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Comment by chomp | Hacker News Reader

Unions are nothing more than a way to negotiate with capital as a single entity. There's more to negotiating as a union than wringing more bennies out of the employer. Things like "hey is sustained 60 hours a week really acceptable" "why do I have to put work email on my phone and be responsive 24/7" and "it's been 7 years boss and we haven't gotten new workstations" are all things that are up for bargaining. It's about negotiating things as a group that would get you laughed at or demoted if you were to do it by yourself.

Unions do not preclude promotions from merit. Unions do not preclude hiring people at the middle of the pay scale. Don't construct a straw man of the worst things you can think of, and package them up as the average union, because it isn't.

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> Things like "hey is sustained 60 hours a week really acceptable" "why do I have to put work email on my phone and be responsive 24/7" and "it's been 7 years boss and we haven't gotten new workstations" are all things that are up for bargaining.

Do SWEs in the US actually have any of these problems? Maybe I'm spoiled by my FAANG job but I find it hard to imagine these kinds of work conditions even at a non-FAANG tech company.

That's the thing, you have to fight these things even when they're not happening because over time they will happen. Everyone was surprised when Google and Apple came back hard against remote working but that's just what big businesses do.

As software is increasingly commoditized over the next 5 decades we'll see a huge degradation in employee compensation even as profits for these companies continue to grow.

How does one fight against things that aren't happening? "Hell no, boss; I won't do that thing that you're not even asking me to do! No; I don't have any idea what I'm yelling about either!"

You're kidding right? Pre-planning for future events, like havesting food for the winter, is society 101.

You're conflating "fighting" with "preparing for".

Google is allowing remote work, after a long period of being non-committal. Not sure what you mean when you say they "came back hard against [it]".

This happens all the time at non-FAANG companies.

Pretty much all SWEs in Silicon Valley have had to work in open offices, which is a common grievance.

Oh sure, I don't like open offices, but that's not the same as 60 hour weeks and 24/7 oncall.

I tend to bring up open offices in unionization discussions as a very simple example of how SWEs, despite high demand and compensation, don’t nearly have as much leverage as we claim to do (lack of WFH, pre-COVID, is a more impactful variant.) Despite near universal worker complaint, it’s simply something that industry management has embraced and no amount of tweeting, blogging, or even studies (https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices) will make a difference.

Does that mean a union should be built solely to put pressure to end open offices? No, but it does indicate that there are near-universal issues in the industry that such a union or professional association can address. Because without any organizing, management will just continue the status quo. There’s not even the added competition of some firms deciding to offer personal offices or at least cubicles as an alternative to woo candidates.

It’s an example of something in industry that everyone complains about but no one can successfully challenge.

I think, by definition, having a FAANG job is being spoiled, but yes, the software industry has some pretty terrible practices. Look up, for example, the story of EA Spouse. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/18/crunched-...

Ex-Amazon here: burnout due to stressful work and on-call duties is the n. 1 reason for attrition.

It's very well known that people leave FAANGs in general due to stress.

Sorry to hear it. I guess FAANGs aren't interchangeable. I'm at Google - have been on 4 or 5 teams in 10 years - and that's unthinkable. Thanks for the data point, anyway.

> and that's unthinkable

Google seems to be better in some ways, but I met plenty of ex-Googlers complaining about the stress and the competitive environment.

> Unions are nothing more than a way to negotiate with capital as a single entity

Depends on the union and how long it's been in operation and their goals. Some unions demand and get ridiculous perks. You may have heard of the "rubber room" - a.k.a. paying employees not to work. That happened.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114118143005186163

Well, so they're still nothing more than a way to negotiate collectively, even if the employer is a weak negotiator, or if the union reps make poor judgement.

As long as the employer consents, and the union reps consent, and the majority of the union approves a bargain, then I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with getting paid to not work.

One typical benefit of unions, beyond compensation concerns, are better-defined circumstances under which you're able to say "no" without repercussions, and the security of others having your back if management tries to wiggle out of their side of that agreement.

[EDIT] in short, in some situations you get to replace the typical "well, just leave!" response to management trying to fuck you over, with "... don't leave, because they won't be able to fuck you over, and if they try they'll be the ones having a bad day". Which is nice.

They can also lobby on moral grounds - e.g. cracking down on dark patterns, against doing business with abusive regimes or domestic concentration camp operators.

Also work against stack ranking, hire-to-fire, the ridiculous leetcode obsession, and other toxic workplace practices endemic to the industry.

>Unions do not preclude promotions from merit

In theory maybe but in practice this has always seemed to be the case for me (admittedly a brit). Here there are literally queues to be eligible. There is a list of names and it's sorted by company start date.

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