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Employee activism in tech stops short of organizing unions

178 points by pecanpie 7y ago

aminadude 7y ago
Tangent - there was an article on the NYTimes the other day about how their editorial work was trivializing Bernie Sanders political impact the last election and actually using misleading headlines to distort the truth. I’ll try to find the link (on my phone now). It was pretty eye opening and had links to sources as well as exposing some of these editors and their role working for the Clinton camp. I call this out because I see a steady stream of NYT articles that focus on big tech in a negative way. Big tech has its problems and should be regulated. On the other hand, I question the NYT and their motive. This clearly isn’t honest journalism but NYT focusing on companies that are now directly competing with the NYT. Edit: article I was referring to https://fair.org/home/sidney-embers-secret-sources/ https://fair.org/home/sidney-embers-secret-sources/
- Spooky23 7y ago
  The problem is that Sanders is in a democratic primary. If people in the circle of democratic party thinking aren't valid sources for reporting on a democratic political candidate, who is? Clinton was the party nominee -- all of the players will have done something connected to that campaign. The democratic party is a big-tent and demands consensus. When all of these connected folks eyeroll at the guy, it hints that he would have trouble governing. An "out-there outsider guy" persona works for the GOP because the GOP is a political machine party... some state senator from North Dakota would kill kittens on TV if instructed to.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    The problem isn't that the democratic party is doing what's best for the democratic party. The problem is that The New York Times is doing what's best for the democratic party. They claim to be journalism but more and more, they are clearly biased political activism (as is the case with this story).
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      Who would you suggest that they talk to? Journalists get stories, they do that by talking to people and getting information. The New York Times has a pretty obvious mainstream approach. Very few credible people in that community have anything to say about Sanders. I didn’t notice lots of biased political activism when they were reporting on the prosecution of NY legislators and a governor. When did the switch flip?
      - malvosenior 7y ago
        > Very few credible people in that community have anything to say about Sanders. He's consistently polled in the top three for the democratic primary. He's also consistently ahead of Warren who the NYT often promotes. The New York Times is trying to manufacture credibility by selectively covering candidates.
- eanzenberg 7y ago
  Well, yeah. First of all, tech is a threat to established media. They were asleep at the wheel in the 2000's and most of the 2010's and missed that many people started getting their news from online sources. Secondly, established-leftist-media such as the NYT is anti-tech because their belief that tech helped elect the current administration. You will see these calls to action dissipate when a new administration gets elected.
  - asdfgasd 7y ago
    > established-leftist-media such as the NYT The NYT is decidedly _not_ leftist. Slightly-liberal leaning maybe, but in no way leftist. They supported the Iraq war of all things. I honestly can't think of a paper that leftists are more critical of... Maybe the Washington Post?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rolltiide 7y ago
> “Associating unions with blue-collar work and making it a stigma to talk about unions in white-collar circles, that’s very deliberate” This is my observation too, right now there is simply a correlation that doesn't have to be. It doesn't matter that you get paid a comfortable amount, and that another startup delivers snacks all day, and another startup delivers catered food to you: you aren't getting paid what you are worth to these companies. The board members are just the VCs and the founders and they aren't in a position to change that. The fraction of a fraction of a percent equity that they told you "was a generous amount" after feeding your face has nothing to do with what a more equitable amount could be. Doesn't give you any information about all the scenarios in which you would get nothing because the strike is too high and the preferred shares liquidity preferences are too onerous. Even the cash component of tech compensation could likely be 75-150% higher. This has nothing to do with the stagnating wages in other sectors, we are working with this generation's largest and fastest growing companies and could accelerate comp growth and other changes.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  I think that's not the only factor. Unions will also cap wages for the highest earners. And everyone thinks they are going to end up in that 1 percenter salary.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    > Unions will also cap wages for the highest earners. its okay if the average moves up, and transparency increases on stock options and the liquidity preferences of preferred shareholders. this is only currently relevant to non-public companies, and this article was about startups so thats fitting
viburnum 7y ago
The countries with the best human welfare indicators also have the highest percentage of people in unions. It’s the only countervailing force against plutocratic power.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  It’s the only countervailing force against plutocratic power. "Only?" It can itself, become a nexus of plutocratic power. The best antidote to corruption is transparency and the dispersal of power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
  - viburnum 7y ago
    I’m talking about the Nordics at the top, with 70% of people in unions, followed by Germany/France/Benelux. Transparency doesn’t give create political power. Coordinating the interests of millions of workers takes organization, and a broad and politically active trade union movement is the only successful example in history of delivery widely shared prosperity.
