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First of all, it should be all tech workers that unionize, not just software engineers. And you should talk to some of your fellow workers and ask if they all t

First of all, it should be all tech workers that unionize, not just software engineers. And you should talk to some of your fellow workers and ask if they all think they're being fairly compensated. Even aside from the issue of salary, tech workers are rarely given a fair stake in ownership in the company, and their equity grants often come with lots of clauses to deprive them from what little stake they have. I suggest you seek out other opinions if you believe tech workers are under-worked. Perhaps this is the case at your job, but the majority of tech workers I know and have worked with are tired of having to put in hours on nights, over the weekends, etc. They're tired of "unlimited vacation" policies not actually guaranteeing them any time to take a vacation. I've had a boss prevent me from leaving at 10PM once before. I mean its not exactly a new realization that many of the most trendy perks for tech companies are ruses to get workers to stay extra hours at the office, that tech companies pursuing the youngest workers often leads to a culture where there's little differentiation between work and company time, etc. Not to mention that tech workers are often asked to do dubiously ethical things by management. We're asked to automate away the positions of other employees, asked to be lax on security or privacy standards, etc. Whether or not you believe there are any demands to make, I kind of find it bizarre to suggest that workplace democracy is something tech workers shouldn't demand.

um_ya 10y ago
Unions originated as a way to commoditise labor. It has since grown into a way to keep out freelance competitors, and to force employers into doing things (both of which I don't agree with). In terms of commoditsing labor, tech is a very skill specific profession with no cookie cutter employee to sell, which makes it a bad candidate for unions.
- unityByFreedom 10y ago
  It doesn't really matter what unions become in certain cases, does it? Unions were reinforced by the NLRA to enable workers to bargain collectively. That can mean a lot of things A union for software engineers is a blank slate. It hasn't been done before. It could be anything someone makes of it.
  - pbecotte 10y ago
    That's... not true. I was in a unionized software development shop at L3 communications in Camden. It was... different. Having a published document showing how the "top performers" were going to get a 3.5% raise this year while the average people would only get 2.5% was odd. Counting my hours (including signing out for lunch and getting management approval for overtime) was very different. Getting paid overtime was nice! The problem is that if I had stayed there for thirty years, I would have been pretty much guaranteed to make good money. By changing jobs a couple times, I made that same money in 2. So... people who are capable of getting better jobs and willing to risk change simply left, while people looking for stability or who had trouble getting jobs simply stayed. This didn't lead to the type of environment that I enjoyed working in. Your mileage may vary.
    - Apocryphon 10y ago
      Camden, in the UK? Thanks for sharing your experience. Any sort of unionized IT environment in the U.S. is an absolute rarity, if such things exist at all. I don't deny that unions would add an additional layer of complexity and will have unintended drawbacks. But if there were union shops in tech, then at least there will be options for tech workers to choose between stability and rapid growth. Certainly providing the former will help in addressing the ageism in Silicon Valley.
- knucklesandwich 10y ago
  This notion that there is a wide distribution in engineer competency has come under a lot of criticism for many reasons (not the least of which being that its often used as a cover for discrimination on the basis of gender): https://lwn.net/Articles/641779/ https://lwn.net/Articles/641779/ If you believe there to be such a wide distribution in talent and that salaries at your company are commensurately paid, I suggest you ask your employer if they will disclose every employee's salary and the justification for them. Even if this we take this for granted, its completely untrue that all unions commoditize a trade by flattening pay. There are plenty of unions that have chosen not to put standardized salaries in contracts or have advocated tiered salary agreements or merit pay. Whether or not these are good things, they are things that unions have done and should dispel with the notion that unions are inflexible towards these concerns by workers. As for your concern that unions "force employers to do things", well I suggest you consider all of the ways your employer can coerce you to do things and whether you actually have a mutualistic relationship. Many workers don't feel that they do.
  - jasonlingx 10y ago
    Rock stars don't need unions.
    - slidemodern 10y ago
      No, but they do need industry-savy managers and agents working for them to ensure they get the best deal.
      - jasonlingx 10y ago
        Yes, they have their own union. Which is the opposite of a union.
    - Frondo 10y ago
      Sounds like someone hasn't heard of the American Federation of Musicians.
      - 10y ago
weberc2 10y ago
> And you should talk to some of your fellow workers and ask if they all think they're being fairly compensated. Even aside from the issue of salary, tech workers are rarely given a fair stake in ownership in the company, and their equity grants often come with lots of clauses to deprive them from what little stake they have. Who decides what is fair? You? Tech workers? Speaking about fairness as though it's objective or straight-forward isn't doing anyone any favors. Speaking generally, if employees aren't getting a fair deal, they should look for better jobs. If they can't find better jobs, they're getting a fair deal. There are certainly anti-competitive exceptions, but nothing posted so far suggests we're in such exceptional territory.
- knucklesandwich 10y ago
  > Who decides what is fair? You? Tech workers? Speaking about fairness as though it's objective or straight-forward isn't doing anyone any favors. The beauty of a union is there doesn't have to be an objective definition. A union gives you a democratic voice to advocate for what you think is fair. Without organized labor power, your voice is completely ignorable. > Speaking generally, if employees aren't getting a fair deal, they should look for better jobs. If they can't find better jobs, they're getting a fair deal. There are certainly anti-competitive exceptions, but nothing posted so far suggests we're in such exceptional territory. This is a completely naive understanding of what finding a job is like. Leaving a job can be a strike against a person in the hiring process, not to mention it consumes a lot of time, leaves someone uncompensated and without benefits during the process, etc. This also assumes engineer competency is something we can effectively gauge in the hiring process or otherwise (just search "hiring" on hacker news to get the general sentiment among engineers about how good we are at this). Imagine if this was the suggestion given to factory workers and coal miners and the early 20th century (not that I think the worker conditions are comparable, but its illustrative of how naive it is to believe that market forces are sufficient for providing fair compensation). This is a marginalist's definition of "fair" that doesn't jive with any real human person's. The real question is why you are so fervantly against having a democratic voice in the workplace.
  - smsm42 10y ago

