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Comment by abeppu | Hacker News Reader

I find this interesting because I don't fully understand how tech became so opposed to unions. Many in our industry are quite jaded about the poor behavior of large corporations. Perhaps there are also reasons to be distrustful of unions. But mostly we accept working with or doing business with the former, and entirely eschewing the latter.

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.)

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Unions are just another idea that sounds great on paper, only if you don't consider second and third order effects. They don't serve the workers, they serve themselves (like pretty much any organization).

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.

> Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power

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

They did collude. It was done in secret because it was illegal. It was fixed by the government, no unions required. Nor could one have helped. A union would not have fixed that unless it had developed some mechanism to discover the conspiracy via other means than the ones the government used.

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.

That wage collusion was illegal and a lawsuit was won on it. I feel like there isnt a disparity when the parties follow the law.

How would a tech union help in that case?

If the union was cross-company, it could have noticed the lack of "poaching" much sooner.

Unions could also help in the world of game studios, to stop the deeply harmful practice of "crunch".

Couldn't agree more, imo game studios have all the downsides of a large software company with pretty much none of the benefits, the sooner they unionise and get treated like humans the better.

There needs to be an Industry-wide game production union, with all the developers and artists together as a single global political force. That would RADICALLY change crunch abuses.

Stronger representation in a class action lawsuit; negative consequences for corporations in the form of sanctions, walkouts, etc.

> 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.

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).

I noticed how you switched up the stats here:

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...

Is there a similar study that considers things like pension when it comes to compensation. A lot of teachers in the US have fairly amazing pensions, and a lower base salary is where that money comes from. I honestly don't know if it makes up the difference; just that the linked article didn't seem to discuss it at all (though I skimmed).

Note that "below market rate" isn't necessarily all that low. You need to look beyond that, because it can still be high enough to make housing unaffordable for most other people.

They don't serve the workers, they serve themselves (like pretty much any organization).

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.

As you might have noticed, voting is no guarantee that good leaders are elected, nor does it necessarily prevent corruption.

"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.)

All systems have the potential for corruption.

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.

Corruption usually happens on jobs with low pay that noone really want to do but does it anyway due to a good cause. But once in a while you get people that are driven by power and glory, and if the position holds any power they will use it to their own advantage.

Direct democracy has less of a potential for corruption than representative, especially non nested (separate tires) party based representative democracy.

There are tricky problems here as well.

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.

Of course not. But democracy is better than no control. A union can fight against things like unpaid oncall or crunch or other abusive practices.

The reason pro sports leagues are all unionized is because they are each government sanctioned monopolies and players have otherwise no leverage.

Their talent is their leverage. Some players get paid $100m+ for their talent.

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.)

> Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power

> 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.

I agree that negotiating power is not equal and situation is not perfect. Part of the reason is people being unaware, naive etc. to negotiate such a clause away in their contract.

But a law like in CA is much better solution for cases like that, than dealing with Unions, IMO.

Unions can be a way for likeminded workers to pool together lobbying efforts. How would such a law right now be proposed and advanced? Certainly not by the lobbying arms of Big Tech.

I don't know who, and I agree that in theory they could.

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.

You fear all of that, as if tomorrow a tech industry union could spring up fully formed, an IWW out of Big Bill Haywood's forehead. Yes, unions are imperfect and American unions often especially so. But why be limited by past history? Why couldn't a new union based in a comparatively young industry write new rules and determine new practices? Why be limited by the problems of the past? That's what is so puzzling about tech critics of labor unions; if we think we can innovate upon and disrupt every other damn thing, why do we also insist that labor unions will inherently experience the same set of problems? And if labor unions are so bad, why not at least propose something new that could address the problems that they were intended to solve?

I mean, these are people who are proud of hacking copyright law to serve copyleft, right? Why not hack union law to serve intersection?

> 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.

Engineers are a lot more fungible than movie stars.

And so are background actors and actors you've only ever seen on infomercials, yet they're represented by the same SAG-AFTRA as movie stars.

Yes, and? The reason the movie industry isn't moving is the stars, the other arrangements doesn't matter.

> If they can't, see, that's what union can do (at least try to negotiate) for you.

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).

Tech workers are a subset of intellectual workers. Just because tech workers don't need those protections in GP's view doesn't mean other workers wouldn't benefit from them.

Except that unions will bring their own non-compete non-negotiable agreements.

> 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 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.

(Lack of) Control and overseeing management in public (and private) companies is a whole another issue entirely, and it affects all the shareholders alike. I don't think unions help here - they just make everything more complicated.

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.

Haven't we been seeing a phenomenon where the institutional investors benefit from IPOs before actual equity-receiving employees do?

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...

> 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.

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.

The thing that you seem to be missing is that you need labor organization to achieve those things en masse. The current 40 hour workweek we enjoy and the weekends we have off are because of the organized labor movement in the US.

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.

You don't need US style unions to achieve any of those, as history shows. Workers should have the right to form political organizations, yes, but forcing your colleagues to join your political organization doesn't make sense.

Nobody is forcing you to work a union job. You're free to apply and work wherever you want.

Right, which is why there are basically no unionized software engineering jobs in USA. I'd rather not be forced to change jobs just because you want to join a union. Your love for strict unions means that most people who want a software union isn't allowed to get one since most of their colleagues don't want one.

