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Comment by nemesis17 | Hacker News Reader

With the shit show that the current tech industry has turned into, unionization is crucial. US has a very low percentage of unionized workers compared to Iceland, Finland and Scandinavian countries for instance. Time to change and make our voice heard.

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How? How can we go from an HN comment to making this a reality?

This book[1] was a great read on the topic.

[1]: https://ethanmarcotte.com/books/you-deserve-a-tech-union/

Thanks!

In what way do you think the current tech industry has turned into a shit show?

There's a lot of companies now that expect you to leave the house and go work around other people. Like, what the hell?

That's a weird way to say:

"Companies are taking more of people time for the same pay, in addition to requiring unpaid commute time".

I usually don't like when I work more for less, do you?

> go work around other people

I’m sure you meant to say “waste time in commute and spend 8 hours trying to complete 1 hour of WFH amount of work in open office”.

I think tech workers have gotten a little spoiled. At my company, we have about 35 people in our IT department. 3/4 are directors and managers and I honestly have no fucking idea what they do all day. 600 people on the IT staff at the NYT is insane, and I guarantee the majority of those jobs is "attend meetings every day to jerk each other off with 1 deliverable a week".

> 3/4 are directors and managers

this is a problem. Hiring and career paths are completely non-existent for tech people. Most will not get a cost of living increase, and the only way to actually increase their pay is to update their resume and spend months trying to find another position. I dont' know if you've noticed, but our job market blows right now.

They may have bought us off for a decade or so, giving us benefits that rivaled unionized positions. But over the last 20 years, that "bargain" has slowly eroded and now the unionized shops are the only ones getting benefits for the employees.

Capitalism being what it is, each company MUST pursue the lowest costs and highest margin. Without collective bargaining, a single worker has no power against the whims and desires of board members, to whom you are just a rounding error.

"If hard work were good for you, the rich would have it all to themselves."

I'm pro union. I'm just saying I've worked with a lot of people with Director in their title that I know don't do any actual work other than balance a budget or shuffle shit around in spreadsheets once every couple months. I've been at my new job almost a year now, and I can't believe what people are getting away with. Obviously not everywhere is like this, but it's not my first job where the rest of the company is completely clueless as to how little the IT dept actually does day to day.

I see - I absolutely agree with your assessment that the Directors may not be contributing any actual value at this point. I would love to see more servant leadership, and perhaps have management be an elected position instead of one that seems to be reserved for a certain Class of person.

Yeah that would be great. There's a bachelor's degree requirement for all management positions. Even if you've been there 20 years, you can never be "one of them". Pretty crazy imo. They passed up people with multi decade experience in the company for someone completely new because they had a bachelor's. That blows my mind.

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