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Comment by rwmj | Hacker News Reader

This is why people used to be paid time-and-a-half or even double-time for being on call. Ask your union to demand that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-and-a-half

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For nurses on-call is a tiny amount - $3/hr and then you get 1.5x if you actually get called in

Pay is all about power. Nurses individually have little power (as they are replaceable), which is why unionising is good for them as the union gives them collective power.

Software engineers are an interesting case; some have a great deal of domain-specific knowledge, giving them leverage over their employers. Many less so, and so a union could help. AI might change this equation too.

> Nurses individually have little power (as they are replaceable)

Replaceable with what, exactly? The local ER is now having to close in the evening because they can't find sufficient nursing staff to keep it operating.

At least locally the experience is that hospital admin has gone delulu by thinking they can replace hiring unionized nursing staff with much more expensive travel nurses

When I was at a small IT consulting shop ~15 years ago, this is roughly how it worked. We'd get paid 24x7 for a week on-call at minimum wage + 1.5x normal wage for any hours we had to log in.

In most of the country, California unions have largely negotiated for .5x pay while on call making it quite popular.

Had this very same payment scheme as an SRE on call in Europe almost a decade ago.

Fun fact: In the US the concept of time-and-a-half (also minimum wage, and not hiring child labor) was created by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Most tech employees are classified as "exempt" -- the FLSA and its protections doesn't apply to them.

I have never understood why 'computer' workers are exempt

For the same reason that cashiers and burger flippers at fast food places have to sign non-compete clauses.

It makes everything cheaper.

In Ontario, Canada, IT workers are exempt from most labour laws too. Breaks, shift lengths, time off between shifts, etc. No overtime pay either.

What this means is that on call is often "included in your salary" and good luck.

Are you confusing overtime and on-call?

Nobody's going to pay you 1.5 your hourly rate to just sit and wait until something happens. Is that really a thing?

Now if you are called and spring into action, there may be time-and-a-half, if it's outside of your regular hours.

So for say a weekly on-call rotation you would be paid all 24 hours x 7 days at double rate? (- ~40)

Also most tech companies don't have unions...

I don't believe it's physically possible for anyone to be available at 10 minutes notice for 168 hours straight. And if it's possible, it would be deeply unhealthy. But if they did achieve this, then yes they should be paid some very large amount of money. But that doesn't just happen -- pay isn't fair, it's about power. So a union can help to negotiate this, or ideally, better working conditions.

> Also most tech companies don't have unions...

In Europe, there are plenty of unions that cover tech people. I'm a member of Prospect (https://prospect.org.uk/).

Also in the UK there’s https://utaw.tech/ and https://www.gameworkers.co.uk/

If there isn’t a union recognised in your workplace, you can build one yourself.

In Europe most of the unions apply to the whole industry sector, what you do inside the building doesn't really matter.

Usually (always?) regular working hours are compensated as usual. Then there’s rate for standby periods and another rate for each (half) hour when you get pinged and start doing actual work.

Last time I was on call it was a one hour payment per day, a 4 hour payment for answering the phone.

That lasted about 3 months, just not acceptable.

If I had a union it would demand a bunch of unqualified people join my team (and get paid the same as me) and it would forbid me from doing certain things because,say, moving the computer or plugging in a cable is IT's job, whereas I'm SE. No thanks

While you will find some extreme examples that could go that far, unions don't generally do that. Organisations that fight unions however do like to bring up that example, so... you've been had with anti union propaganda.

So my coworker who was a UAW member who told me stories about sleeping on the roof, and being reprimanded for moving a desk to retrieve a pen...was trying to dupe me?

> While you will find some extreme examples that could go that far,

I don't know how much more clear I could make it to you.

"while I should ignore evidence that contradicts what you claim..."

Why are you getting all of your thinking from one co-worker?

So I should ignore evidence directly from the source of one of the largest unions in the US, because it doesn't support your view? I should only accept evidence from your trusted sources? Ok.

Edit: or my UPS friend who told me how the union box loaders would falsely claim alcoholism or drug addiction before being fired so they could abuse the union "protection" that was given to them? Is he trying to dupe me too?

Think about your own employment experience. Was the work environment always static, or did your employer ever introduce change that wasn't popular? Were you still singing the corporate anthem afterwards?

As far as I can tell, unions only show up after decades of management malfeasance. They're kind of a natural reaction. The line "the only thing worse than a union is no union" is probably a hundred years old.

Aren't hackers supposed to be a curious bunch? Is that really the only way you can imagine unions working? Can you not see the imbalance of power between a single individual and the corporation that employs them? Unions are fundamentally about balancing that power dynamic.

i'm a big union advocate, but i worry that the traditional messaging that unions use doesn't work for tech employees.

things like more pay/better hours/safer working conditions are appealing to people working low-paid, dangerous jobs but don't really click with most tech employees because those aren't the things they hate about their work.

to win over tech employees unions should talk about more ambitious things like codetermination (i.e., getting workers on the board), 4-day work weeks, remote work policies, employee sabbaticals, etc

My wife is part of a union and there’s none of that bullshit. However when her employer wanted to reduce costs across the board the union negotiated a shorter working week for everyone instead of a pay rise next year. They voted on it and accepted it with an overwhelming majority.

The union offering "shrinkflation" as the way for the business to cut costs is an interesting framing. Your wife's union associates must hang out with grocery store executives.

The union spoke to its members and asked them what they wanted, negotiated it and voted on the final result.

If that’s your take away from it I don’t know what to tell you.

That isn't how unions work, rather the usual US fearmongering of having them.

It just dawned on me how this argument runs perfectly parallel to religion if you point out intolerance, misogyny, or violence. It's always "those other people" that do the bad thing, and everyone only reaffirms their own system of worship. You could almost do a 1-1 find/replace of keywords and have the same argument.

Everyone who works for a living understands why unions exist even if they don’t need one locally.

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