Especially considering the no poach, 'non-compete' deals made between Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, Pixar and Lucasfilm — which has suppressed wages.
Programmer unions could even be fun, competitive qualification tests, union co-op projects, many interesting possibilities.
If it's practical for teamsters and floor coverers [1] to unionize, why not computer specialists?
[1] http://nyfloorcoverers.com/
I was in a union when I was a grocery store worker. We were negotiating a new contract - several grocery unions on one side and one person on the other side to represent the 5 major grocery companies - and there was a vote taken when my union representative was not present. We were bound by it because we had already agreed to this type of negotiation. (It wasn't a bad deal.)
Some unions, such as the local Welder's union, act as an employment agency for union members too. When your job ends or lays you off, you put your name on their job board and wait for a job. Employers call the union and get whomever's at the top of the list.
Collective bargaining has little to offer white collar workers.
The additional utility offered by collective bargaining for programmers is probably not larger than the negative utility of having to pay a middleman army of union organizers, employees and lawyers.
What about the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, and other similar groups? They're maybe more like guilds, but they also do a lot of lobbying on behalf of their profession, and provide group insurance and other services.
Professional associations don't do collective bargaining and aren't labor unions.
While professionals can have unions (and many public sector professionals do), professional associations are structurally not inclined to be union-like because a substantial share of their members -- and usually their most influential members -- are employers, not employees.
In the US at least, unions are only in it for themselves. Take the recent push by California unions for a $15hr minimum wage - except for their own members. Yes, they want an exception to the law so their members can be paid less than minimum wage. [1]
[1] http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-union-exemption-...
There's a few of these organizations in Netherland: one from the major labour union, the others independent.
EDIT: The bit about LA unions arguing for lower wages is bizarre. That's completely contrary to their purpose. Hard to imagine that an organization calling itself a union would do that to their members.
To be honest, it's all about money. Does anybody honestly believe that the Union Rate for skilled developers would be over $400k/year? That seems unlikely. Chances are it'll come in somewhere between $70k and $100k, exactly where it is today.
Imagine we get a good bump though. 20%, 50%, even 100% and now we're up to $150k or even $200k. Where does that put us? At about half what a guy can negotiate for himself today if he's genuinely good at what he does.
That leaves the question: why would a truly skilled programmer ever join a union? Anybody capable of basic arithmetic would give it a pass, leaving the "Skilled Developer Union" holding all the developers except the skilled ones. In practice, the union would be where you go to get average developers, and a Union Shop would be a place where you could expect to go work with average people doing average things. By definition, they wouldn't be able to hire non-union devs, since those guys won't join the club. And if you were in fact good, but in that union, there would be no way to get yourself that truly good (and achievable today without unions) bill rate except by leaving the union.
I don't see any possible upside.
Why by definition? There's no reason why a company can't hire a mix of union and non-union members, as union membership is none of an employer's business. Except of course that the union may negotiate rates on behalf of its members.
It has an upside for devs who are good at programming but not good at negotiation.
That said, software developers probably don't have unions for the same reason other highly educated, highly paid professionals tend not to have unions. We have plenty of power and options already.
https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-...
A union doesn't necessarily seem suited for software development. As people have already explained in much better details than I'd manage, a union aims to help all, but exceptional programmers would be limited by trying to keep everyone to the same level. Some of us would get a pay rise, but many more of us would see a significant drop in salaries, and that's not really fair to those that can justify that kind of salary.
Turning Software Development into a chartered profession seems like a no brainer to me, and I'd be interested in opinions as to why this hasn't happened already. In my mind, one reason is obvious, and that's the fact that hardly anyone seems to know the best way to do anything. More often than not, there's a huge difference in how one company and one stack will do something compared to another. Hell, two groups could write entirely different code based on something ultimately trivial, like their choice of CMS. Any professional body would need to be tech agnostic while also being able to set a high standard for anyone in professional development.
In all honesty, I think most software developers write code for absolute peanuts when you consider how vital the code is to the running of a business. I imagine that becoming a chartered profession would go much further than a union towards ensuring that software developers are protected in not just pay, but ensuring that they are fully able to write the best code they can.
We'd organize to have professional licensing boards to artificially limit the supply of "licensed" coders and raise wages (e.g., American Medical Association that regulate MCAT/MLE Step exams, State Boards that administer bar exams etc, PE/professional engineer licenses).