I mean, by definition, if someone's workplace voted to unionize, most of their colleagues would want one, because it takes a majority vote in an NLRB election to unionize a workplace.

> with 46 employees voting in favor of the move and 37 opposing it.

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...

46 vs 37 is most colleagues. Nobody is forcing you to stay at a job where management makes decisions that you don't like, and similarly no one is forcing you to stay at a job where it's your coworkers making decisions you don't like. This is what democracy looks like.

Business isn't a democracy and it shouldn't be one.

Why not?

> The current 40 hour workweek we enjoy and the weekends we have off are because of the organized labor movement in the US.

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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...

Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power, like workers in other industries.

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.

$403k per employee.

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/08/research-rev...

Not just their devs, but all of their workers.

Based on that data, most FAANG engineers are already paid more than the profit their employers make per-employee.

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.

Should total comp really be used in this comparison, rather than actual salary?

Why would only looking at salary be relevant?

Because if (when) the markets crash by 40% and show no sign of recovery, salary will remain a lot more constant than total comp.

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.

That's not the point.

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...

But the question was why one would report salary rather than total comp. I provided a potential answer to that question.

a lot of engineers at FAANG make more than $400k total comp

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 both parties are winning what's the problem here? Do you feel compelled to make one party win at the expense of another? Is that a more desirable outcome on net?

I didn't say everyone wins. I said everyone feels like they've won. Those aren't the same.

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.

> 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.

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?

Do you honestly believe that every penny a company makes ought to be given to its employees?

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.

> "Market rate" is basically the median negotiated salary for similar roles.

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.

That certainly makes it sound like tens of thousands of developers have failed to negotiate a salary that reflects their actual value to the business they work for.

> I would rather see more laws universally protecting intellectual workers like e.g. non-enforcability of non-compete clauses and alikes.

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.

So don't start at the Federal level. Start local. Which is pretty much how the US is intended to work. California made non-competes non-enforceable. No reason your state can't do the same.

> Start local. Which is pretty much how the US is intended to work.

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.

Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power, like workers in other industries.

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.

This is more likely to be true in the case of options or shares of private companies, but for public companies the value of the equity can at least be determined.

Public vs. private probably doesn't matter all that much. I've had equity compensation from most of my jobs, and I never really felt strongly GP's statement of "What's good for shareholders is also good for [...] tech employees". My company's (public) stock could double and it wouldn't materially affect my lifestyle. For non-public companies I've worked for, the equity usually ended up worth $0. In one company, I was able to sell all my equity at the height of its stock prices, and made maybe enough for 2 months of rent. I think the idea that equity allows employees and companies to share success is kind of overblown.

Interesting. Equity comprises about 50% of my compensation, at my current (public company) job, so changes there do have a significant effect on my overall compensation. That said, since it's not entirely predictable, I still treat it as "bonus" money and try to live only on my salary.

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.

> Yet doctors and lawyers and pilots have strong unions in all but name. What do you suppose they know that we don’t?

Isn't it protection from patients/clients/passengers, not employers, because of how visible they are as individuals and how directly they affect lives?

> Tech workers are in so much demand that they don't really suffer such a disparity of negotiating power, like workers in other industries.

In USA that is, things can be very different abroad.

Not only but when industrial unions came to power, industrial workers were the highest demand profession.

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.

This is true, but it doesn't stem from union organisers opportunistically seizing the best moment to negotiate. Rather, some people are always trying to organise collective action, management usually calls their bluff, and the striking employees end up coming back to work or being replaced. When they can't be replaced easily or they have alternatives to coming back to work, management is forced to the negotiating table.

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.

Any country where tech workers are mistreated as a rule?

China. they've got the notorious "9-9-6" hours. "9 AM to 9PM, 6 days a week".

Are there a lot of labor unions in China?

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is the largest trade union in the world, with 302 million members.

Of course, some would say taking the ACFTU as representative of unions is like taking the East India Company as representative of multinational corporations...

They're also arguably not an actual independent trade union, but rather a tool of the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-China_Federation_of_Trade_...

Not really.[1]

[1] https://www.chinabusinessreview.com/trade-union-law-and-coll...

I think there are a lot of game developers that would disagree with your assessment.

> Tech workers are in so much demand

> 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.

> Also, barriers to entry in software are almost 0

I'm sorry but that is not true at all.

This is what you'll get with unions

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?

Sure there are some horror stories about unions, but you are just generalizing. And you are talking about "old" institutions ; new unions, for "new" kind of companies would not look the same.

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.

>And you are talking about "old" institutions ; new unions, for "new" kind of companies would not look the same.

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.

This is the weird thing. Americans love to complain about how stupid their unions are, and according to some anecdotes, some American unions are indeed pretty stupid. But these are the unions created by Americans.

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?

I don't know USA very well, so that is just a feeling.

- 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

Who said you didn't know us very well? I think you summed it up well.

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.

Hostile environments end up creating extensive legal documentation to protect parties?

The REASON that AMERICANS HATE unions is...

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...

> but you are just generalizing

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.

"Basically American unions suck which is why American workers in well compensated industries don't want them."

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.

> 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

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.

