Since I have no need or desire there is no reason for me to consider the question.
It's not just about money. Working conditions are equally important.
Consider when companies demand that everyone RTO after promising permanent WFH. Consider when companies rescind offer letters after you've already quit your old job. Consider mass layoffs and severance.
I think about how so many engineers need to take a long, unpaid break from work after leaving their jobs, because they've been burned out by their former employer.
- Do unions enforce remote work?
- Do unions enforce an offer letter to turn into actual employment for someone who isn't even a member yet (they haven't signed anything)?
- Do unions make people have a better handle on their mental health and do companies with unions have lower rates of burnout in their workforces?
The moment developers have a cause they can agree on, they will start to vote for unions. And no it isn't too late at that point, rather it is too early to vote for a union unless you have a cause you collectively care about.
Yes, this is how democracy works in general. You don't get everything (or necessarily anything) you want
Personally the only thing that would really make me quit is if they tried to make me go hybrid or back to the office in any way. My workplace is small (10 engineers) and so unionizing based on that could be pretty easy, but it would be easier for me to quit and find a new job that does do remote
You are misinformed on the law. Free riders can't be compelled to pay dues.
California, Washington and New York are forced union states, most developers don't work in right to work states.
In my experience, democratic organizations are complete garbage. Every experience I've had with local government/HOAs has been a disappointing at best.
I get that some democratic organizations are necessary. But adding more voluntarily seems to be at best a necessary evil, not something to list as a positive.
As far as I'm aware, most HOAs were imposed from above by the home builder rather than coming into existence via grassroots organization of the home owners.
That's why police are unionized, as well as most team sport elite athletes (players unions). And they like the power it gives them, which is why you never hear them talk badly about it.
What are some of the reasons you think a labor union would form in the first place?
Have you ever heard of mandatory break requirements in certain industries? Think those ideas came from business owners?
"The National Labor Union was founded on August 20, 1866, in Baltimore, Maryland. It was the first attempt to create a national labor group in the United States and one of their first actions was the first national call for Congress to mandate an 8-hour work day."
https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/august...
The mechanics are work contracts with a grievance process, if you're curious.
Reading through this interview and thread, I notice how often this debate comes down to a sense of agency. You write about programmers being "burned out by their employer". But I would say that people experience burnout when they fail to set boundaries. Working to the point where your mental health suffers is your fault: it's your responsbility to establish healthy boundaries or, failing at that, quit.
It's interesting that the manager and/or employer has no apparent agency here.
That's precisely the point of unions, though. Individually, you have no control over your employer, but via collective bargaining you do.
Why? Unions work the best when they are formed around a cause everyone cares about, that is how we got workers right in the first case, there is nothing that says you need to form a union when things are good.
Talk to a union organizer about this. They'll help you understand how this type of monopsony looks to a worker when they're trying to organize.
Should these not just be regular labor law requirements?
I don't think burnout is caused by companies most of the time. It's caused by the employee not taking care of themself. Will a manager abuse someones willingness to not leverage the power they have? Sure. Some managers are awful. They'll continue to be awful when the Union is in place. Just in a different way. You'll still be miserable under that manager. The solution is to make a plan to leave and start executing on it. The moment you make the plan you'll feel better.
The reader is expecting you to say, "because I only work for employeers with good working conditions", but...
> because I don't stick around long enough to burn out.
Well, ok, but how old are you, and do you believe that this strategy of musical chairs will continue to work for the rest of your life? It's a marathon, not a sprint.
> If they did working conditions would be across the board better.
Why do you think so? How exactly is that going to happen? What's the incentive to improve working conditions when employees just leave quickly, on purpose? Again, you didn't even claim that your new jobs have good working conditions.
Why do you think so? How exactly is that going to happen? What's the
incentive to improve working conditions when employees just leave quickly,
on purpose? Again, you didn't even claim that your new jobs have good
working conditions.
If you think it's hopeless and you aren't a valuable employee in the companies eye then that turns into a self fulfilling prophecy.
Definitely something that is in no danger of changing at any point in the future! What a relief for all of us!
We already have ample evidence that tech giants colluded to depress the salaries of their workers. I can understand being wary of unions but to suggest they’d provide absolutely nothing feels like a failure of imagination.
I don't think it's anyone's responsibility but mine to ensure that I can provide for my family. I have all the self-dignity I need to stand up for myself and my family. I have built the support structures I need to survive rocky periods. None of what I've done is out of reach for anyone else. So yes, I think a certain amount of self-responsibility and self-reliance is good for you. I don't buy into the idea the most important dynamic is relative power between employees who may or may not share my values and an employer.
Instead I buy into the idea that self-respect, self-reliance and community support structur is far more important and I would rather focus on that than trying to balance the power dynamic at a particular workplace.
"Disabled workers do not exist"
...what do you think a union is?
I feel as though you're imagining the Big Bad Union that big companies love to describe. A union can be in whatever form you wish it to be. If software engineers wish to band together to form a union solely to improve their health insurance then they could just do that.
>Unions are not voluntary
Not all of my colleagues are in a union, and some of those that are are in a different union to me (albeit a minority of them). It works.
