Guess tech workers should have unionized when they had the chance. As if capital was going to let the most powerful group of workers that's ever existed continue to slip their noose
Ultimately I don't think our type of nerds will get together on this style of politics
If you’re taking anything from it besides ideas, entertainment, and a dopamine hit, you’re doing it wrong.
> Important to keep in mind this forum’s audience is a minority in everything except said forum’s viewership.
True but acting like Hacker news articles over years isn't one of the best social media based predictor of tech trends is a little silly
Try posting any kind of substantial critique of a YC company and see what happens to the submission.
This site is rather open and shameless about it's manipulation. YC companies get to post job ads that are instantly boosted to the front page and nobody can comment on. They have an official "second chance" queue to force boost posts that didn't receive the "correct" amount of organic attention.
If an individual is posting too many independent ideas they get re-educated by Dang or shadowbanned
I would assume it would do poorly, and then the submitter would realize the site isn't for them and then leave. Reinforcing the fact that the people who stay already had a certain bias.
Times change.
I think the tech workers are generally still opposed to the idea
As the economy downturns, more and more software devs on the low end will be pushed to the point where unionization makes sense. They were never really powerful or well paid, but had hope of rising to a higher class. It’s that aspiration that lead to people discounting the ida of unionization.
LarryDarrell on July 8, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Employee activism in tech stops short of organizin...
My worry is that without premature organization, the next recession is going to make the "tech worker shortage" a permanent thing of the past. We'll never have as much negotiating power as we do now.
If say there was a Tech Workers Union/Guild/Association, we might have been able to protect the older workers at IBM, or the outsourced workers at Disney. Maybe there could be a push back against open offices and poorly implemented Agile. As it is, we're just better compensated workers floating from job to better job.
I think this is a big reason tech workers are opposed to the idea.
It's not really a binary choice either. With unions it just increases the probability of you being on a team of terrible engineers while lowering the probability of you getting layed off.
So the real question is which probability metric is more important to you and other engineers?
Times constantly change you won't always be in a situation where you have the finances to just quit just because you're frustrated with a job.
As a high paid SWE we often forget that A job is more then doing something you "like" to do, it is a means of survival. When times change, when hard times come or when some life changing event happens, being allowed to survive is a good thing.
What firms can't usually do to them is fire them without actually demonstrating cause.
Tech, particularly Silicon Valley tech startups, have always had rather lofty ideals and conjured visions of employee empowerment, which management then fail to deliver upon. One could imagine a tech union or guild that goes beyond the function of old-style industrial unions but actually serves as a means of protection for a company’s workforce to challenge management decisions if a majority disagree, in terms of strategy. Every engineer has felt like Dilbert working under a pointy-headed boss at some point.
I think a true middle path would be German-style co-determination, where there is active engagement and cooperation between workers and management as equals, moderated by the government.
https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/business/co-determinatio...
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/indust...
- The economics of supply and demand will swing back to software engineers in the short term, because there aren't enough of us to power every tech company's product roadmap on their desired timeline.
- Laid off workers will start new companies that will threaten the companies that laid them off.
- The macro environment will swing back eventually to favor fast growth.
Long term is bad [1], though:
- Tech is going global. Europe, Latin America, India, the rest of Asia, and emerging economies all over the world are raising venture capital and hiring substantially cheaper local talent. These companies will put downwards economic pressures on US companies' unlimited growth stories, worldwide monopoly statuses, and thus their ability to pay lavish salaries.
- Also, a broader global talent pool will put downward pressures on salaries.
- Much more hypothetical, but the emergence of AI tools could put additional pressure on engineers. It's unclear how much or to what extent, but it could be a big impact.
[1] Tech going worldwide is fantastic for workers in growing economies. They'll quickly move up the socioeconomic ladder, and that's a good thing. As long as AI doesn't eat their lunch first.
That hurts the developed cities and countries more than the individuals though. Expect a lot of heat out of civic conferences the next few years as they start to re-assess their budgets/roles.
Some equalization is only fair in the end. Your output / cost should be the same as any other. Not all developing economies have talent that can fit these companies today, but there's no reason that can't change tomorrow.
The major gap from my perspective is fair and equitable ways of gauging performance (tech specifically but in general).