American style capitalism has polluted the mental models of anyone raised in the States to disregard European management styles and by extension the successful European work life balance, to the US citizens' significant determent. The work-life balance in Europe is more of a life worth living, while the life styles in the United States require double incomes to participate, are so heavily marketed it rendered everything expensive in either dollars, social credit, political credit or when not "playing the game" complete social isolation. Life in the United States is close to ruined, we have close to no community beyond these online peeps into the darkness.

Double income is pretty much a requirement everywhere in Europe.

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.

I’m sorry you feel that way.

Not an argument.

People could organize a European style union for software engineers right now in USA if they wanted, but they aren't doing it. Instead they are still pushing for US style unions like they did at Kickstarter. The only reason I can think of why they are doing this is that they want the extra power that comes with US style unions instead of the more worker friendly EU style unions.

What is the primary difference between EU and US style unions?

US unions are usually per company and forces everyone working in a specific area in that company to join or quit, meaning that anyone performing a specific job function needs to join said union. This leads to the "You can't plug a computer into a socket if you aren't in the electrician union" problem, the reason they say that is they think the company could oust the union by hiring people to do that work without properly labeling them.

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.

The general term for everyone having to join the union is "closed shop". It was apparently outlawed in the US in 1947: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop so I'm not clear how that's still happening.

It was declared illegal in the EU in 2006: https://www.internationallawoffice.com/Newsletters/Employmen...

There is no difference between between being forced to join and being forced to pay the same dues and follow same rules. That is why right-to-work laws is important, the law in 1947 did nothing to stop it.

Yeah, the union agreement gives the union money whether or not you're a member.

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").

There is a big difference.

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...

In the US, there are state by state rules now. It is complicated.

Interesting that it's so common in the US despite having been illegal for so long, whereas it hardly ever happens in the EU despite it having been legal until recently.

>I'm not clear how that's still happening.

"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

About that political power, in some European countries, and maybe most famously in Netherland, a lot of big labour-related economic decisions are made in a committee with representatives of the government, representatives of employer organisations, and representatives of the major unions. They discuss and agree on salary structures, pay increases, labour conditions, and I think they can even make suggestions for changes in the tax system. If all three agree that something is better for the country, the companies and the workers, then it's very likely to happen. Note that these agreements hold for everybody, and not just union members. So non-members do benefit from some things the union does.

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.

Yeah, I think strong worker representation in governments is very important for a capitalist democracy to work well. USA doesn't have that for some reason, basically all their politicians comes from a 1% or at least 10% home. Could be due to these strange union practices they have.

Not even back then was this tied to being in an union in Poland, but to having right certification which anyone can get provided they document having passed training and exam.

And indeed, the force people to join bit was outlawed in EU in 2006, but it was never particularly popular outside UK anyway.

In my understanding unions that can "forces everyone working in a specific area in that company to join or quit" are exceptions not the rules in 2020 USA (and clearly not what the article was talking about).

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 ?

Kickstarter is such a union. Many of the union members didn't want it. I'd bet even most of the software engineers didn't want it, but were forced to since they were bundled up with a lot of unrelated professions.

> 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...

The union "represented about 60 percent of the company’s 140 employees prior to the layoffs". From the article you mentioned.

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.

Board seats?

That is only in Germany and not typical for EU.

And Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden (but with less seats than Germany)

https://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Rela...

I'll raise you one. My experience with unions:

- (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.

Unions can also offer goods things like group bargaining, healthcare and moral support such as SAG/AFTRA and other Hollywood-style guilds. The only downside is you can't do cheap work on the side, but that benefits those who choose not to or cannot join these guilds.

Marriot jammed wifi in their conference centers to make you pay for theirs. Therefore hotel chains are a bad idea. /s

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.

You seem to completely misunderstand what the union formed at Kickstarter is about. Nothing like what you describe, but rather giving employees more control over the company's decisions.

That's a fantastic video. I'm commenting mostly to save the link for later, but I cannot imagine unions trying to mesh with the tech world.

Can you imagine having a "frontend developers union" which disallowed backend work (or vice versa)? What a nightmare.

That's not how unions work at all and especially not the union described by OP's article. Can you imagine strongly opposing something that would benefit you, because you don't understand it nor take the time to?

I've only been exposed to unions through conferences, so I may not be completely informed, but this is the only way I know unions to work (also from my grandmother having been a teacher in NY, and strong union advocate).

I can not speak about how unions work in the US.

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

Aviation isn't about unions though, it's a safety feature. There were a bunch of different roles at the company I worked for:

- 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.

You don't, so don't form a union that does that. Instead, form a union that does the things you and your coworkers need a union for.

The idea that unions should run the business is silly. Unions need to negotiate a good salary and healthy working conditions.

You can implement anything crap. I feel like you're just taking the worst possible example of a union and using that to state that unionization is awful.

I think a lot of it is that in-demand, well paid workers don't have patience for the BS work rules that unions are notorious for. It might be unfair characterization, but "you can't change/test that code, that's role X", and other such bureaucracy can be really draining.

Are unions in the US really like that, or is it a one-off being used to spread fud? Or could it be like a judge in sports, you only notice it when the judge makes the wrong call, but all the correct ones are ignored?

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.

