Unionize or Die

Tech workers are often part of unions over here (Belgium), the same as anyone else. Let me tell you that unions do not make for a panacea.

Among my working (not necessarily tech) peers, anti-union sentiment has been increasing. Likely because they've been inconvenienced by recent union actions (mostly public transport strikes). Individualism is a hell of a drug.

Being a freelancer, most unions see me as a traitor or a thief. So I have some mixed feelings about their current incarnations.

I live and work in a non-union state. There are still three or four relevant unions, because the work cannot be kicked down the food chain: Welders have about 20 productive years before they are legally blind. Electricians face constant jobsite hazards and risk. Railroad workers have a unique schedule and lifestyle. These unions exist because, despite mgmt effort to cheap out, you cannot cheap out on certain kinds of labor without killing people. These unions are active and healthy, they do not do political stunts, just good clean work.

Due to our technological society, actually nearly everyone is a tech worker, like it or not. We all have a vested interest in maintaining control over technology. So the correct body to form is not a union of workers in the sector core, but a political party with policy goals, with open membership.

This guy genuinely doesn't seem to realise that two of his stated goals are in direct opposition: reducing global carbon emissions, and keeping his tech job. The most effective way for a union to achieve that first goal would be to forcibly shut the business down and disappear all the jobs that went with it, but something tells me that's not what he had in mind.

> Aren’t you worried you could get laid off and this junior compsci grad or an H1B takes your place for half your salary?

Yes, but frankly it's more important that they be allowed to compete with me on merit. Anything else is pure cronyism.

ETA: I'm actually sympathetic to the idea of unions. They're a power structure consisting of self-interested humans, no different in principle from the power structure of entrenched capital, but they're of value because they oppose capital, acting to prevent it from swallowing everything. But then I read an article like this, and am reminded of the type of person who tends to rise to the top of such organizations.