Then suddenly today I said something and instantly got 100 upvotes...
In the end, wound up staying in a room at a friend's house that was being renovated... working small project work at barely enough to feed myself on... By the end, my truck was reposessed and I was driving a junker. All I can say is for now, keep your head down, and hit your goals.
The up side is during the down time I managed to enhance my skills, learn a new programming language (offline, with the command line compiler is so much fun /sarc).
It's cyclical... I would expect many jobs at the higher end to shift down about 30-50% in terms of base compensation. Working C2H right now, and really hoping I'm able to come in perm. Fortunately in a market not going away.
A union doesn't necessarily have to negotiate maximum ceiling salaries. It doesn't have to negotiate salaries at all. It can just be an entity to prevent the company from letting you go just because the numbers look 2% better.
I think the best of both worlds is when the union only negotiates a minimum salary.
They're more likely to empathize with the CEO who's complaining how hard it is to fire people in Europe than with the average even 10x tech worker.
I think there will be a form of credential-ism and it will continue to be similar to the tech interview.
It'd take a union to force FAANG into that, though, because it'd make job mobility much easier, so tend to increase wages.
We can have a setup where everyone benefits, people who think they are top talent are free to capitalize on that fact if they truly are top talent, while also being protected from predatory employment practices if/when they aren't top talent. Even if we recognize the existence of 10x or 100x engineers surely we must also recognize that they are humans that will have family issues, mental health concerns or struggle with burnout / purpose / direction during a multi-decade career. No shortage of evidence that tech companies are working together to suppress engineering wages, why wouldn't engineers respond by working together to invigorate wages?
It's hard to establish hard standards in an industry that moves as quickly as tech can, but virtually anything would be an improvement over the frat house hazing ritual that technical interviews have become.
It can be viewed from the other angle. If software engineers aren't licensed why do lawyers and plumbers have to be?
The pros of being licensed are obvious. The cons are less so. One thing licensing does is lower supply. It can be used to artificially lower supply so that prices and wages remain high.
Are you sure barbers are licensed?
I can’t say why with certainty, but I suspect it’s the veneration of the idea of the mythical “10x zero to one founder” that single-handedly props up the sky and produces billions of dollars of value for their (equally venerable) VC “partners”.
It’s kind of a “temporarily embarrassed billionaire” phenomenon that I love to watch on here.
Unions are a libertarian concept. Freedom of association is the fundamental underpinning of libertarianism. Those at the other end of the spectrum stand for supply management instead.
Aside, I tend to get along with most conservatives okay, I'm just far more in favor of more limited govt than they tend to be, and more personal liberty, which tends to collide when they want to make religious views law.
If so, unions and the very opposite of unions are “libertarian concepts” and we’ve reached a point where we’re just talking about how words are meaningless and are entirely off-topic.
This isn't a common term where I'm from, so I am admittedly not intimately familiar with it, but as I understand its meaning, as defined by Wikipedia, it removes some degree of freedom of association. So, no, it is in stark contrast to libertarianism.
“Libertarian” has a specific connotation in the US, certainly when we’re discussing employment within the US.
And they wouldn't be wrong in a vacuum, but what you're forgetting about is contract. In order for association to commence, a union is going to present a contract that spells out what happens in that case, assuming it is of concern to the union members, and the manager will be bound to what has been agreed upon. Libertarianism isn't anarchy.
I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, I don’t actually care about libertarianism because in the US it’s a label self-applied by many kooks (for example, just look up the Libertarian Party nominees for president in… any of our elections)
By US standards, in the US job market, “unions are a libertarian concept” is something that only someone unfamiliar with US labor dynamics and the local meaning of “libertarian” would say. It’s a pointless exercise of “Look how I define this word outside of meaningful context!”
> Requiring a piece of paper that the government supports in order to obtain employment does not seem very libertarian.
Do you see no difference between a contract and a contract required by the government?
Anyway, I’m going to move on. It’s been fun talking about a definition of “libertarian” that has nothing to do with the practical discussion at hand. Kudos to your definition as it applies to the term outside of the US job market.
