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Comment by jakelazaroff | Hacker News Reader

Both of these things can't be true at once†:

1. Tech workers are currently treated as well as (or better than) we would be without unions.

2. Unions would cause companies to offshore jobs to developing markets with similar talent.

If unions don't increase worker compensation, why would they cause companies to offshore jobs? Conversely, if companies could acquire comparable talent in emerging markets for less money, why aren't they doing that already?

† Or, rather, they could be, but it would mean companies leaving a lot of money on the table out of the goodness of their hearts.

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Sure they can. Imagine the unions that make it hard to fire people - either because of individual performance, or because of downsizing.

1. Tech workers are currently treated well - good hours, good salary, great benefits, etc... (until they are fired / position is eliminated).

2. If unions appear which make firing people hard, companies would stop hiring in US, and switch to India or temp contractors.

I suppose "treated well" is kinda nebulous. Personally, I'd say it encompasses job security, so if unions make it hard to fire people then they are improving treatment of workers.

Brother they’ve been threatening that for decades. If that was possible they would have done it 40 years ago.

Wake up. Engineers in other countries are just as good as we are. The only reason we don't hire remote is that the business functions here keep the same hours.

You throw unions into the mix and suddenly dealing with the time difference becomes the lesser evil.

I hire remote programmers in multiple countries. I absolutely know that they’re as good as we are.

I promise you that capitalists aren’t really concerned with time differences.

> tech workers are currently treated well

I’m sorry, but you must not be paying attention to the current climate. To name one example, Facebook just laid off many workers and explicitly labeled them “low performers”.

Tech companies have already been caught colluding to suppress wages. They are sending as many jobs as they can overseas, and bringing in even more h1b workers.

It is clear to anyone that’s paying attention that they are doing their best to damage our negotiating position so that they no longer have to treat us well (read: fairly)

2. hasn't happened in Europe, where it's famously hard to fire people. Why would this happen in the US?

>If unions don't increase worker compensation, why would they cause companies to offshore jobs?

Because unions are a headache for management to deal with and that headache is much worse than compensation, which is a budget-line item, and doesn't personally impact anyone in management.

The AWU, for e.g, has political goals that represent what a small minority of Alphabet employees want but end up being a pain in a for anyone to deal with.

I assure you that management tracks budget-line items very closely, especially when they are the largest one (as is the case at almost all software companies).

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