Hacker News Reader

Comment by cut3 | Hacker News Reader

Amazon tech workers should unionize.

It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions. I see it as an extension of a distaste for bureaucracy or perhaps, social structures in general, but I'm open to other perspectives.

Temporarily embarrassed 10x engineers

Guesses, for the last decade or two:

1. Software developers have been paid very good money, and have seen little else to complain about.

2. Software developers have been paid excessive flattery, and think they merit and achieve more individually than a union could get them.

3. Software developers have been hopping jobs so fast, never anywhere long enough to think they need a union.

Sometimes I wonder if you framed it differently would it be more appealing to tech workers. Like if there was a startup that negotiates on behalf of employees for salary, benefits, remote vs in-office, etc. using collective influence as more people from a particular company used it. Or to put it another way, how much of the distaste for unions is wrapped up in the term “union”?

> if there was a startup that negotiates on behalf of employees for salary, benefits, remote vs in-office, etc. using collective influence as more people from a particular company used it.

I...love this idea. And end-users could pay them dues, excuse me, fees for the service.

There's more to a union than just negotiating on behalf of employees. Unions have quasi-government status wherein the National Labor Relations Bureau can just step in and force the company to make business decisions. Furthermore, unions aren't optional in a lot of states. If you want to work a certain job at a company, you have no choice but to join the union (or at least pay union dues).

Something like the National Press Photographer's Association [1] is a valuable organization. They provide resources like contract templates, and can help if a customer doesn't pay the agreed royalties and whatnot. But membership isn't mandatory. A software developer's association and a software developer's unions would be to vastly different groups.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Press_Photographers_A...

Only with market discipline, by making that company compete with others representing pools of workers. A union chooses not to do that.

You'd need a free market of competing startups which workers could freely switch between or choose to not use, which is antithetical to the very concept of a union.

I think a lot of people (especially tech employees and HN commenters) have this idea from the 80s and 90s of what a union must be, like they are all necessarily just like a Teachers' Union. Usually bad stereotypes like "Unions rank members by tenure and reward only the old timers!" and "Unions make it so only union members can plug a cord into an electrical outlet!" and "Unions only negotiate for salary, never things like equity, 401K features, IP assignment / moonlighting policy, implementing an ESPP, Remote Work, better development workstations, and so on." Like, who made these rules up? Why can't a new union negotiate to allow Remote Work? Why can't a new union rank its members by something other than tenure? Is there some "union police" that makes sure every union is exactly like the Teamsters and United Auto Workers?

A tech worker union could fight for non-salary things, things that tech workers care about. There's no law saying it can't.

>bad stereotypes like "Unions rank members by tenure and reward only the old timers!" and "Unions make it so only union members can plug a cord into an electrical outlet!"

This isn't a "bad stereotype", this is purposely pushed propaganda, and it sits on the shelf next to the training video you watch about how horrible unions get in the way of you negotiating with the company all by your lonesome, and the poster that says "Don't give a union $300, buy an Xbox instead"

The reason that tech workers hate unions is that it's a highly middle class male employee field, and they were targeted hardest by anti-union propaganda for a century.

There's no law saying a union can't fight for things besides salary. But in practice that's what it's often about.

Take the NYTimes tech worker union, for example (previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41504026). It really only has 2 objectives on its platform: indefinite remote work, and "pay equity". Notably, their objective is for pay equity regardless of different representation across different jobs. So not even "equal pay for equal work" but rather "equal pay for different work".

Union incentive align mostly to more members not more salary or benefits. Similar how companies tend to go for more revenue unions benefit more from additional member and less from higher salaries

The two are not mutually exclusive. The incentive for seniority-based pay is that low-performers are dissatisfied with lesser career advancement, so they form a block within the union electorate and vote in leadership that flattens pay.

You are correct that unions are also incentivized to increase membership, that's why unions often oppose more efficient work practices. More efficiency reduces the number of personnel needed to perform the job. An example of this is the longshoremen's unions in the US. They have consistently rejected the automation that most other developed countries have long-since adoped [1]. The result? American ports are some of the least efficient in the world, despite also being quite expensive [2].

1. https://apnews.com/article/longshoremen-strike-pay-automatio...

2. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstrea...

No, it's solidly within the calculus of economics. Why are you concluding that rejection of unions are due to a cultural or personal disdain for unions, and rejecting the possibility that software developers disapprove of unions for economic reasons?

The economic calculus is pointing against unions: effectively every trade union creates tenure-based pay structures, which don't reward high performers and punish people who change jobs. This makes it hard to retain high performers as they can get better offers from non-unionized companies, and selects for the low performers that stand to benefit under a tenure-based pay structure.