What government requirement are you talking about? There was no mention of this in previous comments and seems to have nothing to do with the discussion. As before, a union will most likely require a contract in order to enter into an association with an employer, but that's ultimately up to the parties seeking association. Strictly speaking they could associate without one, but disputes become harder to resolve later so it is not the best idea. Indeed, under libertarianism, the government will support the contracts you enter into by helping you enforce them. That is necessary for freedom of association to be a useful concept.
"Right to work" is a union-busting concept: regardless of collective bargaining agreements an individual has the right to their employment, whether or not they pay dues to a union.
Just wanted to correct a common mistake I see made often in these discussions.
Yep! “Right to work” is a way of framing union-busting rhetoric in a way that appeals to people that consider themselves to be libertarian(ish), so I’ve intentionally used that phrasing to try to highlight that both unions and union busting can fit under “libertarian” depending on a person’s intent.
That combination seems to increase (or at least leave unchanged) my freedom of association. (Others who do wish to associate with that union are still free to do so, of course.)
With freedom of association, a union and employer could reach a contractual agreement to require that all employees who enter into an association with the employer must pay into the union, regardless of membership status. Freedom of association allows an employer to reject those terms, of course, but if they do enter into that agreement then that's the terms of engagement that must be adhered to.
The government lording over saying "You can't do that", even when both parties are agreeable to the terms, removes necessary freedom. If the employer wants to associate with you without you needing to pay into a union, they can reject those terms on their own accord. If they do enter into that agreement, they have the freedom to not associate with you if you don't like the terms (as you the freedom to not associate with them).
I, an individual, could equally say "I hate that sokoloff guy and I'll work with you only if you agree to never hire him." and at that point they have to decide if I'm worth hiring under those terms or not. If they want to keep you open as an option then they can say "Nope. Sorry. Best of luck in your future endeavours."
As is union busting.
As the US learned a long time ago, and then eventually forgot, the freedom to organize without employer retribution can only exist with government coercion. And absent that freedom, any attempt to unionize will be (and in the last 30-40 years, has been) crushed by the capital-owning class.
What you describe is most definitely not libertarianism. Probably conservatism.
That's just a No True Scotsman fallacy.
A libertarian would say that employees can choose their employers, and the employers can therefore dictate the term of employment.
One of those terms can be "you are not allowed to freely associate with your fellow employees", and the libertarian would say "if you don't like it, don't work there. #freedom"
The realist recognizes that the employer-employee relationship is one that contains a significant imbalance of power, and that it requires a government to step in and put their finger on the scale in order to ensure fair and equitable treatment of employees. This isn't theory, it's practical reality that we learned from the post-industrial sweatshop era where child labor was the norm and employees had no rights to speak of.
Now, go ahead, feel free to define your personal belief set as "libertarian" if you want. But if you support government regulating the employer-employee relationship, you are not, by any definition I'm aware of, a libertarian.
For example, libertarians have been screaming from the rooftops about needing a flat tax for the longest time. Know what would accelerate socialist reforms in the US faster than any other?
A flat tax.
Public sentiment would turn on a dime as soon as people saw how much they were getting screwed.
Very possibly I misunderstood, but otherwise that sounds suspiciously like what a cartoon villain capitalist would propose - sure seems like they’d be the winners in the short term.
Yes, they would be short term winners until the voting public revolts. But it's not the 1980s anymore. Half the working populace doesn't have a fat pension on the other end of their working days. The people who actually have accumulated enough capital to care about the stock market are dying and are being replaced by people who can't even afford to move out of their parents homes until they're in their late 20s.
Other possibilities include the belief that a union would be ineffective. Or corrupt. Or at least unproven. Or would kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Or would immediately be captured by special interests not directly related to employment at big tech.
Which isn’t to say that these concerns are valid, or couldn’t be addressed, or whatever. But they exist
>Or would kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
is a re-statement of my observation! :)
One can believe none of that, but still believe that a union would sufficiently change the firm’s economics that it would no longer offer the kind of jobs it does today.
One could believe that the collective work of all the employees produces all that value—no need for embarrassed billionaires—and still think that a union would work against that value.
And I’m not sure how believing that a union is unproven fits into your theory that HN readers believe the value is produced by the Übermensch.
Tech has had high pay gor a long time, mostly due to cheap money. If the cheap money goes away, how do they pay these inflated salaries?