> Are unions in the US really like that, or is it a one-off being used to spread fud?

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.

The situation around conventions is particularly bad. The nickel and dime-ing of the venues are part of it but, as you say, many of the work rules are pretty stereotypically outrageous. Not that everything is entirely unreasonable; at convention center scale, things would descend into chaos rapidly if booth staff and others started winging things. But it's pretty bad especially in places like NYC.

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.]

>> Are unions in the US really like that, or is it a one-off being used to spread fud?

> 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.

> 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.

Does SAG have rigid role definitions?

> or is it a one-off being used to spread fud

you replied to this with a one-off anecdote to spread fud

Anyone who has ever worked events will tell you that is hardly a one-off anecdote.

Events and convention rules are absolutely different from rules for employees working inside a company.

If it had happened only once or only a few times, I'd agree. This type of thing happens at every single convention.

I am from Brazil, from what I heard unions in Brazil, US and Europe all work wildly differently from each other.

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.

I have many good things to say about unions in the US. The the BS work rules are NOT one of those things, and have been a part of every union I have dealt with. In my experience the the BS work rules are there to slow down work, and increase hiring & especially increase overtime.

> Are unions in the US really like that, or is it a one-off being used to spread fud?

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.

Since we are exchanging anecdotes, this also happened at my non-union job.

They are worse than you can imagine, at least from my anecdotal experience. Someone I know is a teacher and wanted to do clean up invasive plants overtaking some parts of the school grounds with kids, as a field trip for Environmental Science where they were studying invasive species. Alas, they cannot do that because the union of whoever is supposed to do that will not allow it. Only they can do it. Of course, they themselves haven't done it in years and have no plans to start.

I almost lost a contract with a city after union members complained that I was on their turf. Their non union bosses hired me for a job they aren't qualified for, or interested in having, to solve problems they'd been complaining about for years, but because I was using oxygen in their vicinity it became a legitimate union issue because of the language in their contracts. So, yeah. Unions do stupid stuff. I still support them. Kind of wish my contract had been cancelled, could have doubled my rate when they crawled back.

(US) Unions for many blue and white collar jobs are like this. Many folks like that type of structure, others hate it.

Can't speak for all unions but my experience with a couple of unions has been like this. One place had a rule where you (the engineer) can only have 1 CAD drawing request out to the CAD department at a time. And of course the CAD department was backlogged. So in practice it means you're sitting around waiting for the draft to come back for 4 - 6 weeks doing practically nothing.

A union is just an organization which represents the interests of workers. If we don't want BS work rules, we don't have to have them. Instead, we could have things like:

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 is just an organization which represents the interests of workers.

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?

This perspective is frustrating, as it paints unions as an entirely negative endeavor. They're not and there are trade offs. Those trade offs may be a net positive or a net negative, but only highlighting the negative doesn't do any good.

>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.

> don't join the union.

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.

>The US left pushes hard against right to work

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.

> Because right to work is a union-busting tactic

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.

'Just don't join' doesn't work. Unions often bully or ostracise people who refuse to join. Sometimes they're in practice closed-shops, like the Screen Actors' Guild, even though this isn't supposed to be allowed in law. In some cases unions use violence against 'scabs' and other people who resist.

I like how a non-existent tech union is instantly popping up out of nowhere with both a massive bureaucracy, and a squad of enforcers to beat people up for not joining.

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).

If kickstarter is an example then they forced 37 persons to join it, so it is correct to fear unions forcing you to join.

"with 46 employees voting in favor of the move and 37 opposing it".

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-un...

A vote on formation of a union does not mean employees are forced to join it. A union also doesn't mean anything if there isn't an agreement with the employer. A union also doesn't mean anything if it's members are not going to withhold their services if they don't come to an agreement that is deemed acceptable by it's members.

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.

It's not as simple as "don't join the union". Unions in the US have exclusive bargaining power; if a majority of employees form a legally recognized union, the union contract will apply to even the employees who don't want to join the union.

"If we don't want BS work rules, we don't have to have them"

Are all states right-to-work?

> I think a lot of it is that in-demand, well paid workers don't have patience for the BS work rules that unions are notorious for. It might be unfair characterization, but "you can't change/test that code, that's role X", and other such bureaucracy can be really draining.

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.

Yes, people always assume that only one type of union exists, and that it can only really work for low-skill interchangeable workers. That this belief is so widespread is actually a testament to the effectiveness of anti-union messaging...

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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Actors_Guild

I don't find the SAG a convincing example, personally.

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.

Doesn't it also prevent them from using their real names in their work if anyone already has that name? And don't you have to pay $3k to join + 1.85% of your income (for the majority of actors who make less than $200,000 per year - special rules help the members who make lots of money from having to pay too much)?

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).

Yeah, but so what? Don't most organization have rules designed to allow them to function as an organization or solve specific problems they encounter? It's not like an Apple employee can freely blog about the unreleased product they're working on or simultaneously work with Samsung on a competing product.

Yeah. And the SAG rules aren't unreasonable IMO. But a union is not replacing the existing rules of your workplace, it's a second group of people who can add rules.

> Yeah. And the SAG rules aren't unreasonable IMO. But a union is not replacing the existing rules of your workplace, it's a second group of people who can add rules.

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.

