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Comment by ThemalSpan | Hacker News Reader

I don't think looking at hacker news as a hive mind is a good idea tbh.

I'm on the side of those unionizing. Work conditions don't need to be unsafe for folks to unionize, and I'm fairly confident in saying that the vast majority of folks everywhere (in tech anyway) are paid an unfairly low amount for the value they generate.

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Except value you generate is not a good metric for salary.

If I have an employee that generates 100M a year, but I have boundless applicants that can perform that same task then the unfortunate reality is that person is not that valuable.

Then you are free to replace them with these boundless applicants. Weirdly, every tech company claims there is a shortage of talented employees.

... and it doesn't matter how easy the job is, you need people to do those jobs. In this labor market, it's hard to find people of all skill levels. I'm not suggesting QA is easy or doesn't require a lot of skill either -- it's very hard to find a really talented QA person.

People outside the industry really undervalue talented QA people - yes there are hordes of 20 year olds that have always wanted to "work on the fortnite" but their productivity compared to someone long in the industry who understands how to effectively test, can write clear test plans and knows the importance of reproduction steps and who understands test automation... it's a night and day comparison.

Correct, but a shortage works in favor of the employee. No Union needed.

A union makes it easier for employees to take full advantage of the shortage.

Just because a union isn’t “needed”, doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful.

It can also be harmful and unless you admit that you aren’t being honest based on history.

> If I have an employee that generates 100M a year, but I have boundless applicants that can perform that same task

The 100M a year here is generally rapidly competed away in this situation.

How do you know they can do the exact same task? After how many months? And what if the new guy quit after a month and after you wasted weeks on trying to hire them?

Value generation should be +/- the only metric for salary(besides whether or not you negatively affect the rest of team because of your behavior)

It’s also very difficult if not impossible to calculate generally and many people tend to vastly overestimate their personal contribution to value generation.

I remember McDonalds workers striking and a post about how their CEO makes ~1300x their salary. I looked up our dual CEO salary and together they were making like ~2000x our salaries.

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