What about "stop putting me on call without compensation or I will leave the company"
Says the dude without kids and a mortgage who can afford a couple of months without a salary :)
End of the day, requiring such a high friction approach to addressing basic issues sets up incentives to take no action.
It doesn't have to be a bluff, programmers are still in high demand.
And I'm not even in Silicon Valley, and I have no degree. C'mon!
So what you are describing is a situation in which there is zero long-term pressure for the company to improve or change their practices, because there is a never-ending source of people to replace the ones leaving, and as long as they're fine with the churn (spoiler: they are), they'll just chalk it up to the system working as intended.
If the software has any level of complexity, an org does not want to incur the cost of training a newly hired engineer and waiting 3-6 months while they get up to speed.
That means you can't go to your bosses and say "I think I'm worth this much (more) money".
You also can't leave your job to get paid that much, because seniority at your new company means you will start at lower pay than you currently have.
Collective bargaining is usually around work rules and core issues. No non-VP+ individual has the ability to effectively bargain re health insurance.
All companies have pay scales. Even massive unionized bureaucracies like the Federal government have the ability to compensate critical employees or critical skills. (Although your definition of critical may not align with the entity)
If you changed companies though you started at the bottom, guaranteed, because if you get moved ahead of people in the new company it creates an utter shitstorm. Management at the new job basically has to hate their employees and themselves to do such a thing.
No. You're going to get what the union wants.
People complain endlessly about HOAs and their behavior. Being in a union is the same shit!
By the way, in my professional adult life, there has never been a situation where there was something reasonable that I wanted in my employment contract and didn't get it. Just ask! I wonder how many people out there want unions and are also the kinds of people who don't ask for things they need.
And if you want to use unions to get you things that are _unreasonable_ that's bad for everyone.
At least Frank is fucked if their relationship ever sours though. Fucking Frank. Everyone wants to see that guy get injured.
btw, would you be prepared to strike if negotiations don't go well? That's the only tool a union has to keep the other side at the bargaining table. heh I doubt you can charge PTO to a strike so i wouldn't expect a paycheck.