But I'd like to consider coders as less calculating and more socialist that allows people from non-traditional backgrounds make the effort to join the ranks; and also heed to its "blue collar" technical roots than try to aspire to be elitist like doctors or lawyers.
I'm not sure it's that easy to quantify the (more) important and transferable skills like abstract thinking, project estimation, team work, being able to learn quickly, etc.
Coding is closer to an art (like journeyman carpentry) than a discipline (like engineering), and therefore better judged on reputation, portfolio, etc, criteria that the industry already embodies.
/imo
Limit the supply based on skills/qualifications, not who your Daddy played golf with (as it often happens in blue-blood law firms).
Heh. I'm an anarcho-capitalist, and I'm vehemently opposed to unionization.
Rather than look at floor coverers, I'd look at other creatives like movie/TV script writers. They are unionized, and what they do is hard to characterize as unskilled or commoditized.
Pay is more transparent, but the very best still command top salaries.
I think one difference is that it's easier to correlate the quality of their output with the quality of the end-product because the teams tend to be very small.
"Give us all a raise or we shut the internet off"
PHP local
Haskell local
C local
etc
That one is for UNIX System Administrators.
"Seems like a no brainer for skilled programmers."
Why? As a skilled developer, I can freely move from one job to another as employers are begging to get me to work for them. Why would I want to be limited by my co-workers?
Unions are generally for people that
1) Can easily be replaced. 2) Don't have good negotiating skills
On top of this, it just makes it more difficult for anyone in their dorm room to start a business. It's not a coincidence that the startup scene is nearly non-existent where unions have a strong presence (France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway).
Wow, it's amazing that you have such incredible negotiating skills that you can beat out a Fortune 500 companies human resources department, their outside lawyers that make you sign an employment and terms of service agreement, and who have a boilerplate of similar agreements for all the other firms they have done this for etc.
The hubris you have in saying this is farcicial. The fact is that you as an individual do not have the skills to out-negotiate this leviathan. You sound ridiculous claiming that you do have the skills to do this. This is why unions have massive legal teams, lobbyists and so forth. You may be right or wrong whether being in a union would currently be better for you, but the notion that you as an individual have super-negotiating powers, and that only losers when faced with a pack of lawyers need their own pack of lawyers, is risible. You do not have good negotiating skills because you're too dumb and hubristic to know that you're outmatched. These companies are laughing at you in that you think you're outmatching their negotiating teams singlehandedly. Why are they hiring you? Because for every dollar you make in salary, they are making $1 + $X off of you. They wouldn't hire you otherwise. That $X you are leaving on the table while patting yourself on the back about what a good negotiator you are. By the way, workers in the same jobs, one union and negotiated by a team of lawyers, one non-union - studies show the workers who have the contract negotiated by a union statistically get a better contract, more wages etc.
That's the position that good developers find themselves in today.
Yes, there are a lot of ordinary devs out there who would be happy if they didn't have to negotiate to stand out from the other ordinary devs. But really, if you're an ordinary dev, the better plan would be to work towards being an extraordinary dev, the kind of which there exists only one, right out at the end of the point in Malibu.
That's very achievable in today's job market. Think long and hard before you throw that away for the security of a Union.
Unions are simply a pool of skilled laborers whom know they are being paid less than they're worth. Any other assumptions of limitations imposed upon a union member are up to the actual terms of a specific union group.
Nothing about unions existing would change much about the highest skilled groups of (non-union) programmers.
The main trick in negotiation is that you're willing to say no. The problem is that not everybody can afford that, but in this market, I can certainly afford to say no.
How so? I own my own business now (multiple, actually). But when I didn't, I easily negotiated my rates. How? I commanded a certain salary or I walked. When you have the skills, this isn't that difficult. I don't need a union.
Once I was hired, I always made myself valuable. I was only ever let go once when the company went under. The rest of the time, the company would try to do anything to get me to stay.
" but the notion that you as an individual have super-negotiating powers, and that only losers when faced with a pack of lawyers need their own pack of lawyers, is risible"
When are you ever faced with a 'pack of lawyers' when getting a job?? If it's reading and signing a contract, It's not that expensive to get an attorney to read it over.
"Why are they hiring you? Because for every dollar you make in salary, they are making $1 + $X off of you. They wouldn't hire you otherwise"
This is how capitalism works. You are leaving out the fact that companies take almost all of the risk. If projects fail or products don't sell, the company pays the price. The worst thing that will happen to an employee is that they need to find another job. If you want all of the profit and take all of the risks (which most people don't want to do), start your own company.