um_ya 10y ago

Unions originated as a way to commoditise labor. It has since grown into a way to keep out freelance competitors, and to force employers into doing things (both of which I don't agree with). In terms of commoditsing labor, tech is a very skill specific profession with no cookie cutter employee to sell, which makes it a bad candidate for unions.

unityByFreedom 10y ago
It doesn't really matter what unions become in certain cases, does it? Unions were reinforced by the NLRA to enable workers to bargain collectively. That can mean a lot of things A union for software engineers is a blank slate. It hasn't been done before. It could be anything someone makes of it.
- pbecotte 10y ago
  That's... not true. I was in a unionized software development shop at L3 communications in Camden. It was... different. Having a published document showing how the "top performers" were going to get a 3.5% raise this year while the average people would only get 2.5% was odd. Counting my hours (including signing out for lunch and getting management approval for overtime) was very different. Getting paid overtime was nice! The problem is that if I had stayed there for thirty years, I would have been pretty much guaranteed to make good money. By changing jobs a couple times, I made that same money in 2. So... people who are capable of getting better jobs and willing to risk change simply left, while people looking for stability or who had trouble getting jobs simply stayed. This didn't lead to the type of environment that I enjoyed working in. Your mileage may vary.
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    Camden, in the UK? Thanks for sharing your experience. Any sort of unionized IT environment in the U.S. is an absolute rarity, if such things exist at all. I don't deny that unions would add an additional layer of complexity and will have unintended drawbacks. But if there were union shops in tech, then at least there will be options for tech workers to choose between stability and rapid growth. Certainly providing the former will help in addressing the ageism in Silicon Valley.
knucklesandwich 10y ago
This notion that there is a wide distribution in engineer competency has come under a lot of criticism for many reasons (not the least of which being that its often used as a cover for discrimination on the basis of gender): https://lwn.net/Articles/641779/ https://lwn.net/Articles/641779/ If you believe there to be such a wide distribution in talent and that salaries at your company are commensurately paid, I suggest you ask your employer if they will disclose every employee's salary and the justification for them. Even if this we take this for granted, its completely untrue that all unions commoditize a trade by flattening pay. There are plenty of unions that have chosen not to put standardized salaries in contracts or have advocated tiered salary agreements or merit pay. Whether or not these are good things, they are things that unions have done and should dispel with the notion that unions are inflexible towards these concerns by workers. As for your concern that unions "force employers to do things", well I suggest you consider all of the ways your employer can coerce you to do things and whether you actually have a mutualistic relationship. Many workers don't feel that they do.
- jasonlingx 10y ago
  Rock stars don't need unions.
  - slidemodern 10y ago
    No, but they do need industry-savy managers and agents working for them to ensure they get the best deal.
    - jasonlingx 10y ago
      Yes, they have their own union. Which is the opposite of a union.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    Sounds like someone hasn't heard of the American Federation of Musicians.
    - 10y ago

weberc2 10y ago

> And you should talk to some of your fellow workers and ask if they all think they're being fairly compensated. Even aside from the issue of salary, tech workers are rarely given a fair stake in ownership in the company, and their equity grants often come with lots of clauses to deprive them from what little stake they have. Who decides what is fair? You? Tech workers? Speaking about fairness as though it's objective or straight-forward isn't doing anyone any favors. Speaking generally, if employees aren't getting a fair deal, they should look for better jobs. If they can't find better jobs, they're getting a fair deal. There are certainly anti-competitive exceptions, but nothing posted so far suggests we're in such exceptional territory.

knucklesandwich 10y ago
> Who decides what is fair? You? Tech workers? Speaking about fairness as though it's objective or straight-forward isn't doing anyone any favors. The beauty of a union is there doesn't have to be an objective definition. A union gives you a democratic voice to advocate for what you think is fair. Without organized labor power, your voice is completely ignorable. > Speaking generally, if employees aren't getting a fair deal, they should look for better jobs. If they can't find better jobs, they're getting a fair deal. There are certainly anti-competitive exceptions, but nothing posted so far suggests we're in such exceptional territory. This is a completely naive understanding of what finding a job is like. Leaving a job can be a strike against a person in the hiring process, not to mention it consumes a lot of time, leaves someone uncompensated and without benefits during the process, etc. This also assumes engineer competency is something we can effectively gauge in the hiring process or otherwise (just search "hiring" on hacker news to get the general sentiment among engineers about how good we are at this). Imagine if this was the suggestion given to factory workers and coal miners and the early 20th century (not that I think the worker conditions are comparable, but its illustrative of how naive it is to believe that market forces are sufficient for providing fair compensation). This is a marginalist's definition of "fair" that doesn't jive with any real human person's. The real question is why you are so fervantly against having a democratic voice in the workplace.
- smsm42 10y ago