companies, and the workers. It would be stupid to sacrifice one of these for the benefit of one of the other stakeholders, as that would ultimately hurt everybody.
No he's not. Every unionized workplace I have been in from educational institutions to government departments to defense contractors is like this to a pretty large extent.
>But the German example
Yes, I know that European unions are different and not nearly as asinine as American ones but I have yet to hear anyone say that tech will get European style unions let alone a good argument for why this will happen. The best I've heard so far is we should unionize because Europe's unions don't suck. I've never worked (in tech) in an environment where I feel I am getting screwed hard enough that the unions are the lesser of the evils. I understand game devs may feel differently (and they will likely unionize before the rest of the industry IMO).
Basically American unions suck which is why American workers in well compensated industries don't want them.
Some things are more expensive in the US, like cars. Some are more expensive in Europe, like food and gas.
There are great communities in the US. Dont generalize a country of 360M people on your personal situation.
Well, it's good that discussions like this are happening because it spreads awareness that there are better models for unions from abroad, and perhaps that will get more people agitating for an union that's different from the traditional American kind.
A EU unionized tech worker here who has union negotiated minimum salery and benefits and am fully able to negotiate for more (which I do each year). And I am not far from the 6 figure mark (in $).
So there is nothing saying that unions will mess with your bottom line.
Just don't create unions that suck.
European here, let's talk personal experience. The americans have a very unhealthy situation wrt unions, and i'm not surprised people with do-it-yourself and can-do attitudes common in tech are soured up to them. And my impressions are relative to polish culture, where unions are traditionally quite strong.
I was responsible for selecting several tech conferences for my boss to visit, both in USA and Europe, Middle East, and Asia. Having read most of the documents proffered, I was shocked to find the amount of red tape that was specific to union arrangements in USA, and USA only. Stands, decorations, electrics, cargo large and small. The rider of one american general contractor was the longest document I had to process across 3 continents. We're talking "young institutions" - tech conferences, organized mostly by, and for, "do it yourself" kind of people.
Were the problems insurmountable? No, certainly they were surmountable. Did it have a sour taste and impression of a lot of wasted effort on both sides of the contract? Yes, certainly it did.
I don't quite understand the underlying cultural issue that leads Americans to create unions they hate. It's got to be something cultural. Or is it something in US law? It seems so easy to fix, but somehow they end up creating something they hate. Why? What causes this, and why is it so hard to fix?
- a lot of what the union do/did have to be understand in the context of important fight between the unionized worker and the companies that want to undercut union influence (and often undercut workers right)
- a lot of thing union do / used to do, make sense in the past, but are less relevant now.
- Human is quite good to do stupid things, to create some bureaucracy / rules... That applied to companies (Bullshit Job being one manifestation of it), but also to union
- We tend to notice more the bad things than the good things...
- Humans tends to love power and hate change... that includes human running unions
I would also mention goals.
If your goal is absolute efficiency in running a convention then you end up with poorly treated and underpaid workers.
If your goal is making sure the convention doesn't poorly treat or underpay workers, you end up having to find someone to plug in your equipment (also I suspect there are legitimate safety and security concerns for a prototype electronics conference).
You can't blame convention workers for preferring the latter situation.
1. Anti-union propaganda and the union-busting efforts of American corporations and their consultants starting in the 1970's leading up through the policies of Reagan.
2. Globalization and the loss of manufacturing jobs.
SADLY, in the interim American wages have been flat since the 70's and class inequality has exploded.
"Had the fruits of the nation’s economic output been shared over the past 45 years as broadly as they were from the end of World War II until the early 1970s, a full-time worker whose taxable income is at the median would instead be making $92,000 to $102,000" instead of $50k. (RAND Corporation) Source: https://www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-st...
READ:
- https://www.vice.com/en/article/akwwvb/us-employers-spend-do...
- https://www.jwj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/JohnLogan12_2...
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2018/jun/2...
- https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/starbucks-history-...
