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Comment by jaqalopes | Hacker News Reader

Unionization is the correct response here. The incentives of company leaders simply don't account for workers' desire to not lose their jobs. The only way to change this is for workers to change said incentives--by organizing. Of course, easy for me to say as a freelancer. I'm definitely not trying to say unionizing tech would be easy. But it certainly is simple, at least conceptually.

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Couldn't this potentially make it so those jobs never existed in the first place? Seems companies would be less willing to hire if it becomes harder to let employees go. What is the incentive to take risk? The reason Europe is almost out of the tech race entirely is in large part due to European companies not taking risks.

I think there needs to be some sort of counterbalance. We probably don't need full UAW style unions, but we need some sort of collective voice and power so that there can actually be a conversation with management.

I think Germany's work councils could be a good starting point to work from.

>so that there can actually be a conversation with management

What conversations do you need to have? Genuine question.

100%. This is the entire point of unions -- to represent the collective interests of the some segment of (or all) a company's workers.

Unfortunately when unions are weak, they are negative value - and when they are strong they are the UAW. Workers are not a firm, and structuring labor as it's own firm is known as contracting and or a guild.

I'd love to see some apprentice programs in IT, it would at least give everyone a standard base of knowledge like what you are supposed to have in a union journeyman. Right now everybody with six months experience considers themselves senior, we have no standards and we all fight each other which isn't how a union works.

I used to work in a unionised engineering department. There were benefits, such as being hard to lay off large amounts of the workforce. There were also disadvantages, such as collective bargaining which meant high performers generally weren't rewarded and salaries were generally below market.

Yep, it's good with the bad. Another "good" as I get older is that seniority means something, it's harder to discriminate against the older guys and replace them with a 20 year old for half the price.

Tech workers at the New York Times have unionized. Not sure what kind of result's they've achieved.

https://nytimesguild.org/tech

> Unionization is the correct response here

That makes sense on the face of it, but if you look back over the other professions that have unionized (steel workers, auto workers, truck drivers), the lives of the actual workers always seems to have suffered post-unionization.

Really, do you have some studies on that? I'm pretty sure it was unionization that got us the 40 hour work week.

I need a citation for this. IATSE has some of the best benefits (pension and healthcare) for their members in media/entertainment, as I understand it entirely funded by cuts from residuals.

And their take is, directly from their site, "$95.00 per quarter and 1% of gross earnings under the contract."

Amazon could start a 'jobs bank'!

The Jobs Bank was set up by mutual agreement between U.S. automakers and the United Auto Workers union to protect workers from layoffs. Begun in the mid-1980s, the program is being tapped by thousands of workers. Many of those receiving checks do community service work or take courses. Others sit around, watching movies or doing crossword puzzles -- all while making $26 an hour or more.

The Big Three automakers agreed to the system to protect union workers from outsourcing and technology. But with Ford and General Motors losing money in North America -- and contract negotiations due in 2007 -- the future of the unique program is uncertain.

https://www.npr.org/2006/02/02/5185887/idled-auto-workers-ta...

Not directly related to Unions... but look at salaries for SDEs in Europe compared to the US. You can almost 2x-3x a salary for the same job. A large factor is that European companies don't take risks. At least, compared to the US.

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-en...

In fact, almost any innovative/high-skilled job pays a fraction compared to the US. It is much harder to innovate in Europe.

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