You can take the same rules about hollywood union rules forcing lighting technicians and camera crew to have roles, even though the big expensive and hot lights they used to safeguard are long since gone. 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.

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.

> You can take the same rules about hollywood union rules forcing lighting technicians and camera crew to have roles, even though the big expensive and hot lights they used to safeguard are long since gone.

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.

It was once a useful role and now is not. Sure people can retrain and reapply for jobs, do we need unions for that?

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.

> Sure people can retrain and reapply for jobs, do we need unions for that?

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.

The point is dismissing anybody/somebody/everybodies' view out of hand or minimizing it down to complaints means you are missing when valid points are being made.

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.

> The point is dismissing anybody/somebody/everybodies' view out of hand or minimizing it down to complaints means you are missing when valid points are being made.

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.

A power imbalance isn't a problem to be solved defacto. We're not stalin-esque egalitarians.

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.

Anti union messaging or just they are more common place? Lots of examples of unions with rigid rules, corrupt practices etc. But so far everyone only points to the screen actors guild as a counter example. Are there many other unions like it?

> But so far everyone only points to the screen actors guild as a counter example. Are there many other unions like it?

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.

Certain what came before doesn't have to be what follows. Just that if the majority of unions people know are "bad" then the general view of unions will be negative too. Also it may be a bit of a hint on which way a particular union is more likely to turn out.

Unions are the antithesis of a meritocracy. Try promoting based on seniority over merit in a tech. business, and I doubt you'll stay competitive for very long.

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.

Whenever I see "meritocracy" used like this, my hair stands on end. From Wikipedia:

"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."

Meritocracy starting out as leftist satire doesn't mean the concept doesn't have merit.

Yes, it does. Unless its defenders have shown good reasons as to why the points raised by the satirists are inapplicable. Which they haven't.

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.

The fact that a person can just study programming on their free time for a few years and then get a job paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year is proof that at least in some cases meritocracy works. All you need is proof that you are great at programming, doesn't have to know anyone or have any kind of prestigious background to do it.

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.

Remember this post the next time there is a 500 post thread about how hiring is bs or promotions are all politics. That cannot possibly jive with the system being a meritocracy.

I don't think everything is perfect but striving for meritocracy isn't problematic in itself. The ideal should always be "given what we know of each candidate who is expected to deliver the most value in this position?". I don't see how anyone can disagree with that. And in general it seems like companies and countries with more meritocratic systems tend to do better, so as a system it seems to work great.

"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.

"Meritocracy was meant as a satire" is brought up as a rebuttal frequently but it's somehow never accompanied by an explanation of how the negatives Young brings up are relevant to the topic at hand. Based on a cursory search, a summary of Young's point in his satire seems to be that meritocracy had the undesirable consequences of demeaning/devaluing those who scored poorly on measures of merit and also triggering a societal arms race as people did whatever they could to improve their own and their children's measured merit, neither of which is salient to this discussion. He doesn't seem to say that meritocracy itself was ineffective. (Somebody please correct me if I am in error here.)

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 unions negotiate practices regarding seniority for good and bad reasons. Others don't. A software workers union wouldn't necessarily do that, unless its membership voted for it. Which might make sense, because of rampant age discrimination - but there's nothing inherently tying that to promotion.

If you think professional sports leagues and the movie business base opportunities and compensation on seniority I don't know what to tell you. Those fields are almost completely unionized. There's no obvious reason to think that the market for high skilled technical workers would be substantially different.

If you don't think the UAW or ILWU bases opportunities and compensation on seniority I don't know what to tell you

Why would an SWE union be forced to follow the trends set by other unions? I thought tech was supposed to march to the beat of its own drum. Think different.

Of course they do.

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.

> Unions are the antithesis of a meritocracy. Try promoting based on seniority over merit in a tech.

Tech is absolutely not a meritocracy.

While your personal anecdote may vary, my personal anecdote does seem to indicate that tech is a pretty meritocracy directed industry. Maybe this is a Silicon Valley / CA trait given thing like non-compete clauses being non-enforceable.

Tech is often more of a meritocracy than other fields/industries.

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.

The tech industry has a bias for youth, which is mutually exclusive with experience. I don't know much about the medical industry, but I wager surgeons face less ageism once the gray hairs start coming in. With that age comes experience younger surgeons simply couldn't have.

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.

My point was that the OPPOSITE is true in most other fields.

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.

Tech is more like "reverse ageist" instead of being egalitarian.

Personally, I would be more amenable to a statement like "tech is not an absolute meritocracy". Many industries are however, roughly meritocratic. While talent may not be perfectly recognized or rewarded, it often eventually is - simply because it makes good business sense. When you have easy to recognize signals of merit and value, like in the tech industry where work can be more objectively evaluated, it makes it easier to implement a meritocratic culture.

Why would tech workers who vote on union rules, vote for a seniority advancement system? Makes no sense. Either the assumptions or the conclusion are wrong.

Unions are not perfect and unionized workers often have a complicated relationship with their union, but fundamentally a Union is just a democratic organization representing workers. The policies are set by the union on behalf of the interests of workers, however imperfectly. Without a union, the policies are set by management and there is no institutional power that workers have collectively against policies they don’t like.