Yes it is.
It's important to look for the privileges you were born into that allowed you to get to where you are now. Because not everyone starts at the same starting line. It's great that you have such a strong work ethic and are so self reliant but life comes at you fast, and sometimes you need some outside help. Illness, accidents, family emergencies, wildfires/tornadoes/hurricanes/earthquakes/etc; those things happen and you need help, whether its from the government or from your employer or your church or church-equivalent.
It's great that you've got such a good relationship with your employer. But there are others that don't have that same relationship, and are being exploited and are being treated unfairly by their employer. Thanks to the US' H1-B system, they may not have the luxury of quitting under those circumstances like you do.
Not everyone has access to the same community support structure as you do. It's great that you have one! But for those that don't, their workplace can be a lifeline.
Look at the bigger picture. If your boss was assaulting a co-worker with his fists, what would you do? Yell at your co-worker and tell them to have more self-respect? Why, when it's financial or cultural instead shouldn't you stand up for them as well?
If your boss was assaulting a co-worker with his fists, what would you do?
You say I have privilege which I suppose I do. I have it because I worked on myself to get them and stood up for myself when I needed to. I have no college degree. I grew up poor. I think perhaps one of the greatest injustices you can do to someone is tell them they are stuck with no recourse and have no leverage they can exercise. I think that's a lie that imprisons people in circumstances they don't need to be stuck in.
> I would stand in his way with my own fists.
Ok, but that’s what unionizing is. Standing up to your employer to stop rampant abuse to you and your fellow coworkers.
Then how about we cross that bridge when we get there rather than trying to optimize today’s situation for potential problems that might happen in the future?
> We already have ample evidence that tech giants colluded to depress the salaries of their workers.
And we already have evidence that the problem didn’t require a union to solve.
For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
The irony here is that the tech companies are willing to organize into a kind of union in order to promote their interests, but the tech workers aren't.
That's one way to describe an illegal conspiracy
Farming automation and the green revolution didn't make us all unemployed - it meant 90% of us could do something else instead of farming.
We used the productivity to just invent new forms of work that weren't possible and aren't possible in a lower productivity economy.
Everyone who is not a slave, serf, or subsistence farmer
There was actually a lot of fear that there would be mass starvation and competition for food because food production could not match population increase. It was an existential threat, much like how we look at global warming. And that fear today? Gone, and most people never even knew it existed.
What actually happened in agriculture is that technology enabled massive conglomerates to dominate the industry. I see few guarantees that technological progress is going to free me up to do something else that enriches my life.
I have a hard time believing you believe that most people switched to a worse paying job. Did peoples material quality of life improve or not?
I think unionization would impact expansion and research areas —the big bets where now if something doesn’t work the company either reorganizes the team or lets go of a team. With a union companies would operate more conservatively.
That would perhaps provide stable jobs for current job holders but limit growth for prospective job holders.
I have more dimensions to me than just what I do for a job. The collective aggregate desires of all my coworkers is likely to diverge from me in areas that I care deeply about. I don't need a situation where I am "forced" to support those things with my money and labor. I already have to do it with my taxes in some occasions. I don't need another one.
They definitionally don't. Unions represent the union's interests. It is the design intent of unions to represent an amalgamation of their members. That's already not the same as my interests, but the union organization itself is also an incentivized actor.
These distinction are far from a subtlety.
My interests might overlap with the union's interest, but that's highly situational.
It's been a concerted effort of corporate capitalists: buying & influencing media outlets, lobbying, offshoring, etc.
Unions were not able to make a compelling case. They had every chance to do so, starting with them being the default option in many industries.
America abandoned unions for a reason. It may have taken a concerted effort by corporate capitalists to get there, but that's not why. "Why" is because more and more people felt that the unions were not a net positive for them.
The same is true for political parties, religious organizations, and all sorts of other organizations that are made of people, including privately owned companies. Which of these concepts would you like to abandon, and what do you propose should be their replacement?
What you say is an argument for balancing power, not for concentrating it.
Government is also forced participation but I accept it as necessary part of a functioning society. I don't see Software Engineering Unions as a necessary part of a functioning society though.
Not sure how it works in the US, but from what I read you can't be forced to join a union there. But I think I get what you mean: once you work in a given place, there's usually not much choice which union you can join (or which will represent you in any case), and your only option is to change employer, location or career.
I understand that point of view, but I don't think it's a good argument. Employers also organize and wield their influence in ways that you seem to resent in unions. Don't like it? You have the same choices as above. (I don't think people should be forced into unions; I just think your argument is not anti-union, or at least cannot be fairly applied to single them out.)
The difference seems to be that the employer pays you and treats you well enough that you think you won't benefit from a union. Good for you! Hope it stays that way.
Unions are generally democratic, too, so there's also the option of voting for different union reps (or volunteering to be a rep) in order to change the union's policy or how the union works.
They quite literally are not, at least not in the US; half the states have right-to-work laws that prohibit this explicitly, and there are likely some protections even in the states that don't have a blanket protection.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-...