scythe 7y ago
It’s generally my understanding that unions tend to decrease labor mobility, and are most effective for improving working conditions when labor mobility is naturally very low, as in industries dominated by a few players (shipping, auto) or where company-specific knowledge becomes very important (retail, maybe construction?). Industries with a high proportion of freelancers tend to form guilds, which are slightly different and often focus on licensure (barbers, doctors, lawyers). But programmers — like managers, accountants and bankers — have highly transferable skills that give them lots of employment options. Additionally, programming creates its own communication skills by (literal) networking, which aids programmers searching for jobs (they can send code samples over a wire). As such, competition for labor is more effective in tech than in many other fields.
baybal2 7y ago
For a long time I had an impression that Microsoft had some kind of union(s) like group running things there. Is it so, or my memory is playing tricks with me?
negamax 7y ago
The benefit in tech is options. Don't like your job, get another one. Don't like your boss, get another one. For many locations it's just the matter of turning a button on Linkedin or for many people sending some emails. That keeps people idealistic, vocal and demanding of the behavior from their employer/bosses. This is not the norm in other business functions. Unfortunately.
- ahelwer 7y ago
  This current state of affairs gives employees a lot of power, as you observed, but it's important to realize it will not last. The downturn will come. The question is whether we want to use our current ephemeral labor power to protect ourselves when the downturn comes, because organization will be 100x more difficult when things go to shit and people don't think they have the luxury of risking their career to build a union.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    If a downturn comes, it will be due to larger economic reasons. If firms aren't profitable and need to cut costs, having a union that makes that more difficult could actually exacerbate the downturn. I'd rather have to lay off under performers and keep the company in business, than go out of business and have everyone lose their jobs.
    - crimsonalucard 7y ago
      What you say is true, however these things can be negotiated with a union. All a union does is give centralized power to the employees. If employees need to be cut for survival or salaries need to be lowered temporarily than these are things that an employer can provide proof of to the union and together with employees as a union work something out. A union prevents the laying off of employees as a profit boosting measure even when it IS'NT required for survival. That is wrong on every count. The employees are a greater part of the company than shareholders, board members, owners and C-level executives combined. Employees are not sheep to be herded and they deserve a centralized voice.
dawhizkid 7y ago
Biggest question is if a union or union-like system makes sense in companies where the average tenure is ~2-3 years mostly due to employee choice.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  When your only reliable way to get a pay bump is switching jobs adopting any system that ties pay to tenure seems awfully synonymous with pulling up the ladder behind one's self.
  - vcarl 7y ago
    Not sure where "tying pay to tenure" came up, unless that's how you view what unions do? A union just means a group of employees negotiating as a unit, what changes they ask for isn't dictated in advance.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >Not sure where "tying pay to tenure" came up, This is how basically every union workplace in the US works. The pay-scale becomes very rigid. Why would tech be different?
      - Apocryphon 7y ago
        Surely a next-gen labor union based in the tech industry could find a new way to fight ageism without mandating a seniority system. Why does tech have to act the same way as before? I thought we were supposed to be innovators?
        dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        The status quo is pretty good, good enough that I (and a lot of people) don't want to make that bet.
        7y ago
LarryDarrell 7y ago
I used to be all around anti-union. Now that I'm older I regret that position. There are bad unions and there are good unions. Sometimes they can be corrupt, but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with. It's an imperfect solution, but it's the only one that seems to work. The idea that we are all lone super stars that need to negotiate for ourselves is not only selfish, but more than likely wrong. Even if I considered myself a super-coder, should I be willing to sacrifice the well-being of everyone else in my field? Tech workers feel pretty good here in the US because they are compensated better than most. The time to organize is now, not after worker supply has increased or during a recession when workers are more desperate. We have real issues (Ageism, Working Conditions, etc) that we'll never be able to address individually.
