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Comment by maxehmookau | Hacker News Reader

Join. A. Union.

Think of it as having an employment lawyer on retainer for £8 a month. Well worth the money.

Unfortunately like student unions they don't keep the focus on their actual remit and delving into irrelevant politics: https://palestine.utaw.tech/advocate/

Not irrelevant at all, military technology is a large part of the UK's tech sector, and arms exports to countries with poor human rights records are in the billions.

That all depends what a union is about to you. To me, it is totally on-topic.

So... not really like having a lawyer on retainer?

The point of a union, to me, is to get society to a point where you are in control of your life. You as an individual but also you as a group, regarding your origins, your gender, your sexual orientation, your skin color, or your place in the employer/employee relationship; in short, whenever you live a situation of oppression, be it small or large.

Having a lawyer helps, because it helps you fight these attacks. But larger than that, changing the situation, the society, the relationships so that you do not undergo any oppression based on your situation.

The goal, to me again, is to live in a more communal, solidarity-based environment. Telling about the genocide happening in Palestine because of their ethnicity, destroyed by their colonizer neighbor, and supporting them is totally on-topic.

In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kinda safe. We're not.

Join a union when things are good, to help you when things are bad.

> In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kind safe. We're not.

Seems even people in the US aren't actually that well off, as the author said they'd experience "acute financial stress" if it wasn't for the severance:

> [...] and was told that the severance offered would give me at least a few months free from acute financial stress [...]

Wait until America wakes up and reads this thread. The anti-union feeling over there is very peculiar to Europeans.

I like the idea of unions but not in tech.. blah blah.. meritocracy.. yadda yadda.. I can't afford union fees on my 600k salary.. something something.

I think for most it's not a matter of "can't afford", but rather closer to "don't think it's a use of money that will benefit me over the alternative."

As a parallel: I can easily afford to buy a new car; I choose to buy used cars because it's a better use of money than the alternative.

Many engineers are rational optimizers by nature.

I believe this discounts the very heavy anti-union propaganda that we've all been subject to since... forever.

I'm not even from the US (I'm from Brazil) but here, similarly, most have a very bad view of unions, fueled by employers that, of course, don't want to give workers any power.

It's always ironic when we see today's workers continuously losing rights that were achieved mostly through unions (with a fair share of blood) actively hate unions without ever truly looking into them.

Smart people always assume they are immune to propaganda, and objectively investigating where those feelings come from is not something most take the time to do. Confirmation bias plays a big role here.

Unions do have to overcome that history as well as the "free rider problem", but I don't think that's particularly unique to them versus any other "If you will give me money and power, I will make your life better" proposition.

We get advertised travel, lifestyle, nutrition, convenience/utility, and entertainment products all the time. Most of those things over-promise and turn out to underperform their promises (yet not their price tags) and so people who are generally happy with the status quo need some activation energy and convincing to give up money and power now in hopes that this new thing being advertised/promised to them will deliver on its promises. That seems entirely rational to me.

Not all of us think that way. (up super early due to a disgreement between my gut and some food... )

However, those of us who do think that way are not shy about it.

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