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Comment by forgotmyinfo | Hacker News Reader

Sucks. Sure do wish we had some sort of collective bargaining power to prevent this. Oh, but that one guy over there is really good at Leetcode, so never mind, every man for himself.

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Sometimes I wonder if comments like this aren't meant seriously, but to paint particular groups as silly, to make their positions appear less serious.

Thanks for questioning my motives because of your pre-existing biases. But no, I'm actually disgusted with the state of this industry. But from this point on, feel free to wonder as you please.

How would that work since you're not part of the union until you're hired?

While I'm not particularly pro union, it is not out of the question that a union representing existing employees might bargain for a requirement that all future candidates be union members

All the union shops I've heard of have at least a three month probationary period, possibly six, during which you're not part of the union and don't get any special job protections.

Also there are a ton of positions in various fields for which the organization already has someone in mind but still has to advertise the position and do interviews for various legal reasons.

There are countries with industry wide unions that provide the same levels of protection by just being part of that union.

Idk, how would you work to alter the play field if you ran a union? I think I'd try to make it harder to compete with union members, and to improve the transparency and standardization of the industry's hiring practices. I'd even say that at least some industries ought to have entirely public-certified hiring norms for certain roles. Maybe that means setting up a standards board or union-linked oversight commission for it.

> Sure do wish we had some sort of collective bargaining power to prevent this

This feels a bit too extreme but I assume it comes from a place of pain and the effects of being exploited.

A less extreme solution could be increased transparency.

Here are some examples:

- Companies that post "remote" but it's "remote" only if you live 50 miles away from an office location.

They divulge this only in the offer. Why did they do the interview if they knew you were 200 miles away? To find out whether there's another hub worth opening where there are equally skilled candidates but cheaper

- Companies that post take home assignments to see if a problem they have solved can be solved in a more efficient or novel way. They don't intend to hire - they just don't want to share their current solution and also want to find out if there's a better way to solve their problem

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