Someone in a thread months ago said unions wouldn't be like that - it would be more like hollywood unions like the writers guild.

On the other hand I wonder if it might have inadvertent effects on other things, like maybe free software.

Are the "BS work rules" that unions might introduce really that much worse than what gets imposed on the average software shop these days? Scrum ceremony, planning by committee, etc, at times is the kind of bureaucracy that brings productivity down.

Many reasons:

- 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

> Tech attracts an atypical more autism spectrum biased employee pool. This correlates with meritocratic believes.

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.

You are right that that is a delicate issue and could deserve a long treatise on its own. I tried to qualify it sufficiently, but it is easy to caricature as the first reply to my post already seems to do in a callous way.

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.

That's quite a strawman. You're saying that those who disagree with tech unions are:

- 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.

That is a bit of a 1-sided reading.

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.

I was "that guy" at EA during the "EA Spouse" era that tried unsuccessfully to get any union effort started at all. The strawman list above only needs one proponent per developer group and no one in that group joins the effort. I'd say the "ethically naive" trait is the strongest.

The gaming industry is most certainly rife with exploiting passion.

> That's quite a strawman.

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)

I work in tech and most certainly do not despise tech workers. I don't see what political leaning would have to do with this issue. I am in favor of some form of collective bargaining, but at the same time aware of some of the potential abuses that sometimes come with that as well.

Maybe I'm just super autistic (Or as you say, atypical and more autism spectrum biased), but what are arguments against a meritocracy in the workplace?

I've always done well by being judged and rewarded as an individual. I've been on teams with people who were lazy or entitled or just bad at their job and didn't care enough to change. I don't want negotiate as a block with those people because if get less of I did. And frankly, I'd rather not work with them at all, because they're just a pain in the arse to deal with.

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.

>I've always done well by being judged and rewarded as an individual

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.

I think that's a good analysis. Never work in a cost centre. Or if you do, unionize.

> 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"

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.

Maybe, but you're asking me to give up a lot of money now on the off chance I might get something back in the future. And I don't plan to be at any employer more than a few years anyway.

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...

Not saying that the whole industry will be replaced, just that tech stacks might change, paradigms might change (see going from mainframes to PCs) etc. It would suck to find yourself unemployable in your mid-50's, let's say. It also kind of sucks to always have to keep up with the newest trends - perhaps at some point in your life you would actually want to do smth else than program all the time.

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.

I think the political power argument is both the best and worst reason for union membership: In my opinion, democracy is basically dead unless you can raise a lot of cash and use it to force your issues.

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.

> 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.

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

I'd agree with all of this, except maybe saying English speaking instead of western world.

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. :(

One thing I'm considering, at some point, is to start a cooperative-like business. This kind of enterprise is normally associated with manual labor, but I can't think of a reason why you couldn't have a tech coop. I actually think it would go hand in hand with the idea of more craftsmanship in software development (something I'm also in favor of), not to mention that it would greatly improve workers' rights (since the workers would also be the owners of the business).

Especially the video game industry should take a good long look at how Hollywood uses guilds to create saner work conditions for its various production crew. It's a very different thing to work at a 'stable' company with sustained engineering and maintenance, and then getting hired for part of a project at a one-big-project-ever-two-years production company, that might not exist a couple years from now. The sooner the games industry realizes they are actually in the latter category and organize accordingly, the better. Then maybe we can stop having these horror stories of mass layoffs when production ends, that comes from thinking you are in the former category.

Hollywood unions are one of the main reasons most movies are not made in LA any more.

Sure, and tax havens are the most popular place to have the top of your corporation's ownership hierarchy. Doesn't mean it's good for society at large or the people working there.

And speaking of tax havens, it's also likely why a lot of movies are now made in cities like Vancouver is because those places decided to give favorable tax incentives for films to be shot there. So it's not really because of unions.

How are you defining tech?

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?

> tech workers are paid well and we get to sit in comfortable chairs in air-conditioned offices all day long

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?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23535292

for one how do you know if your being paid fairly appraisal systems are fair (recall Microsoft sack ranking).

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.

Unions seem to be great for generally interchangeable workers. Where there's room for personal achievement (or non-achievement), I cannot imagine any good use for them.

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)

It doesn't replace one untrustworthy, poorly managed organization with another. It just means involving a second untrustworthy, poorly managed organization with its own goals in my contract negotiations.

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.

> 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?

Unions in the US have a very specific legally-mandated structure.

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.

I don't know that it couldn't happen - but when an individual tech worker is making a decision about unionizing (in the US), it is always around an individual workplace unionizing. Industry-wide unions aren't very standard in the US (outside of industries with extremely high barriers to entry) and it seems like it would be extremely expensive/time-consuming to make it happen (beyond what I as an individual considering unionizing can realistically do).

There's a Freakonomics episode that talks about this -> https://freakonomics.com/podcast/secrets-german-economy-stea...

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.

> I don't fully understand how tech became so opposed to unions

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).

Do you know any union worker making $350k? or $500k? With unions, you ain't gonna get that. As much as I like unions for somethings, I'm not a fan. I'm in Detroit area. I have heard horror stories of many people who work in the car industry and do crazy things and can't easily get fired because of unions. Once I was downtown a few years ago, and they were shooting a movie and they needed to reshoot a scene, but a semi truck was parked on the street, they had to hold off the scene till the next day because they couldn't just move the truck. There was a specific job role that could drive the truck according to the union rules and the drivers were done working for the day.