- duxup 7y ago
  > but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with I'm not convinced that is the case, nor is it an either or (union or corporate powers). Your protection by the union depends on what the union negotiates... beyond that their ability to effect change pretty much stops there. Then you are again at the mercy of your employer. I've had first had experience with "oh yeah they can do that" union situations. Also premature organization IMO is much like premature optimization, more likely to be a bigger problem and miss any real issues.
  - smallbigfish 7y ago
    You only have the current benefits because some sort of union fought for them. Call it government, call it whatever but it was an organization fighting on your behalf. > beyond that their ability to effect change pretty much stops there. Is that true? You can't negotiate even further by yourself? I think you do.
    - duxup 7y ago
      >You only have the current benefits because some sort of union fought for them. I think that is a bit of a grand statement don't you think? I've worked non union jobs and I'm pretty sure the benefits I get are not directly due to a union... I wouldn't associate ALL benefits with a union, nor would that necessitate forming one simply if you thought those benefits were related. I've worked for some nice people, I do belive they seriously want to provide their people benefits... >Is that true? You can't negotiate even further by yourself? I think you do. Negotiate what exactly? The Union and corporate relationship generally lays out what the lay of the land is, the the areas that the employer gets to decide are usually pretty obvious and the union isn't likely to call a general strike because an employer made a choice.
javagram 7y ago
“In other cases, highly compensated engineers may see themselves as independent operators who have plenty of leverage on their own and thus do not need to join a union effort.” This is definitely my feeling. When I can just open up LinkedIn and browse all the unsolicited interview requests I get, I don’t end up feeling like I really need a union to protect my current job - I can always just leave and go somewhere else if I’m unhappy. That said, if someone asked me to vote for it I might do that, but I wouldn’t put the effort into organizing myself.
- sjg007 7y ago
  In the long term, you may not want to switch companies. It forces upon you a whole lot of unexpected costs, even accounting for a higher pay.
  - ivl 7y ago
    And staying at the same employer indefinitely is a sort of soul crushing purgatory in my mind. Software work is one of the few industries where you can completely change the business problem you're addressing by changing employers without your skill set being irrelevant. I love the fact that if I grow tired of the industry the company I'm working at is servicing, I can easily move to another employer with a totally different business problem.
    - sjg007 7y ago
      Having a union doesn't change that option for you.
      - zaroth 7y ago
        It certainly would when the union implements seniority based protocols.
        sjg007 7y ago
        Good thing you could choose to work somewhere else then.
leftyted 7y ago
There has to be a balance of power between labor and management. When management has too much power, that power will be abused. When labor has too much power, that power will be abused. Unions make sense when labor doesn't have any power. Do programmers have enough power? I'd say yes. Maybe not across the board but -- in general -- yes. We aren't coal miners, that's for sure.
- moorhosj 7y ago
  But not all tech workers are programmers. To compare to another union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) represents machinists from Boeing and Harley-Davidson, distribution center workers at IKEA, and also wood, pulp and paper workers. > https://www.goiam.org/ https://www.goiam.org/
- eswat 7y ago
  It depends on the specific industry in tech. Do programmers in general tech startups have enough power? I’d say yes too. Do programmers in the gaming industry have enough power? Definitely not.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    And even still where tech workers do have a lot of power, there are plenty of issues that we could use that power to improve (IP restrictions for off hours/open source projects, non-competes, parental leave, etc.)
  - ivl 7y ago
    The gaming industry has an interesting problem: a lot of fresh college grads that want to work on games because they are passionate about games. In that case, I'm unsure of how unionizing would help much, as publishers could simply invest in games from non-union shops, and happily abandon the studios that are unionized.
    - sigstoat 7y ago
      > In that case, I'm unsure of how unionizing would help much, as publishers could simply invest in games from non-union shops, and happily abandon the studios that are unionized. and game development work is probably the most trivial software development to move to foreign jurisdictions. unless the union promoters would like video game tariffs.
