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Comment by bgwalter | Hacker News Reader

> Especially we as software engineers are not prepared for this fight as unions barely exist in our field.

You can fight without unions. Tell the truth about LLMs: They are crutches for power users that do not really work but are used as excuses for firing people.

You can refuse to work with anyone writing vapid pro-LLM blog posts. You can blacklist them in hiring.

This addresses the union part. It is true that software engineers tend to be conflict averse and not very socially aware, so many of them follow the current industry opinion like lemmings.

If you want to know how to fight these fights, look at the permanent government bureaucracies. They prevail in the face of "new" ideas every 4 years.

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> If you want to know how to fight these fights, look at the permanent government bureaucracies. They prevail in the face of "new" ideas every 4 years.

Search youtube for "yes minister" :)

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On topic, I think it's a fair point that fighting is borderline useless. Companies that don't embrace new tech will go out of business.

That said, it's entirely unclear what the implications will be. Often new capabilities doesn't mean the industry will shrink. The industry haven't shrunk as a result of 100x increase in compute and storage, or decrease in size and power usage.

Computers just became more useful.

I don't think we should be too excited about AI writing code. We should be more excited about the kinds of program we can write now. There is going to be a new paradigm of computer interaction.

>You can fight without unions.

And you can fly without wings--just very poorly.

Unions are extremely important in the fight of preserving worker rights, compensation, and benefits.

> You can fight without unions.

You can fight without an army too, but it's a lot less effective. There is strength in numbers. Corporations know this and they leverage that strength against their employees. You all alone vs. them is exactly how they like it.

> You can refuse to work with anyone writing vapid pro-LLM blog posts. You can blacklist them in hiring.

This works only if everyone is on with this. If they're not, you're shooting yourself in the foot while doing job hunting.

> This addresses the union part.

lol, good luck with that.

you thinking that one or two people doing non organized _boycott_ is the same thing as an union tell a lot about you.

I didn't mention one or two people, I mentioned a theoretical strategy that is also employed by non-unionized bureaucracies. And I admitted that the strategy is impeded by the fact that many software developers are self-loathing people with no spine.

It is possible that obedient people need highly paid union bosses, i.e., new leaders they can follow.

You're wrong, obedient people are exactly the type that don't need unions, they are obedient and accept anything.

Unions are for people that don't accept anything and know that they are a target taking action alone or in non organized ways.

Unions are the way to multiply the forces and work as a group with common interests, it is for people that are not extremely selfish and egocentric.

why do you need a union? everyone should just set their personal standards for what they accept/demand, and then let the market sort it out? someone wants to work for $20/hour programming, in a fashion that can satisfy some demand? great, then I will simply NOT be doing that job. Everyone wins even though I do not get that particular job. Someone is willing to work 7 days a week as they prefer to grind to earn more money? good on them. Its not gonna be me, They win the job, I dont.

Nobody wants to inhale toxic fumes in some factory? well then the company had better invest in safety equipment, or work dont get done. We dont need a union for this

History, especially the industrial age, says that attitude leads to a race to the bottom. There's always someone who's willing to work for a little less, in a little shittier conditions, to pack a few more family members into a shitty apartment to make do.

If you leave it up to each worker to fend for himself with no negotiating power beyond his personal freedom to walk out, you get sweatshops and poorhouses in any industry where labor is fungible. If you want nice societies where average people can live in good homes with yards and nearby playgrounds and go to work at jobs that don't destroy their bodies and souls, then something has to keep wages at a level to support all that.

I'm not necessarily a fan of unions; I think in many cases you end up with the union screwing you from one side while the corporation screws you from the other. And the public sector unions we have today team up with the state to screw everyone else. But workers at least need the freedom to organize, or all the pressure on wages and conditions will be downward for any job that most people can do. The alternative is to have government try to keep wages and conditions up, and it's not good at that, so it just creates inflation with wages trailing behind.

Tech workers have the freedom to unionize in the US; with exceedingly rare exceptions, they’ve overwhelmingly not chosen to do so.

Employees also face an enormous propaganda machine constantly telling them unions are bad, they just take your dues, you'll never do better negotiating together, and so on. The usual techie arrogance also plays a role: "Unions benefit common workers, but I am the one uniquely well-paid hard worker that is skilled at negotiaton who would not be advantaged by a union. Therefore unions are useless!" Every tech worker thinks that they alone are the captain of their industry and couldn't possibly benefit from coordinating with everyone else.

> Nobody wants to inhale toxic fumes in some factory? well then the company had better invest in safety equipment, or work dont get done. We dont need a union for this

We tried that in the past. The work still got done, and workers just died more often. If you want to live in that reality move to a developing country with poor labor protections.

how many software developers are in unions? is the compensation higher than industries/sectors with high union membership?

Actors. directors, writers, and professional athletes are in unions. How much do movie stars or first-pick quarterbacks make?

How many retail workers are in unions? Is the compensation higher than industries/sectors with high union membership?

The extent of unionization in a field is irrelevant to how much top performers make in that field. Unions establish a floor for employment conditions and compensation. Market demand determines the top end.

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