- https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/history_of_labor_unio...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th...
- https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-wal...
Yes, that kind of thing is a scam to make you pay more than you need to, a.k.a. "profit maximising" for the individual. But we seem to just accept that as natural for companies while shunning individuals that do it.
The idea that unions should run the business is silly. Unions need to negotiate a good salary and healthy working conditions.
- (Movie) set breaks. The guys from the appropriate union are working on a different part of the set and can't get away to fix it, so the camera guys (in a different union) fixes the break. They all have a beer afterwards, and the movie made $200M+ at the box office.
- Unionized grocery store. Jar spills onto the floor. The janitor is doing the COVID19 sanitation rounds, so the first employee to see the mess grabs a mop and cleans it up, even though it's not part of her job description.
Moral of the story: unions are what their members make of them. Some of them are deliberately and highly restrictive about scope of duties, but most of them are not.
- High-level requirements author
- Low-level requirements author
- Coder
- Test author
- Test runner
and then each of those had a reviewer, for high-level requirements, low-level requirements, code review, test case review, test process and results review.
The FAA technically only requires that the author and reviewer for each step in the process are different, but the company tried to avoid having the same person write the requirements, code, and tests as well.
I have however been in unions my whole working life, and know of none who is a saleried employee who is not in a union, and what you describe is not how my experience of unions in Europe has ever been (nor have I ever heard such stories).
There are not, nor have there ever been any restrictions placed on how, where and when I can work due to unions. Any modifications triggered by how, when and where I was working are beneficial to me and soley the burden of my employeers.
The way unions have been warped in the US, either in reality or in the minds of people, truly horrifies me.
/edit: spelling
Companies don't own the workers.
A steelworker can only do what they are skillfully specialized to do by using capital goods own by the company. Hence they can't negotiate with their feet (leaving) while a tech worker can.
Tech workers can work (remotely) for virtually any company in the world.
A farm worker can't.
All this may change in the future, but with some privileged tech workers (I'm not one of them) being able to retire in their 30s and 40s now I don't see why as a whole the industry is incentivized to unionize.
Plus: who do you unionse with in a couple? If the point is to avoid abuse from the other part?
If I want to have big say in an organization I become a shareholder (ie. Buy the ring) which, for many tech workers that is true (through stock grants/options).
Shareholder voices have become increasingly weakened in recent years, and not just at Facebook either.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/control-geeks-tech-founders-wan...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/business/dealbook/lyft-ip...
If I understand you comment, you are against the fact that workers should have a say in an organization ??? That only shareholders could have a say ???
- The typical 'pains' felt in the lopsided power relation between employer and employee were and often still are cushioned by the adequate compensation in a market where the sought after skills were in short supply
- Tech attracts an atypical more autism spectrum biased employee pool. This correlates with meritocratic believes.
- Tech culture is one that has always idolized 'passion', so objecting to bad working conditions and habits was not just seen as rocking the boat, but a character flaw of those that lacked passion.
- Tech workers very often see their employee status as temporary, just putting some bread on the table while they will create their own SaaS business 'real soon now' and be on the other side of the relation
- Tech has a habit of inducing very young workers, and churning through them. This is no just HR strategy but group enforced by incorporating youth (and single/ non-family) oriented spaces symbolically in the workplace (Foosball tables, slides ...)
Note that on the Employer side of the spectrum tech companies have no qualms about joining their collective bargaining and lobbying associations
This made me wince; while it's not straight up wrong it's a collection of generalisations about humans jammed together that deserves a slightly more delicate unpacking. Like opening an Amazon box and finding your electronics just fall out with no foam peanuts or other protection.
It was most certainly not meant in any way to be derogatory, as I myself don't think of any of this in a negative way at all.
- Autistic
- Uneducated and naive ("real soon now," presumably said with a folksy twang)
- "Very young"
- Too cowardly or ethically naive to object to bad working conditions
Here's a more charitable possibility: Opponents may just not see the need at this point. Or they may dislike union culture.