Overall, I think unions can be good because you have clear terms defined in a contract. That provides a more fair environment when it comes to worker treatment, calibration, etc. But I don't see it helping with pay in most cases, certainly not in terms of preventing these layoffs either.
Because it is true. And because I am sick and tired of this self hate of "inflated salaries". Jesus, we are working in one of the most profitable industries, whatever we build tends to be a long term force multiplier, and somehow a large portion of the sector thinks our earnings are inflated.
The earnings of a hedge fund manager who makes 1.5 million pounds a day is inflated. Not a software engineer living a decidedly middle class life.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/217489/revenue-per-emplo...
From the stuff I'm reading, the layoffs that are happening are mostly cutting unprofitable programs, or unnecessary support staff. And in very small numbers (5% or less).
At this point, I'm not sure what we're really discussing since this started out as talking about how above average tech salaries are at these top-tier companies, both in terms of the industry and in general. My only point was that I don't think unionizing would be beneficial to increasing tech salary or to preventing there layoffs. Where they would be useful is more consistent treatment of employees and adherence to their own policies.
Haha, ok. Can you not clearly see your own subjective bias? Why doesn't that hedgefund manager deserve it? Many of the people working for tech companies are not middle class. At the very least, $500k+ salaries are above middle class. The starting salary at most top-tier companies is multiple times the median salary. I say top-tier companies, because these are the ones doing the layoff. Analysts are saying there will be, or is, a slow down in many if the types of products (data) sold by these companies.
You can continue to think that $500k+ salaries are warranted because you're a force multiplier etc, but that's the same reasoning CEOs and fund mangers use. Maybe they are. But don't be surprised when hordes of average people call you out.
Edit: Why disagree?
I can’t think of anything else that takes so much, while adding nothing to society.
Not all hedge funds are malicious.
We can also see issues in tech that are similar. Look at all the hate Meta gets for their business model - using addicting algorithms to gather and sell users' info. There can certainly be an argument made here about the potential societal damage they cause being a parasite.
We should absolutely hold Big Tech accountable for their business models and actions.
On the whole though, they have released many orders of magnitude more useful things than Hedge Funds.
Is there a Citadel Maps I can use ? Or a TwoSigma framework like React ?
At least Big Tech has ad-powered useful services.
Hedge funds gobble up PhD holders and the cream of the crop and use them to make 0.1% of the population 5% wealthier ?
Well no shit - you're comparing an entity that creates "things" to one that doesn't!
"gobble up PhD holders and the cream of the crop and use them to make 0.1% of the population 5% wealthier"
Um, Google does this with data scientists. Maybe they do create a useful app, but make no mistake that their primary goal is to make the stock owners (mostly the top 1%) richer off the backs of their unsuspecting users.
An entity that puts nothing into the host system, but consumes resources from the host to fatten itself is a parasite.
In the case of hedge funds, it’s a zero-sum game. Either you or the counter party lose depending on how the bet goes. In aggregate, society gets nothing, but the cost of the net zero value is high (highly skilled people, taking resources away from other things). It’s profitable but net useless.
In the case of Google Maps, no one has to lose for me to make a journey. It’s profitable and useful.
Saying, ohh but they both operate in a capitalistic system to make money for shareholders is not relevant.
How is that money generated ?
You seem to miss how the system works. Those companies are where they are today because of financing. Stock purchases, including demand for existing shares drives that.
"In the case of Google Maps, no one has to lose for me to make a journey."
No, you trade your data (lose privacy) for that journey.
Yea, the way it works with hedge funds is, do whatever it takes to make a profit, underlying company be damned - see naked shorting GME.
Where is the “financing” in that?
What about all the companies that “got to where they are now” aka dissolved because shorting to oblivion would generate a profit ?
The fact you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and claiming that just buying stock = increasing demand = creating value should be a red flag.
“No, you trade your data”
How exactly does that happen in offline mode ?
"Yea, the way it works with hedge funds is, do whatever it takes to make a profit, underlying company be damned - see naked shorting GME."
Who's scraping the bottom of the barrel now? Not all hedge funds operate that way.
"aka dissolved because shorting to oblivion would generate a profit?"
Please elaborate. Shorting does not itself lead to a company dissolving.
"claiming that just buying stock = increasing demand = creating value should be a red flag."