"By the way, workers in the same jobs, one union and negotiated by a team of lawyers, one non-union - studies show the workers who have the contract negotiated by a union statistically get a better contract, more wages etc"
Of course they do. Because most unskilled people (and people that have negotiation skills) end up getting low-paid jobs. The unions prop these people up and force a company to pay them way more than they are worth.
I have had family that joined an auto union. One of the big things they did was force companies to hire two workers for one job. The result? One person would work half the day while the other person golfed, went to the bar, had fun, etc. Both were paid a full wage for the day.
It's things like this that bankrupted the American auto industry.
A few years back, I went to a trade show in Vegas, because my company had a booth. We had to pay $500 for 1 person to setup a table and another $300 for someone to connect our computers to the network. Both took about 5 minutes. This was because the unions ran the show.
Unions are also the ones opposing services like Uber. They are trying to use political force and violence to push them out in many cities (and succeeding) and so many people in the tech industry are against this. Yet, they can't put two and two together and see that this is how the unions work everywhere.
I've seen it far too many times for you to tell me otherwise.
FYI, there is a very strong startup scene in Sweden. I can't speak for the other countries, but the part about Sweden is incorrect. You might have heard about Skype, Spotify, Minecraft, iZettle... :)
As someone from a country with stronger unions, I would like to propose a different interpretation. As a result of a strong union culture, regular jobs are just too comfortable to consider doing a startup. A startup is a very risky venture where most founders have to work at their utmost limits. I am sure many startups have been created out of a dissatisfaction with the circumstances of the former employment.
In contrast, many jobs in unionized countries pay fair wages, force you to take 30 or more days of vacation and respect your work-life balance. Nowadays you also get a lot of time off, if you become a father or mother.
Would you give up all those things, just to try something that has a 80 percent (or more) failure rate? I know this is a forum for entrepreneurs, so most people would. But a job you are really satisfied with, makes this decision a lot harder.
A good doctor/lawyer is not easily replaced, and lawyers have fantastic negotiation skills by definition :-)
Yet they have very powerful guilds (professional organizations)
Unions give skilled labor immensely greater negotiation leverage, as the alternative for employers would be hiring lower skilled workers.
Most higher-skilled employees want to maximize their pay. A union isn't the way to do it. Why? Because if you get a raise, everyone in your position also has to get a raise. Why would I even want to try any harder if I know I will be limited by other people in my company?
We would still have startups, but the days would be over for 2 guys in a garage starting a successful company. Because of the regulations involved, the only people that would be able to start a company already would need to have lots of money. IE: big companies.
But big companies would love the idea because it prevents competition.
That's not correct. Union contracts do not universally (or even normally) require all people in the same position to get the same pay. They may require objective criteria or standardized processes and established ranges for compensation for certain positions, but that's not the same thing at all.
In theory, you might be correct. But practice is much different. My Uncle wanted to get a raise. He couldn't just ask for one. He had to go to the Union board who then had to talk to company management to not only give him a raise, but everyone else in his department that had the same position. This is what I'm talking about.
It creates other problems as well. In Denmark, for instance, youth and lower-skilled people just aren't being hired. Why? Because it takes a literal court case with the union and the company to fire someone. So, companies don't want to take risks on employees that they don't think will work out in the end.
The sad thing is that unions will destroy competition and then the same people that fought to get the unions in place will then start crying about busting up the same monopolies that they created.
Just like how unions fought for a $15/hour wage increase, but they are exempt. They fought for government-run healthcare, but yet again, they are also exempt from the dues.
I guess I'm tired of seeing people blindly giving all of their power away to the many greedy organizations that call themselves unions.
I'm quite familiar with real union IT positions that exist now (and are even more bureaucratically limited than the minimum for union positions, because they are also public sector positions), and they don't require this "everyone in a given title in a department must have the same wage".
> My Uncle wanted to get a raise. He couldn't just ask for one. He had to go to the Union board who then had to talk to company management to not only give him a raise, but everyone else in his department that had the same position. This is what I'm talking about.
Sure, there may be some union contracts, for some type of jobs, which require everyone in a firm with the same classification to be paid exactly the same.
And, yes, union contracts as a rule prohibit individually-negotiated compensation, even where (as they usually do) they permit individual variations in compensation (usually, with defined criteria and processes.) That's kind of the whole point of collective bargaining.