CSMastermind 7y ago
In my opinion, unions are very valuable in cases where employees cannot effectively realize market value for their skillset. This can happen for a number of reasons: 1. In cases of specialized skills (like working at a factory where you've trained on a particular machine). 2. In cases of natural or artificial monopolies (like working for a federal government). 3. In cases where companies and workers incentives are misaligned (like that of a construction worker). Probably more that I'm missing. I don't see how the current software engineer market meets this condition. There are more open software engineering jobs than there are software engineers. If my employer mistreats me, I'll leave and go to a different company, and likely I can find a job just as good very easily. I'm not sure how a union would benefit me personally.
- LarryDarrell 7y ago
  How confident are you that this climate will continue for the rest of your working life? How confident are you that this climate will extend past your working life?
  - dymk 7y ago
    We can form a union when we need to form a union. There's no point in forming one just in case software engineering no longer becomes a sought-after skilled job.
    - moorhosj 7y ago
      ==We can form a union when we need to form a union.== In my 35 years of life, it has become harder to start a union, so it isn't out of the question that it becomes harder and harder to start a union when software engineers "need to". There's no guarantee that what exists today will exist tomorrow.
      - dymk 7y ago
        I agree with that, but I don't agree with the underlying notion of us ever needing to unionize. Do people actually think that software engineering is going to become a job that isn't skilled, and isn't sought after?
mawburn 7y ago
Maybe unionization needs a disrupt? I'm not against unionization in a lot of industries, but it just doesn't make sense in its current form for the tech scene or any other high demand position. It feels like an outdated mechanism used for people who were happy to sit in the same role, doing the same thing, for 45yrs.
- negamax 7y ago
  I don't know how to feel about it. There are some really bad employers out there. Tech culture is fairly liberal and new. I remember reading a book long ago where managers would sit on a higher chair in negotiations. It was a different atmosphere.
- mavelikara 7y ago
  Unions exist in high demand positions too - sports, entertainment etc. Can tech unions be modelled closer to those, and less on the style of jobs you mentioned?
  - schnable 7y ago
    These are not high demand professions. They are a very limited number of jobs available with many more people who would love to fill them.
    - chongli 7y ago
      Yes, and professional athletes don't get promoted to management at all. Some do become managers or other executives but that requires them to retire as a player and then negotiate an entirely separate contract for the management job.
      - blub 7y ago
        "professional athletes don't get promoted to management at all" Neither do most employees either, what does that have to do with anything? We can't organize because there's a 5% chance that we're promoted to management?
noego 7y ago
This is going to be a unpopular opinion. I think a tech union would likely be good for the average tech worker - and bad for absolutely everyone else, broader society included. Cartels and price-fixing agreements are extremely lucrative, which is why they were commonplace until outlawed by antitrust legislation, and why cartels like OPEC still operate today. Unions and collective bargaining are no different. Unions are equivalent to a cartel of labor-suppliers, and collective bargaining is identical to price-fixing. Just like with cartels and price-fixing agreements, unionizing would likely benefit the average tech worker. It would also have an extremely bad effect on innovation, bureaucracy, and cost-of-tech-development which would spill over to consumers in the form of higher prices. I'm in favor of breaking up big corporations, as well as implementing a wealth tax, raising the top tax rates, and strengthening the social safety net. But I don't think encouraging the formation of cartels and price-fixing agreements is in society's best interests.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  This comment is worth discussing about because it actually criticizes the macroeconomic effects of unions, not just another "well I don't need a union and I don't want to be stuck paying dues" personal complaint. It's an interesting point for union proponents to debate, and perhaps a next-gen tech union should try to address the concerns. Another solution to add to the ones you mentioned can be the promotion of founding tech companies run as worker cooperatives, similar to Mondragon in Spain. If tech companies leadership will flirt with anti-hierarchial management fads like flat organizations and holocracy, why not putting their equity where their mouth is and allowing the workers themselves to own the means of production?
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    The macroeconomic effects of unions have been overwhelmingly positive. Workers across the entire spectrum of the workforce enjoy and take for granted many labor rights and leisure opportunities today that simply would not have come into existence if it wasn't for heavy activism by unions back in the day. For example, did you know that the 40-hour workweek became standard in 1937 because of a militant labor movement?
docker_up 7y ago
Tech unions are a way for bureaucrats to take a tax off the backs of hard working tech workers with no benefits. I am well off, have a flexible work life balance, and I enjoy my job. There is nothing that a union would bring to the table for me. If there was a union in Silicon Valley in the early 80s, we would be no where close to where we are today. Look at the stark difference between a Silicon Valley worker vs someone working at Boeing or other unionized shops.