I've claimed no such thing. Stop straw manning. Demand for shares increases stock price, which allows the company to issue shares at a higher price, generating more capital for future expansion. The company can increase demand by increasing their value, either realized or speculative.
You seem to have an emotional vendetta against hedge funds and aren't interested in a real discussion from a systems thinking perspective. Hopefully some third party has gained something from this conversation, otherwise it was a complete waste of time.
Besides, 1.5 million A DAY, is near a billion a year, which is an absurdly high number. Especially if said person cries about "inflated tech salaries". You can't ignore these people have exceptional talent, in one of the highest cost of living cities.
Finally, what do these people get for 300k salaries (which was the most common number used for Google, for example)? If you stop looking at the number but the life quality, and what these people have, you will notice quickly that most of it is what we would classify as middle class a couple decades ago.
A single person earning $300k is above middle class.
If we look solely at quality of life (which you don't even define), then the results are meaningless. Even if the things they have would have been considered middle class decades ago, they are not middle class now due to population increase and density increase in that area (you can't all have SFH in the finite space). Or possible if you mean the quality of has overall decreased, then those people still have more that the people who are currently middle class. I don't think quality of life has actually gone down, but I'd be interested in numbers either way.
Pando had good coverage: https://web.archive.org/web/20200304045453/https://pando.com...
I used to think that we didn't need unions, until that came up.
It's been asked, how would unions have helped with that, and I don't know, but it seems like there's some room for improvement somehow.
Perhaps unions are not the end all be all, however we definitely need to follow suit like architects in my opinion. Somehow having a unified say, a way to decide on what are the standards etc. will help tremendously as far as the health of our sector goes.
Us workers already have Universal protections and job security while striking even if they're not in a union.
No need for sick time, huh. Mat leave, pat leave. Generally US worker protections are some of the weakest in the developed world. So yeah I mean it's possible that these can be achieved without unionization, they definitely haven't been. A lot of those protections you allude to were actually obtained because of unions.
The weekend, and not locking workers in leading to them burning to death in downtown New York are all thanks to organized labor. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...
>So yeah I mean it's possible that these can be achieved without unionization, they definitely haven't been.
Maybe I'm missing something, but almost all big tech companies have these and never had a union.
>The weekend, and not locking workers in leading to them burning to death in downtown New York are all thanks to organized labor.
When was the last time US programmers were locked in an office? I have never heard of this as a big issue.
We were talking universal protections. I said they don't exist. It's disingenuous to then pivot back to not just tech, but specifically big tech. Plenty of smaller companies have less generous policies. This isn't the case in places that have the universal protections of which you spoke. Although on second reading you may have been referring to individuals striking only.
Universal protections around striking specifically are pretty dismal, with extremely limited enforcement in the US. Also, what good is a strike without organization? You gonna get three people outside holding up a sign? Strikes only work if you get enough people doing it.
> Maybe I'm missing something, but almost all big tech companies have these and never had a union.
Correct, but workers are the beneficiaries of policies that were brought in thanks to predecessor unions and the organized labor movement. This is like saying that we don't need the EPA anymore because the Cuyahoga hasn't caught fire in a while.
> When was the last time US programmers were locked in an office? I have never heard of this as a big issue.
You can thank a union for that. Feel free to read the wikipedia article I linked you in my original reply and circle back. Specifically the 'consequences and legacy' section. The history of worker rights everywhere (and the US is no exception) was written in blood.
The part that kills me is how differently people get treated. Employees of similar skills/output/etc can be treated entirely differently. There's no transparency in ratings and performance reviews. I've seen my company violate its policies multiple times to screw people over, including myself. A real contract, with or without a union, would be a huge step.
It's also about perspective. I'm below the median for a US dev, but even so, I'm above the median in general. We have to use the Area Median Income (AMI) for a specific locale. Middle class goes up to 2x the AMI. On much of the east coast, it's about $140k per household. It's very easy to exceed this if married with both spouses working and one being in tech.