Imagine union pegging a developer to only working on backend code, or middleware or frontend or only on a specific language.

SAG-AFTRA and DGA have members in that range. I'm guessing Equity has some as well.

The AMA isn't technically a union, but performs similar functions.

For me it's that it's forced. I don't like anything being forced upon me. If I could both keep my job and not be in the union, I'm fine with you unionizing.

I just don't want to be forced to be a member or forced to give a chunk of my paycheck.

As long as the free rider problem forces me not to have the option to join a union it seems like we're in the same predicament.

Distrust? I just dont need one. I already make an absurd amount of money, work less than 40 hours a week, and get vacation whenever i want.

Highly-paid professionals tend to assume that if they don't like their current job, their skills would be in demand enough that they can easily find another job. This assumes that current tech industry labor conditions will continue indefinitely, which seems unsustainable.

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.

I've been working with a tech union for 15 years, and it's been horrible. I could sit here for hours listing out all the ridiculousness...but a small taste, grievance for being woken up from slumber too abruptly. Whats that? I'm playing star ocean and I cant talk right now middle of boss fightz. How do public companies deal with unions when the workforce gets to where it no longer really needs to accomplish things? Maybe I've just been involved with bad union experiences..

> How do public companies deal with unions when the workforce gets to where it no longer really needs to accomplish things?

Ask the manufacturing sector

didn't they all move away from US ?

We dont need a union, we need a stronger professional organization with appropriate licensing/apprenticeship, akin to other engineers, doctors, accountants, lawyers ect.

Increased barriers to entry for SWE?

If you could replace the whiteboarding technical interview rigamarole with a rigorous certification exam, say it has to be retaken only every 8-10 years so one's skills stay fresh but not every 1-3 years or however often most engineers change jobs now, why not? Besides the sudden drop in content on HN written by people venting.

Yeah, make it an FE and PE and we will get some stability in our lives and be allowed to focus on case studies rather than solving abstract puzzles in a hazing ritual. Early in the career the low barrier is great, later in the career, other engineers have much more reasonable career growth.

Personally, I don't want unions because my job is awesome as it is - absurd salary, great benefits, interesting problems, etc. I don't really see what a union could give me, I don't need more money and I work reasonable hours. Also I've seen how unions can completely paralyze the hiring and firing process (ex. Ontario teachers union and their horrible standardized job interviews).

I'm in a mandatory union in my country. But I'm a software engineer and it's an "office worker" union, so needless to say they take on a lot of stuff that's totally irrelevant to me. But because I'm required to be in the union, I get "represented" anyway and "get" to go on strike and take a substantial pay cut to "support my peers", none of whom I'll work with or have similar life situations to mine.

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.

This is an insightful comment.

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.

Several have mentioned that contemporary tech workers (mostly?) are privileged and have leverage in negotiations that allows them to individually gain what others in other industry can only get through unions. Part of that leverage comes from having lots of options. And why is there lots of options? Because "anyone" can start a tech company. The main mean of production of a tech outfit is the tech workers themselves.

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.

If you are super handsome, rich, smart and young, it is easier for you than most people to find another girlfriend / boyfriend... but you still want to have influence of the big decision inside your couple, you don't want to be abused...

Following that metaphor: the way I see US tech sector is akin to people in their twenties, prioritizing individual experiences and growth and postponing settling with anyone for now.

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).

People grow up and their options become constrained. This industry will too. And will you then regret not having made different choices earlier?

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...

Union can help to fight abuse in the workplace, does this seems to you irrelevant to tech workers ?

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 ???

Unions are particularly effective when labor is commoditized and fungible. Less so when labor is not exchangeable (suppose it hinges on the question of if a guild more like a union or a cartel?). Programmers like to think they are unique and irreplaceable. Some of them are. Others, probably not so much.

I just don't see the value of unions in tech right now. I make decent money. My hours are consistent at 40 per week. If the employer employee relationship sours, there are 100s of other companies, and it's easy to switch jobs compared to other industries.

Mainly from bad experiences with unions not in tech. It’s funny when people say, no no no the old unions are bad but the new ones will be better. Are you sure?

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.

Because in tech its easy to just move jobs or negotiate on your own. Unions would just have government in you businesses, and make it harder for workers. Not to mention programmers are cheap and wont pay the union fees. I know I wouldn't I'd just avoid unionized companies.

The ethos of SV and the original libertarian thought that pervaded early firms also opposed unions. The early success of the firms, especially in days when growing fast in unchartered waters was all that mattered, it was a great refutation of the idea that you needed unions to take care of workers, and appeared to support the ideals of early founders.

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.

> 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?

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.

The real explanation is decades of widely prevalent anti-union propaganda. People hear something enough times and they tend to believe it. Walmart workers don't have unions either, for the same reasons, but I'm sure people here are cringing at being compared to Walmart workers.

People who want money are opposed to unions. The people who want power sorely want unions.

Kickstarter and now Spotify have both been about editorial control. Not hours. Not wages. Not roles.