- rexpop 7y ago
  > Look at the stark difference between a Silicon Valley worker vs someone working at Boeing This is a dishonest comparison for two reasons: (1) it does not cite any of the differences, leaving us to assume your point, and (2) it ascribes the alleged difference to one of many factors. > I am well off. This only means that you are upper-caste, in the global caste system. > The core tenet of “free trade,” the globalized capitalism that has dominated the world since the end of the Cold War, is that capital should be able to move freely across borders, while labor and surplus humanity are constrained by them. The state’s primary role—increasingly, its only role—is to police the interior and guard the border. Citizenship has become the primary determinant in a multi-layered global caste system. -- No Wall They Can Build (https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build) It may mean that you do not stand to gain in obvious ways from the collectivization of your industry, but I suspect that there are many benefits you're not considering. In my thinking, nearly all anxiety, social friction, dietary and health problems arise from the alienating social relations our vocations foist upon us. If you "enjoy [your] job," but sometimes lie awake at night fearful of global warming, nuclear war, or an impending divorce, you should consider the ways your economic and political systems have failed to accommodate you. If you have diabetes from soda, and work for a software company who does business with pepsi's shareholders, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If you have back pain from sitting in chairs all day, and infrequent visits to invigorating wilderness terrain, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If you're balking at the cost of your child's education, anxious about its quality, and employed by a firm represented in their institution's endowment fund, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your employer is financially connected to any polluting organization, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your employer is financially connected to any gentrifying organization, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your employer is financially connected to ICE/CBP who're ramping up a campaign of black mariahs and domestic "undocumented" sweeps into detention centers, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your neighbor is under-educated, or under-vaccinated, and your employers' profits are going to foreign shareholders instead of local schools and medical services, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If you constrain your vocation's impact to so few criteria, you will never consider workplace organizing a viable lever over the conditions of your life. If, on the other hand, you do a proper accounting of the investment you're putting into your career, and look at the inadequacy of its compensation to quell the myriad disorders about your community, then you'll start to recognize how under-paid you are. It's not against your interest to cut the threads in the noose around your neck. You hold at least one such thread in your hands, and spend 40 hours a week strengthening it.
povertyworld 7y ago
How come the NY Times doesn't push for unions for Wall St? Surely these guys slaving away over spreadsheets for Silicon Valley level pay should be unionized too, right?
ttcbj 7y ago
My Dad owns a construction company in a highly unionized region. He is an advocate for unions, although he acknowledges that quality varies among them. That said, many of the conditions where unions are beneficial don't seem to apply in tech: * Vocational training: unions in our area run schools to train craftsman (e.g. carpenters). This increases productivity and screens for quality. * Shifting workforce: Construction companies expand/contract as they get big jobs. The union is a clearinghouse that enables tradespeople to switch between companies as they expand/contract. The union also helps by running benefit programs that travel with the workers. * Commodity-ish labor: Most carpenters have about the same productivity, so it makes sense to negotiate their compensation in bulk. Unions don't work as well when productivity/value varies greatly between workers. I also worked as an apprentice carpenter for several summers during college. I wouldn't say that the carpenters I worked with had a glowing view of the union. They seemed suspicious that the union reps were corrupt, and talked about how they would "shut down the job" over minor union infractions. They also believed the "hall" was corrupt/political in how it matched carpenters who were out of work to jobs. Several were also contemptuous of what they saw as the union discouraging hard work (if you were working hard, you were "ruining the job.") The main point I am trying to make is that unions are complex from both the employer and employee side.
- vcarl 7y ago
  Vocational training absolutely could be done in tech, web/app development is much closer to carpentry than it is to computer science in my view. Unions are definitely complex, it's not a silver bullet to solve issues in the workplace. But at its core it's a group of people negotiating as a unit: the rest is just the natural evolution of a group where some power has been attained. More members means more organization needed to keep everything straight, and more organization means more barriers to joining. Once there's a real structure to the power a union gets, it's subject to the same people problems as an other organization.
