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Comment by sollewitt | Hacker News Reader

I think we need to unionize, across companies. We need to be able to block stuff like this, and to be able to demand that you can’t lay off someone to replace them with AI (bringing US workers rights up to the bar set by China). We also need to be able to hold our leadership to some kind of code of ethics. I don’t want to work for a company that makes kill bots, or can renege on climate pledges.

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The best way to unionize is to follow what Mahatma Gandhi did: Non-cooperation movement.

It consists of two broad strategies:

1. Consumer Non-Cooperation (Boycott): Boycott of stuff sold, or given by these companies, irrespective of how attractive it is.

2. The Constructive Program (Self-Reliance): Building and supporting alternatives, even if they cost you a little bit more.

All it needs is little self-discipline and a very very tiny bit of sacrifice on daily basis.

https://www.nextias.com/blog/non-cooperation-movement/

Massive individually coordinated group actions only work is very dire circumstances which means for most everyday things they cannot be relied upon.

We are headed there.

The individual self discipline is great but the “collective” in collective leverage is what makes all the difference.

A heavily unionized tech industry over the last 30yrs would be an interesting counterfactual.

IMO the ability for individual employees to negotiate for themselves is a positive? As is being able to get rid of bad performers

Unionization would hurt the startup ecosystem, at least at the margins, no?

It would be a hard model to pick up and move over and just drop into place. The trades that have union halls for carpenters, electricians, etc., aren't normally working in anything as unstable or dynamic as tech startups. If I try and think back to how things were thirty years ago I don't think it really applies. Unions are for big shop floors where bosses could fire you on a dime and replace you and then you're SOL. Skills in high demand 30 years meant fine, you could just go work somewhere else just as easily. Who expects to be in the same place for 35 years anyways?

A union is merely a group of people who agree to work together for a shared benefit. That doesn't mean that there cannot be individual negotiation, nor does it mean you can't get rid of bad performers. There is no reason why it would need to hurt the startup ecosystem either.

If the tech workers wanted those things they could make it so, but they already could have made those things so already and didn't so...

Isn’t Collective Bargaining a cornerstone of the Union pitch?

Yes, but that does not preclude layering individual bargaining on top. The collective bargain could simply be something like "you may not track employees", while still leaving each individual employee to negotiate the compensation they seek. If the workers would rather be completely hands-off they could defer all negotiations to a negotiator, but, again, the workers make up the rules. It's whatever they want.

Take the National Basketball Players Association as an example. They represent NBA players and collectively bargained for a minimum wage, benefits, and processes to address grievances with management. NBA players aren't all paid the same, and they don't have identical terms in their contracts. The union sets the floor.

For a more down to earth example, my graduate school student union also only negotiated the floor of pay and benefits. The compensation for graduate students varied easily by 50% over this floor, even students in the same department.

> IMO the ability for individual employees to negotiate for themselves is a positive?

I keep hearing this, but FAANGs don't allow individual negotiations. You are banded, like you would be at a union.

Also you're assuming that unions would be able to, or want to block the firing of bad performers. Since the bad performers would also hurt the bottom line, and therefore your pay.

Unionisation might hurt the startup as it would stop certain levels of exploitation (ie not being able to ask people to work for free in exchange for shares that will be worth nothing.)

Even Non-FAANGs have banded, bounded comp. I remember discussing a compensation increase at a smallish, medium sized company, and was given the usual "The book says the comp for your role is between $X and $Y, and you're at $Y." They even showed me The Book! Like, ok so you're just willing to lose me over this stupid book then? (Narrator: There were willing to) I dipped over to FAANG for a pretty nice increase. I guess FAANG uses a different book...

It's just a larger book, yes. No matter how much value you deliver the most important value is that you are Smaller than the Big Guy, and at google he makes a lot more money.

> I guess FAANG uses a different book...

Pretty much, you can use level.fyi to work out what someone is being paid.

This is a flawed argument, the current system gets rid of good performers all the time, and we have evidence of wage suppression, so employees don't get to negotiate on fair terms. You just get stuck in your pay band.

I agree it would be a good counter-factual, but I think the differences would be more around industry stability. Particularly, I think the ability for employees to push back against historical threats like off-shoring would have made the industry more appealing to younger people looking for something stable, and prevented this weird cycle of labor shortages causing salaries to explode, unqualified candidates pivoting to the industry using low cost training solutions (bootcamps, shitty masters programs), then companies failing to deliver on initiatives because the people they hired are poorly trained.

If we had 30 years of steady growth in CS education, then we'd have more experts in the field, doing a better job at executing. And it would likely cost companies less in wages as well. There are many industries where incredibly talented people make fairly modest salaries while producing world-changing products.

Enrolment in computer science skyrocketed five-fold from 2009 to 2024. Dropped 15% since, for obvious reasons.

Sure, but when I went to university (2008ish), the local major university had cut their CS program entirely due to lack of enrollment. So that's likely measuring tough-to-peak growth.

Also, statistics usually merge all computer and technology related majors into a single bucket.

>IMO the ability for individual employees to negotiate for themselves is a positive?

Why in the world are you convinced that you as an individual have a stronger bargaining position than the entire labor pool?

How in the world does that work in your head?

> bringing US workers rights up to the bar set by China

I don't strive for 996. Is this really the bar we want to meet?

The funny thing most Americans don't realize about 996 in China is that the Chinese, while very hard workers, don't work the same way as Americans do. For example lunch is expected to be good (and taken pretty seriously) and followed by an in office nap. This is not some secret thing either but typically encouraged by the company (most office works will have blankets, pillows, eye masks etc at their desk).

Even the Chinese don't believe you can grind at your desk non-stop for 12 hours.

Don't get me wrong, 996 is awful, but the American re-imagining of it is even worse.

> I don’t want to work for a company that makes kill bots, or can renege on climate pledges.

Then don't? How is this a union issue?

OP is just using "union" as a way of articulating that he's extremely unhappy with current corporate behavior, and also that he wants there to be some sort of at-scale, easy-ish way to correct that behavior.

> can’t lay off someone to replace them with AI

This measure would either be toothless or it would make it impossible for the most toxic (non-criminal) team members to be fired.

> or it would make it impossible for the most toxic (non-criminal) team members to be fired.

The issue at present is that everyone is being laid off. If we accept this anti-union trope, let's t least accept that it is strictly better than the current situation where no job is safe.

In my native country unions have crippled the job market and most of my peers don’t see any benefit from them, we actually hate them for the most part.

Unions are just another way to find a single solution that fits everyone and we all know how that turns out. They’re just be another bureaucratic institution for corrupt politicians.

Tons of evidence out there, especially in EU.

> In my native country unions have crippled the job market

We have to think about this critically. If there were no unions, do you believe there would be more jobs for everyone? If so, what is happening to those jobs? What is happening to the demand that would support those jobs? I'm missing some of the logic here, so want to understand better.

Can you provide some concrete examples and sources?

Right, let's do absolutely nothing so we can fire Joe, who's been underperforming for the last two quarters (because of healthcare issues, life affordability, lack of direction, burnout, etc).

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