Easy. I'm not anti-immigrant and I know large groups of disgruntled software engineers (precisely the union-fans) are. So I need to reduce their power. So I'm anti-union.

I know your big fear is that SWE unions would push for anti-immigrant protectionism, but a cursory glance at HN reveals that the industry workers are disgruntled about everything from ageism to unpaid crunchtime to lack of compensation transparency to technical interviews to open offices (now a moot point) to HR inability to prevent sexism or racism. All issues that could potentially be more compelling to an actual SWE union than lobbying against H-1Bs and other nativist policies.

Do you have any evidence that the Kickstarter Union has done anything in the direction you're talking about?

Admittedly, I did weaken a little when my friends told me about their experience at Caviar. It did feel like collective bargaining would have served them well. But yesterday I saw 1280 comments renewing my resolve¹. No, I will not build a big bomb and put it in the hands of a capricious mob.

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.

I looked through several pages of that HN thread for people discussing unions in any context. I found your comment[1] and an anti-union comment by rayiner[2].

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

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24703750

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702968

A fair objection, but as you well know, it takes work to extract information. Rarely will anyone show you their hand. If you never lift a rock, you never find the snake below, but the snake may exist below nonetheless. And if that rock has had a snake below it before then maybe you don't put your hands underneath to lift the rock.

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.

> But you can win me over trivially

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...

[3] https://aflcio.org/issues/immigration

It is, however, worth noting that historically unions were virulently anti-immigrant, seeing them as competitors who lowered wages. Their change in stance is relatively recent and largely involuntary because their attempts to suppress immigration collapsed.

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.

The AFL are the guys I allude to in the story of Avalon/Peru/Excelsior. Those who would flip from enemy to friend when they are weak can flip from friend to enemy when they are strong just as easily. I'm willing to believe, but no core tenet of the AFL-CIO is considered immutable. Given that, and given that they shift with the breeze, perhaps you can see why their words ring hollow.

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.

How many modern day organizations have not changed their policies after a century of change? How many of them do you yourself belong to?

If you're unhappy with a direction of an organization, you may feel a moment of sadness, but then you can go and find likeminded people unhappy with the direction of the group and found a new one. fwiw, I don't see many comments in that thread calling for labor unions.

Sure, but if I make the Brazen Bull, and someone else gets it, they're going to put me in the Brazen Bull with my like-minded compatriots, which sort of interrupts the "found a new one" part.

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.

¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24704597

If your argument relies on the abstract notion that something created can be weaponized against you, then you can extend that argument to any form of human creation or even human self-perpetuation. In which case then your own defense against something being used against you might as well be existential suicide, because in your view the game is so inherently stacked against you, the only winning move is not to play.

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.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24536273

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24536757

Well, not anything. Some specific things. For instance, I don't fear a union of Appalachian postal workers. If you go help them unionize, you won't find me standing in the way. If you want to unionize Colorado glass workers, I will cheer you on from here. If the proletariat in the steel mills of Pittsburgh wish to unite, I wish them well.

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'm a first generation Taiwanese American naturalized citizen. My main experience with the H-1B system is that tech companies play an awful game of locking in workers who may be happier working for a different employer. Others have compared it to indentured servitude, which seems apt. I don't know enough about the system to see how it should be reformed, but I heartily agreed it shouldn't be used to restrict immigration. I usually hate to draw from personal experiences in these conversations, but a debate primarily using emotional appeals drawn from anecdata can only be responded in kind.

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.

This literally makes no sense. Australian unions have been giving free representation to immigrants bring exploited by employers

without commenting on the truth of the statement (I don't know, I've never talked to american programmer's unions), in the US, unions have traditionally backed anti union sentiment, for example, chinese exclusionary acts in the late 19th and early 20th century.

And then, for those in Australia that support that cultural heritage of labour unity, may their unions prosper.

If it will offer clarification, I speak in the context of America.

It's rather parochial and essentialist to imagine that American labor unions are inherently anti-immigration. This country was founded by immigrants after all, and certainly more recent immigrants can bring in new innovations that can improve our current flawed institutions. Perhaps the next generation of labor unions can do better. To imagine that there is a "context of America" that is fixed and unchanging is to both deny the many cultural contributions that immigrants have brought to this country, and to deny that this country's context is perpetually changing.

True, it is a bit unfair to be prejudiced that way. But you know the famous saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". I haven't forgotten how Avalon and Peru and Excelsior came to be. And when I tried, it was brought home to me again why I shouldn't.

There is a rich irony in your evocation. As a former resident of that neighborhood, and as someone from that continent once denied, I can see that times can change. Perhaps this country has. And even labor unions, too.

I'm eager to believe you're right. Which of your favourite unions has an immutable tenet to be pro-immigration?

Even a cursory glance at contemporary tech movements show that they are largely culturally progressive in nature. Anything from the TWC reveals that they fit in with the general leftist Bay Area political milieu:

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.

A lot of the pro-union push is coming from largely the same set of people that are big activists on social issues/politics, and the union push feels in part like a power grab to gain leverage on those issues. I simply don't agree with the activists on some of the issues they are activists about. On the issues I do agree, I still don't feel that union pressure is the right way to go about it.

It's the ideal of maximum personal freedom.

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.

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