Unionizing isn't all positive. There are costs that go beyond union dues. You're establishing what in many ways is a more exclusive culture. And you may end up stifling innovation. That shouldn't be a tool to be used indiscriminately.
It's quite a popular strawman, unfortunately. Tech workers are almost universally despised in leftist circles.
(disclaimer: I work in tech, hold left-leaning views and I actually believe some form of unionization in tech would be beneficial)
Our industry does have an (on average) well compensated and younger workforce than many other, that are both passionate and entrepreneurial.
Not being a native speaker I'm probably not sure which 'twang' I would sound like, but over the years I have met orders of magnitude more people in our line of work that had a side project that they were going to turn into a real business in the future, and that is a great thing, but sadly very few ever did.
The autism spectrum reference isn't at all meant derogatory, but has been observed and documented and also seems intuitively not entirely unreasonable in an industry were we have entire divisions that are expected to be passionate about manipulating abstractions in a meticulously precise symbol system for most of their waking hours.
To me it is normal that people that do not find themselves in a precarious position in terms of the the bottom rungs of Marlow's hierarchy of needs, and on top of that in a position that they see as transitory, will feel less compelled to organize.
I'm not saying unionization is some nirvana, nor am I saying it is to be demonized. I don't see why 'stifling innovation' is dragged in as countries with more worker rights, often the result of collective bargaining, do not seem less innovative. And as observed before, collective bargaining for companies do not seem to be vilified by those same people.
At the end of the day, if you need to go against the decision of a union vote you are completely screwed and out of your own agency.
That’s not a situation I want to find myself in.
The ideal has not weathered well - it works if you are on the cutting edge, where the degree of constraints are much lower.
But for the rest of the bell curve, some form of collective bargaining seems to be useful.
Maybe part of the reason is that, at the bleeding edge frontier, people who can work there are few and far between. This gives them market power and so can command/negotiate price.
Anyway, as long as everyone thinks of tech as the bleeding edge, its hard to make the case for unions.
Plus: America has a history of unions being a politicized topic, so it tends to result in strong views.
Imagine union pegging a developer to only working on backend code, or middleware or frontend or only on a specific language.
The AMA isn't technically a union, but performs similar functions.
Tech people work in buildings. Some buildings are union-operated, particularly for smaller firms that do not own their own campus. The most direct experience a tech person might have with a union on a day to day basis is as an explanation for why there are months-long delays for basic repairs and upgrades to their facilities.
Is there any similar manner in which tech people interact with the Writers Guild of America? ... Perhaps at Netflix specifically? News coverage of the writer's strike is not the same.
For instance: Average salary for tech in Germany is roughly twice as high as in Spain, even though they are working in the same market zone and have comparable workers protection. Though there are some differences in fiscal policy like for instance Vat tax (Spain 21% for service industry, Germany 19%).
I believe the main reason why the USA have such a high salary in comparison is because of a few factors: Most importantly a huge zone speaking one single language that by now is spoken throughout the world, leading to a much bigger initial market, thus making it easier to create start ups and selling your goods. So you can easily invest in R&D.
Additionally, silicon valley is home to huge monopolies/duopolies like Google, Apple, Intel etc. And while these might hurt competition and the market as a whole, they also increase the demand for labour in the US.
Another contributing factor, though I don't have any numbers to back it up is that higher education is a privilege in the US whereas in Germany it is a commodity.
There’s a few reasons why EU compensation is so low. One is it’s expensive to hire a person in the EU. We have to pay a lot in taxes on the employees behalf. They never see this on their check stub - it’s paid as part of a payroll tax. We have these in the USA as well but much lower and parts of it phase out as the employee earns more. Keep in mind that the USA employee may have to cover certain things like part of their health care though.
Secondly it’s far more difficult to get rid of an EU employee. We can of course, but it can be more expensive.