Furthermore, unions routinely block advancements that improve efficiency, because it would reduce the amount of workers required. This is beneficial for the union, which has its membership artificially inflated. But it's bad for society as a whole. Unionized workplaces are routinely the least efficient companies on account of this. For instance, longshoremen's unions in the US have widely blocked automation at ports. The result? American ports are some of the least efficient in the world, despite costing on par with other developed countries. We all bear the cost of this inefficiency in terms of more expensive supply chains, which in turn makes products throughout the country more expensive than they should be.

I appears to me that software developers reject unions beyond what can be explained by economics alone.

I'm not sure how that turned into "economics aren't a factor." Maybe you can explain how that happened?

You've edited or deleted your comment at least 3 times since I typed my reply. Regardless, I'm just going to highlight the relevant parts of the comment I responded to:

> It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions.

Ok. Beyond for me means that there is a part that can be explained by economic and a part that exceeds economics. I hope that clarifies.

Right, and my point is that is it completely explained by economic reasoning. One way or another, you are rejecting the notion that software developers are capable of arriving at anti-union positions on the basis of economic reasons alone. You insist, without evidence or justification, that there must be some other motivation beyond economics.

Let me get this right. You're making the point that the economics explains the entirety of tech's disdain for unions? You know that all it takes is one counter-example, right?

My point is that the sizeable majority of the disdain for unions stems from economic reasoning, not some personality or sub-cultural factor. Let's revisit the original comment I responded to:

> It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions.

When one writes "software engineers _______", without any sort of qualifier, the typical interpretation is that the statement applies to the majority of the group.

It's a very different thing to write "software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics" and "a handful of software developers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics".

My point wasn't that cultural factors are more important in explaining disdain. It was simply that economic issues can't explain the disdain in its entirety. The first response was that I was saying economics played no factor, then it was that I was saying that economics were more important.

I'm not sure what you're arguing about anymore. It changes with every response. You seem to be bent on arguing with me and I'm not sure why.

The way you're portraying yourself reads as if you have an emotional reaction to unions that goes beyond merely the economic yourself. If you don't think that's the case, then you might want to consider changing the way you write. It's working against the argument you're trying to make.

I have been making the same point this whole time: the aversion to unions stems entirely from economic reasoning, not some "personality/sub-cultural disdain" for unions among the majority of software developers. In particular:

* Unions tend to push for seniority based pay schedules that fail to reward based on performance.

* Unions maintain membership be deliberately opposing efficiency gains that would allow for more work to be done with fewer personnel (because fewer personnel means fewer union members).

These trends are economically bad. Both for software developers themselves and for society as a whole. The majority of software developers who reject unions do so, entirely on these sorts of economic grounds. That's my position, and I don't see where it's changed throughout this conversion.

On the other hand, I'm still not sure about the scope of your statement "software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics". An unqualified statement "X group believes Y" would normally indicate that this applies to the group, broadly. But in a later comment you wrote "all it takes is one counter-example" to prove this true - suggesting that you intended this to apply very narrowly, potentially to just one person.

My claim is that the majority of developers are anti-union for entirely economic reasons. Maybe you do or don't agree, since the scope of how many developers you are stating harbor anti-union for non-economic reasons remains ambiguous.

Yes, professional athletes and hollywood stars are famously compensated on seniority-based schedules.

Cherry picking a couple exceptional unions doesn't alter the predominant trend. On the flip side, we have teachers unions and police unions with seniority based pay. And they're much larger than athletics unions. The National Basketball Players Association has 450 members. The National Education Association has 3 million.

Ive been in unions and worked with unions that enact policies that are unequivocally bad for the company and me as an employee. Stuff like basing way too much on seniority, overly bureaucratic process, constant deference to lawyers instead of solving problems were all completely debilitating to the organization and 100% due to the unions. While unions don't have to be this way I think the unfortunate reality is that most people are selfish and will vote for these policies which are good for them in the short run even if they tend to cause major problems for the business and new employees.

Curious what percentage of Amazon SWEs are H1B, because in my experience people who's ability to live in this country is tied to their continued employment are highly reticent to do anything that might rock that boat (like sign a union card).

Which brings up an interesting question of it someone in the US on a work visa is permitted to participate in a work stoppage. Would going on strike be considered a period of unemployment that puts them on the clock for getting deported?

One reason they don’t is because they’re afraid of ways in which a union might hurt them. For example many unions become overly political and involve in issues that aren’t just fighting for wages and benefits (like taking on social justice issues). Many unions have tenure based rules that they negotiate to privilege some workers above others. Many unions end up becoming so hostile in their view of the company, that they end up hurting the company and limiting everyone’s income instead of working together in a more balanced way. I think even now, the perception (even if it is wrong) is that all the possible negatives are worse than the possible benefits like fighting RTO policies.

If employees at a company that I started wanted to unionize, I'd be wracking my brain to figure out why, since I'd make sure everyone is treated better than they could get with unions.

But if employees at Amazon wanted to unionize, I think the company could make several good guesses why, all of them true.

> since I'd make sure everyone is treated better than they could get with unions.

You're not always going to be in charge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com