Individual brands <-> Right to anonymity
40 hour workweek <-> Seasonal work
Manual labor <-> Automation
Rent seeking <-> Commons
Service economy <-> Information economy
Wealth inequality <-> Middle class
Welfare <-> UBI
Raising retirement age <-> Lowering retirement age
Minimum wage <-> Living wage
Intellectual property <-> Public domain
Tax reduction <-> Progressive taxation
Usury <-> Access to capital
Monopoly <-> Consumer protections
For-profit insurance <-> Single-payer healthcare
Corruption <-> Transparency
Mass incarceration <-> Equal justice under the law
Externalities like climate change <-> Stewardship
Big brother <-> Reproductive privacy
War <-> Diplomacy
Human trafficking <-> Human rights
Liberty <-> Justice
Department of Defense <-> Department of Peace
Discrimination <-> Diversity
In other words: in the face of global threats like climate change, young people can no longer assume that business-as-usual will save them. Things must change, for our very survival.
Our ancestors faced similar challenges over a century ago during the progressive era:
Imagine a blind-esque App that just allows everyone participating to vote anonymously for a union. Then AFTER a union is official then leaders and instigators could reveal themselves or maybe there were no leaders or instigators the whole thing was p2p.
I feel something as easy and convenient as blind can allow "unions in limbo" to form at basically every company. Basically the votes for a union are in, the requirements are met but nobody is really running the show. When times change and companies pull this mass layoff BS... then people can immediately elect a rep to take the reigns as a point of negotiation...?
Is an organization that constantly takes something similar to an HOA fee really required all the time? We just really need to have organized negotiations and communications with management WHEN needed. Like the immune system.. activation only during emergencies.
For example Amazon is conducting multiple rounds of layoffs. If this app existed... No process is needed for workers to form a central point of negotiation as the union is already there in limbo. Software engineers seeing the mass layoffs in the industry All immediately nominate and vote for union reps in the app. The rep has the position for 1 year (as dictated by the app), and will be paid his current salary to do union stuff. He becomes the admin for the blind-esque forum for the company and runs polls and things like that to help the software engineers do coordinated negotiation with management.
Here's the other part of it. If this app existed. Amazon would be aware. They wouldn't perform a random lay off UNLESS it was absolutely required because it would reactivate the union in limbo. So this would prevent even the first round of lay offs presuming that the layoffs have to do with what the article is implying here.
After a year there will be another election for another rep. If things have calmed and nobody really cares any more the rep will be unelected by vote or lack of participation and the union will go back into limbo. If things are still bad everyone will vote for the rep (or a new rep) to stay in place for one more year...
Every company will have the same basic templated bylaws made by the app with additional stuff amended by the union rep. The idea is only emergency activation when needed only.
Good idea? Yay or nay.
Not saying I'm going to do this, but contact me at the email in my profile if you'd be potentially interested working on something like this.
(just fyi the email in my account is not my main email and the name is not my real name and the phone number used to register it is a burner, you should do the same if contacting me, this IS a touchy subject)
Blind already does this and is quite popular among tech workers. I'm just extending the concept with Unions.
Apologies, I'm honestly ignorant about the exact nature of the law here. But from the informal descriptions that I read this is possible.
The main point of my idea is instantaneous organization and formation of a central point of negotiation. It's quite obvious that the majority of tech workers are currently interested in forming a union but the bureaucracy is making this hard to happen.
With this app, the union forms a day after a layoff. A poll is kicked off on the Blind-esque unionization app and immediately submitted to the proper government sectors once a consensus is reached. There is no human in the loop as a central point. All participants are just part of the community who Agree with the automated rules of the app.
I don't think this is one of those ideas where some one is twisting some other concept into an app.
I think this fits, big time.
Typically forming a union involves someone stepping up and painting a bullseye on their back. An Blind-esque APP is literally the perfect thing to eliminate this vulnerability.
> What incentive existed to unionize in that environment?
These situations are not incompatible.
> Unionization only makes sense if you think the good times won't last.
"Good times" is a soft term that translates to "when the employer's short term goals line up with your specific employee goals"...ostensibly to keep getting paid those big numbers.
I'm not saying what I felt was true. It was just my instinct and because I was already richer than my wildest dreams (I come from a lower middle class background) so I didn't care to overthink it. An "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks this way and since unions require popular support it's a data point toward understanding why software engineering unions aren't widespread.
edit: most of us have zero to no protection, our jobs are not protected also from titles perspective. the only reason the power asymmetry is palatable was due to supply/demand for engineers. take that away, what do you have left?