Have devs at any of the large tech companies ever tried to unionize? If not, why not?
The union filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB, but that process has dragged for over a year, even after the union successfully won their vote AFTER the purge.
Why don't workers unionize? Because management can fire them right away with repurcussions only after years, if that, and even then, the repurcussions aren't to the CEO who broke the law. Breaking labor laws should put executives in prison, but noooo, instead penalties are paid by the company and the CEO's move to another company to do the same illegal shit.
The government agencies must move faster if they want to protect workers. Delays only help management, who still get salaries throughout and are never actually punished or face any negative consequences.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq4y/grindr-unlawfully-pur...
https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/grindr-workers-united-cw...
A friend in another industry had this happen: management forced everyone out of Berlin (or you could take a package). He ended up having to move for five days per week.
For context, the NY Times does not provide amazing compensation or benefits.
Tech companies tend not to unionize, because most developers don't see net gain to be had from unionizing. Most unions end up serving the interest of the union instead of the company, and enact things like seniority based pay and promotion. There's just too much incentive to cater towards interest of mediocre employees in a union model.
Another big factor in software development is that the jobs are comfortable and pay very well. So lots of people would happily apply to the job. IIRC, it's something like a 40:1 ratio of applicants to offers at big tech companies.
you think visa workers have the balls to unionize?
that's what this is all about, finding people who can't say "no". if this round of visa workers wants to say "no" they'll just turn around and import a few more
In the 90s there was also a minority union of field engineers at NCR Corporation.
Right now there is a union at blizard.
Most of those organizations (like the UAW) don't focus on technology positions, so software people are left out in a lurch a bit.
NYTimes has savvy, vocal people in it that have someone overcome this.
- https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen
You can be in finance, hr, it, dev, engineering etc. Because we all want transparency, good salary, protection, 40h work weeks, overtime etc.
A union is not going to be involved in specifics like if we use Linux or Microsoft, so why does it need to be tech focused?
Look @ link
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bandcamp-union-mus...
There is no tradition of unionization in most tech companies, and tech employees are paid very well and have usually had an easy time moving between companies. If you're unhappy with something, you can probably solve that as an individual without needing collective bargaining.
Tech workers at a company that's already unionized would be more likely to unionize in part because their colleagues are unionized, so they look around and say, "Hey, how come I'm not a part of that?" And the unions themselves can evangelize unions and recruit tech workers to unionize, which is good for the union because it gives them more resources and more bargaining partner. It's much harder for a union to come into a non-unionized workplace and start a movement from scratch, especially with a bunch of people who make six figures.
There's also a libertarian streak to Silicon Valley and the tech industry more broadly. This makes startup culture vibrant but at the expense of more individualism and less collectivism.
It's no coincidence that one of the few areas of tech to have seen a meaningful unionization push in recent years is gaming. Workers in gaming are in much more volatile positions, since it's a hit-driven business with long, expensive development cycles. And there's a constant stream of young, idealistic people who have dreamed of working in games their whole life and are willing to take on terrible working conditions and low pay to live that dream, at least for a while. There's also a lot of roles like art, music, and game design that are hard to parlay into other industries, whereas a software engineer or product manager who works can move between industries with relative ease. So there's an incentive for people in those roles to fix the companies and industries where they are instead of just moving on.