Comment by the_other | Hacker News Reader

Comment by the_other | Hacker News Reader

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The idea that leaving equates to collective bargaining is false, and even if it had a ring of truth it would be ineffectual at FAANG companies.

Leaving changes nothing, it just accelerates the bad behaviour because the obstacle to the bad behaviour removed itself. A single person, even a team of engineers, leaving a FAANG company will have near-zero impact on the behaviour, functioning or profitability of that company. The action will not change management or ownership's perspectives on anything. They'll simply hire someone else, and promote internally if they need too. Even when you have a celebrity engineer like Tim Brey leave Amazon, publicly explaining why, outright slamming some of their behaviour, nothing will change. Mozilla seems to think it can function exactly the same as it did before (in terms of mindset) having let go of 25% of its staff. In the UK we recently had several politicians leave their senior positions within government or their party over disagreements in policy... and nothing meaningful has changed.

Unions are not just for protecting jobs, they're much more about staff having a voice, if not a seat, at the executive table. Unions can help influence senior decision-making. Most of that is about job protection, pay, quality of life issues because in blue-collar jobs those are the key issues. But in white-collar jobs a union can represent the opinion and aims of staff in a way that isn't obvious without them.

> Leaving changes nothing

Leaving improves conditions for the worker and that’s the biggest thing for me, the worker.

The entire post talks about effects on the company. If we’re trying to be unreasonably obtuse, it doesn’t change conditions for a worker either because a person not working is not a worker.

What I meant is that it does change conditions for the worker as they leave for better conditions. I think working in tech, it’s been a luxury to line up a new job and go to that job with zero down time. I’m not suggesting people do brash stuff like walk out without new employment lined up.

This is a huge change, the biggest I think, as I can change all of my conditions by finding a company that gives me what I want.

I think to a lesser extent since I’ve frequently seen that smart people leaving for specific reasons changes company policy.

I was just trying to show a simple contra to parent’s comment saying that leaving changes nothing as that seems simply false to me.

>What I meant is that it does change conditions for the worker as they leave for....

As they leave for, perhaps, a unionized job?

I was with you on the parent comment, but then had a think about it and I agree above, someone who leaves the company is a non-worker for the purposes of this argument

I think it’s important to consider that the plight of the worker is important both to the individual directly and to understand the motivations of employees.

Thinking that benefit to employees isn’t relevant because they don’t exist for purposes of the argument will leave out many interesting possible solutions.

I don’t think the goal is to maximize for a single company as it’s possible to maximize for the system that has both the company, other companies, and other workers.

I suppose the contra seemed a bit hollow, as the bit you quoted has an implicit “in the company” attached based on the context of the post. It was less that your statement was strictly false and more “Well yes, but that isn’t really addressing the actual topic”.

I should have provided more thought in my response. I was trying to reframe that the actual topic shouldn’t be so limited.

But it’s not reasonable for me to assume that readers would get that from my quip.

I think that I try this to try to break out of the paths where we inappropriately limit the scope to the point we can be sound in designing a solution that fits our narrowed scope but missed the goal that we were trying to achieve. I think in this case that the assumption that the goal is to fix google leaves out the individual who has mixed duties to the organization and themself. I probably get too emotional when I frequently see discussions that try to box me into being part of the solution and I see this quite a bit in product design. I see discussions around products where a complaint is met with discussion around the need to provide a solution. So the discussion spirals around kind of assuming the only options for users are: 1) propose solutions, 2) keep using. But there are three options: 1) propose solutions, 2) keep using, 3) stop using. And assuming that all users operate with only the first two options makes it more likely to only design around those two.

Not a leading question, I promise: do you believe you don't own your externalities?

I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve worked in management and staff roles and in both there’s tons of externalities that I don’t control, but maybe can influence.

By being there, and in this industry within rounding error of everyone has the choice to go find another job--you've already committed, personally, to responsibilities for some externalities. At Google, they may be considerable, and they may have large echoes.

Personally, I would feel obligated to make right something I did that I thought wasn't good for the world at large.

Relatedly, this is why I pick my employers (and, when consulting, my clients) very carefully.

Thanks. I think I feel similarly. I don’t have direct control over externalities so I try to pick employers with as much consideration as I can.

So I don’t think I am responsible, but do feel guilt or pride based on organization actions. For a historical example, even if I’m not building the slave ships, I wouldn’t want to work on building them. Depending on the particulars I would either try to change the firm to stop this practice, or leave the firm for another job and then use other legal actions to stop this practice.

The biggest thing for me, also the worker, is being able to negotiate against abuse in an industry that Eg. Uses h1b to abuse employees on the regular. These employees cant leave.

Why can't H1B employees leave? Can't they go back to their countries?

Just because you aren't literally a slave doesn't mean you have to choose between two options you don't want instead of trying to get the third better option.

It’s hard to leave when your children have already made American friends, when they would suffer immensely going to a country they have no familiarity with. The disruption of money and emotional safety of moving to another country with no employment prospects is a horror I don’t want anyone to live through.

I'd say thats one big advantage to unionization and the political leverage that it can bring. Not sure it helps in California where you have a blue state. Getting rid of the cheap exploitative labor that H1's bring in and restoring the H1's original design which was to bring in the best and the brightest or the most skilled.

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