People make more in the USA and it’s a reason a lot of people from EU/UK come here to work in professional roles. Lower taxes and lower costs of employing someone send the money to the employee. But also a lot of the covered benefits (health, pension, etc) the USA employee has to cover themselves out of their pay (pre-tax though). So in part it’s a visibility thing too.
But to answer your question: In Germany, what the company actually ends up paying is about 20% higher than what you have in your contract. The company pays part of your unemployment insurance, healthcare insurance and some other contributions/taxes employees don't get to see. Your own contributions are usually around 40%. If a company pays 100k in total you end up with ~50k in your pocket after taxes/contributions.
I also feel that tech salaries in some regions of the US are a bit disconnected from what is happening in the rest of the world.
https://prospect.org.uk/about/who-are-prospect/
> more than 145,000 members who work as scientists, engineers, tech experts and in other specialist roles.
I see it simply as something of an "insurance policy" in case bad stuff happens - I feel this is especially useful to have this as backup as Brexit and the fall-out from COVID are on the horizon...
So I was thinking unfair dismissal, poorly executed/rushed/unfair "redundancy", and general other unfavourable things from a company that is struggling. Or maybe your employer suddenly thinks it doesn't need to care about equality or employment law and the like etc now we're out of the EU, or are taking a liberal interpretation of any new legislation that is screwing over the workers etc.
If the company is going bust after brexit there probably isn't much here that can be done, but if it is just downsizing/cost-cutting etc or instigates some questionable & unfavourable new policies you at least have some element of help, even if it is just giving you some advice or sending your employer a letter from their legal people etc.
Might buy you some time or a better exit-package if nothing else. Having looked down the barrel of two potential-redundancies (that were avoided eventually) in the last few years without anyone to talk to about "is this fair? am I getting screwed? what can I do?" etc, it is well worth it for the peace of mind and the feeling that you have someone who can go out to bat on your behalf if you think you've been screwed IMO. Everyone talks about how the employee-employer relationship is totally skewed towards the employer, this at least feels like you stand a chance if anything bad happens.
Uncertain times.
(Serious question I’m super curious why tech unions are a good thing cos I have 0 idea)
> So it seems like unions protect the employee
Yes, that's the entire point of a union. It's about the employees, nothing else. collective bargaining. union is strength.
> that only hurts education
It doesn't, that's a myth. What hurts education is lack of funding for education.
The pay being the same between a good teacher and a bad teacher, doesn't hurt education? Or teachers unions pushing to get tenure preventing bad teachers from being fired, and being able to collect a pay slip for doing no work while waiting a year for disciplinary hearing?
I think the points you raise are valid, but given what an abysmal state public education and unions in general are in America - I think the benefits of teacher unions greatly outweigh the costs
There are probably multiple factors as to why there are few unions in US (ie. Comp in US is insanely high, tons of competition for workers, etc).
But I'd argued that the main reason is: insane growth of US tech sector in past decades as compared to elsewhere in the world. This enables both higher comparative wages and competition for labour.
Also consider that almost anyone can start a tech business (workers are the capital resources of a tech outfit - not machinery) leading to more dynamic labour market.
But, I'm not sure this will continue to be true after backlash we are seeing against USA tech sector. Maybe that's why the conversation around unions is starting now.
> Employees who are still with the company say that because of the union, management has been more receptive to worker grievances, especially now during the pandemic. Employees were able to ensure that staff who got laid off received severance packages and are currently in the process of hammering out a collective bargaining agreement.
But it isn't clear to me that employees who were laid off wouldn't receive severance packages if it wasn't for the union.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21257585/kickstarter-layo...
In the EU, the market is much more fragmented because of the many languages we speak.
[0] https://uclouvain.be/en/study/inscriptions/tuition-fees.html
Well, if you live in Vancouver you'll pay just as much as SF for housing, maybe half for university and I'll give you healthcare costs are minimal.
But salaries are maybe 60% of SF. So I don't think it's that.