In my opinion you’re hired somewhere to work there and be productive, not to unionize. Workers who join companies and then try to subvert the entire system are a cancer to the org.
There are many short term pressures on executives and finance people. Sharing power with the people their decisions affect leads to better outcomes for the business than when they use their power over workers for short term gain.
I own shares in public companies and have basically zero say in how they operate and those shares are worth quite a bit.
At this point it’s clear these arguments are flippant and not serious. I hope one day you can have a perspective on these issues that is not so shallow. They are important and you also should have a say in your workplace. Our voices matter.
Instead of banding together and threatening the management and owners with strike action it’s better that they quit because maybe there are other people who are happy to do the work without a union.
I think the problem is most people don’t imagine themselves as owners/managers. If they did they would oppose unions too because they would not want their autonomy taken away.
Why? It's pretty weird to say they should use the most extreme option without negotiation or do nothing, and that this is better than using intermediate options.
> because maybe there are other people who are happy to do the work without a union.
The main concern isn't the mere fact the union exists, it's to have a more even negotiating position, and I feel like everyone should want that. And I'm quite sure that the number of people that want that is much bigger than the number of unemployed workers, so that trade you suggest isn't even possible.
> I think the problem is most people don’t imagine themselves as owners/managers. If they did they would oppose unions too because they would not want their autonomy taken away.
Are you actually encouraging the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" point of view? How about an attempt at an objective view, that even if we look at it like a zero sum game, it's better for 20 workers to have more autonomy than for 1 employer to have more autonomy.
If workers have a say it distorts these forces. And by say you mean the ability to force the hand of management. Because they already can have a say and modern companies measure everything and listen to feedback.
Also, if in most tech companies workers are given equity, are they not owners also?
Examples of unions fighting for management to make better business decisions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3mjxg/general-electric-work...
People like to pretend we don’t live in a cut throat capitalist system and that it has worked out best.
But if employees always demanded things to be run they way they want, then you couldn’t have this level of experimentation and innovation.
I think the obvious fact is that there are not many co op companies because it doesn’t work. It’s like: stop trying to change someone else’s company, and start your own and build it from the ground up with the governance structure you want.
The people who make the laws get to set all the rules. The shares are valuable anyway, because an economic interest in a profit making entity is valuable whether you have perfect control or not.
Unionization is how employees get a seat at the table and a say in the business they contribute their labor to, labor without which the business could not exist. Comp and benefits are only a component why organizing is important, in my opinion.
This is not the case in software at all. Skill levels can vary dramatically and the more experience you have with your company often the more valuable and harder to replace you become. Software developers are expensive, especially bad hires. This puts them in an advantageous position. In sum we are - In demand, scarce, hard (or at least expensive) to replace (skill & domain knowledge vary considerably). The exact opposite of what a union fixes.
I think it is more common for the umbrella union orgs to focus on industries either with high barriers to entry (like nursing) or huge employers, because they are going company-by-company & it's just more efficient. On the opposite end of the spectrum, trade unions are more likely to serve people who change jobs ever couple of years and where most of the learning happens on the job. They tend to be run by & for people actually in the profession and can cross company boundaries.
Trade guilds will do things like specify minimum wages, but most of their members end up paid more than that. They'll specify minimum safety standards, but also support people on specific job sites that want or need additional protection to make that particular job safe. It isn't the same kind of one-size-fits-all approach you may be used to from Detroit auto plants.
There are advantages for employers too: they know that people in the guild are held to certain professional standards, for example. When retirement programs or health care are managed through the guild, workers can take the benefits with them to their next job, and small employers don't get taken for a ride. And employers can benefit from the steady influx of newly-trained workers who have been taught up to the standards the trade feels are important to meet.
Just look at the people in this thread who think it is "drastic" to have a lawyer look at our employment contracts: we may have individual leverage, but we aren't necessarily able to use it to make our working conditions better, or even to ensure the software we build is reliable and safe.
Isn’t it fairer to rely on the free market to set wages? There are shortages and surpluses in many industries that vary over time. Unions seem to just distort the market.
Reviewing employment contracts can be done by one’s own lawyer via legal insurance too. Why does this need to be collective? Why not pay a fee for services you use rather than union dues. A lot of the benefits you mention doesn’t need unionization.
However, employers are in a position of significant power over their employees, and unions represent a way to balance that power. I think this is a broadly positive thing that I think employees should be in favour of, and that I think the best employers would also be in favour of.
Your other comment indicates they should have to amass 51% of company shares. Ridiculous. Their ability to organize and vote to do so comes from their labor rights, and is precisely why they don’t require capital (per labor law) to have a say.
Businesses can be built without capital. They cannot be built without labor.
Even if you aren't unionized, it is your right to get together with your coworkers & advocate for better working conditions.
We are doing the "Tell me you haven't read the article without telling me you haven't read the article." kind of posts on HN now?