> You have much more bargaining power about your work conditions as an organized union.
You also give away your power as an individual to those running the union.
You also give away your power as an individual to those running the union.
This is also by the way the main dissenting opinion in the recent Amazon union vote. There were several people who were interviewed by the economist as voting no, who said that they'd never had a bad interaction with HR and had gotten everything that they asked for.
This is not the one-sided issue that pro-union activists act like it is, and that level of ignorance is what is holding them back.
On the other hand, if a union imposes some broad agreement on the company under threat of strikes, I can't convince my company to break that agreement on my own because I'm not more valuable than the entire rest of the company combined.
A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine—they're focused on protecting the majority of employees, who are probably not as valuable as me—so forming a union could very easily lead to me getting less of the things I want. For example, if a union convinced a company to pay/promote based on seniority rather than performance, that could be good for most of the people in the union but bad for me.
It doesn't really go beyond that unless it's perceived that management are routinely violating the spirit of agreements and/or when the relationship between the union and management has already completely broken down.
Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. It's _possible_ for you to be worse off in a union, but rare.
You do know that your employment depends on the success of the business, right?
The relationship with an employee is no more adversarial than your relationship with the local grocery store when you buy a bag of potatoes.
Also, grocery stores are about a million billion gazillion times more transparent about trading with you relative to trading with other shoppers.
I'm sad that you think this, and would urge you to analyze your situation to see if it's really true. My one piece of advice is that companies seek to minimize cost centers, but invest in profit centers. Get out of the former and in to the latter.
It’s smart to move out of it, but the fact that you have to in order to progress is a clear indicator why companies will perpetually undervalue talent - even in competitive markets.
This really isn’t true. What you’re describing isn’t even a zero sum game it’s negative sum, where hurting the other party is among your goals in itself. The company is interested in using you to make money and for many purposes happy, satisfied employees who are growing in productivity are good. All of those are also things the employees usually want.
Are employee and company interests fully aligned? Absolutely not, but if your employer’s interests are almost completely opposed to yours get out.
What particular aspect of having a union would make that substantially more difficult in tech?
Long lasting organizations that have multiple overlapping projects with unions end up with compressed wage structures because the union campaigns for the median worker and the structure does not militate against that.
Say, I am not.
> so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer
I cannot, see above. Does that mean I don't deserve to have the bargaining power for the best deal for myself?
> A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine—they're focused on protecting the majority of employees, who are probably not as valuable as me—so forming a union could very easily lead to me getting less of the things I want. For example, if a union convinced a company to pay/promote based on seniority rather than performance, that could be good for most of the people in the union but bad for me.
Well, based on the fact that I'm part of the majority i.e. not as valuable as you, it works very well for us (who are not the World's Greatest Widget Engineer).
No, I do not believe you are entitled to a wealth transfer from people who are better at your job than you are. (Or, to put it another way, you're certainly free to do a little collective bargaining if you'd like, but the World's Greatest Widget Engineer has no reason to join your union.)
What you mean is «better at negotiating than you are».
Work skill an negotiation skills don’t always coincide (in my experience they almost never do).
Even if you did promote your best engineer, that just means that a different employee at your company is now your best engineer and the same dynamics apply. (Until, of course, you promote everyone competent to management, and then your organization is doomed to slowly suffocate itself. Then it's beyond saving, union or no union.)
Said another way, I can go down to the union hall and pick an electrician randomly and have a great deal more confidence in that person's ability than I could choosing a random developer off of LinkedIn to write my application.
I think certifications have something to do with this, but it's also the complete lack of understanding of what makes someone a good developer by management... this is entirely the fault of management and I don't blame a developer for trying to "fake it til you make it."
Somewhat relevant: https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/denver-fir...
What do you base this on? Movies?
Telling someone to strap on a helmet isn't a threat of violence to a reasonable person. Putting a stuffed rat on a ledge near someone's bed is also not a threat of violence. If it had a noose or something, you'd have a better argument.
Here's actual violence done against picketers and looked the other way by police in Alabama:
https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/striking-miners-wife-hit-by-...
Here's a few more people running into picketers in Alabama. Apparently these are strikebreakers:
https://www.wbrc.com/2021/06/08/video-shows-trucks-hitting-w...
Here's another:
https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/crime/police-in...
And another:
https://abc7news.com/uc-union-strike-university-of-californi...
There's plenty more.
But cross a picket-line or hire on as a scab during a strike in a small town and you'd best watch your back... hence the motivation for the "wear a helmet" comment. My hometown was founded on steel and railroads and I knew of more than one person growing up that got jumped for not toeing the line and playing ball with the union.
The history of it is quite fascinating. Here's an example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_Uni...
This guy sticks out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Haywood
Sadly, it often works.
We're not interchangeable cogs in some manufacturing machine; we're extremely skilled experts in the biggest seller's market of our careers. Why anyone would want to unionize right now is beyond me.
How did you get so intensely in thrall of the people holding your collar?
No, this is powered by the law. If it wasn’t the evaporation of unions that we’ve seen over the last 20 years would have taken weekends with them.
A thing unions were supportive of in the past is not evidence of the value of unions now.
It’s like pointing out the importance of American troops in France because world war 2.
Those laws were a consequence of industrial action by unions. Here's a backgrounder on the progress made by unions in Australia.
<https://www.australianunions.org.au/about-unions/union-achie...>
Every year, Australian employees are entitled to 4 weeks of paid annual leave, two weeks of paid sick leave, 6 months of paid long service leave after 10 years of employment, about 10% of their salary paid into their retirement investments (superannuation).
Unions even up the negotiation power imbalance between employers and workers. Union power has been severely curtailed over the last few decades and as a consequence workers have seen stagnant wages, rising inequality of compensation and the rise of insecure work.
There's plenty of evidence to support the assertion that collective bargaining leads to better outcomes for workers. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Links chosen from a cursory web search:
<https://www.ehstoday.com/safety/article/21918297/new-study-s...>
<https://www.epi.org/blog/union-decline-rising-inequality-cha...>
You didn’t read my message, because this is what I already said. Unions helped push it into law. The unions are all but dead in the US, but weekends are still here because it is a law. What value do the unions provide now?
On the basis of your logic that's a consequence of the lack of union and organised labour
There are similar splits in professional level work. There are jobs available where you ~never work six days a week and others where it’s routine. Trust me when I say no one at Nike or Booking in Shanghai is working 996.
My logic does not suggest the lack of unions and organized labor causes six day weeks. Six or seven day working weeks are the natural condition. Economic growth allows for different consumption leisure trade offs. Unions can only very indirectly effect economic growth. They matter much less than the ability to quit your job and find a new one easily. Firms desperate for workers are what make working conditions better, much more than unions.
As the other comment mentioned the biggest individual power you have is quitting and a union doesn't prevent that.
The reason an employee may want to join a union is because this divergence has already happened between the employee and the employer.
> You also give away your power as an individual to those running the union.
One indicator as to whether members are running the union is to see whether the strike fund is well funded.
If it is, that union is very likely to be at a minimum involving the rank and file in it's operations and negotiations.
No strike fund? Be careful. A union without a well funded strike fund basically has very little power.