  - ttcbj 7y ago
    True, but one difference is that the market for carpentry talent is local. So, a company that is supporting a union in city X has a reasonable expectation of benefiting from its training. With remote work, computer science is much more global, so someone could easily be trained by a union and then go work for a company that doesn't support the union. Interestingly, this is one of my Dad's main complaints about unions these days: That our city trains great carpenters, but then they are recruited away to non-union areas.
throwaway132435 7y ago
I already feel distrust for my outspoken colleagues who purport to speak for me when making demands of management, but would treat me like James Damore if I dissented from their opinions. The last thing I want is to let those same people formally represent me in a union. Given the current climate, those are very likely to be the people who would be running it.
stefan_ 7y ago
Imagine not getting paid overtime but arguing online how unions in tech are bad (while doing overtime). Sometimes HN is a caricature.
- chupa-chups 7y ago
  n-gate.com :)
mikeash 7y ago
I'm always amazed at the complete double standard between unions and companies. Look at the discussion here: lots of people arguing against unions, saying they're just plain bad, or they're good in some industries but not in tech, or we just don't need them, or whatever. And not to say that these arguments are wrong, but.... Hands up, how many of you think that it's a good idea to run a business with employees as a sole proprietorship? I'm pretty sure there are no hands up. The first thing you do when you're going to create a business with employees is to organize. This is so ingrained that we don't even think about it. When was the last time you saw "Ask HN: do I need to incorporate?" Of course you do. There are many questions around where to do it and what type of corporation to create and what ownership structure you want to use and so forth, but there's no question about whether it's a good idea. When employees band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "union" and we come up with many reasons why this may not be a good idea. When employers band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "corporation" and nobody takes even a moment to wonder whether or not this is a good thing to do. If workers are better off without organization, maybe the same is true on the management side? Instead of big companies, we should have individual managers on their own, employing a team as a sole proprietor.
- ZhuanXia 7y ago
  >If workers are better off without organization, maybe the same is true on the management side? Instead of big companies, we should have individual managers on their own, employing a team as a sole proprietor. This actually has some interesting incentives.
- Zarel 7y ago
  I'm pretty confused by your argument here. When employers band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "cartel" and it's radioactively illegal, and not a single person defends it as a good thing. When employees band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "union" and have a variety of opinions on it; with plenty of people thinking it's a good thing. Corporations don't seem remotely analogous to unions and are mostly created for legal reasons, not for anything related to collective negotiation?
kodz4 7y ago
The tech industry today, is captured quite well by Rolling Stone's Victor Juhasz illustrations https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJO6ELjJT9/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJO6ELjJT9/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJP9nlDA5c/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJP9nlDA5c/ Thinking that unions are going to have an effect is like believing flies effect pigs.
- TooCleverByHalf 7y ago
  Did you have an alternate proposal for course of action?
  - kodz4 7y ago
    Save up and eject as soon as you can, and be realistic about what you are up against. Thats been the MO for people at Big Oil, Big Pharma and Wall Street for a long time now. People are in deep denial about the state of affairs. These are "too big to fail" systems with too much momentum built up behind them, for a trajectory change.
bsmith 7y ago
I acknowledge that there are definite issues at play with employment in the tech industry, but, come on; we are one of the most coddled and well-payed segments of the entire laboring economy. Maybe unions aren't being organized because we aren't forced to work graveyard shifts with few to no breaks for very little pay? I'm not sure the actual issues at hand in the tech industry are best addressed by unions (at least in the traditional sense).
scarejunba 7y ago
No, thank you. I've seen how HN reacts to this stuff. It's always some protectionist nonsense about making sure you have the right degree and training, making sure no immigrants can move to America, all that sorts of crap. That's what a union would look like too. You try it. Make a union at your workplace. See how many people want to join your company after.

178 points by pecanpie 7y ago

Tangent - there was an article on the NYTimes the other day about how their editorial work was trivializing Bernie Sanders political impact the last election and actually using misleading headlines to distort the truth. I’ll try to find the link (on my phone now). It was pretty eye opening and had links to sources as well as exposing some of these editors and their role working for the Clinton camp. I call this out because I see a steady stream of NYT articles that focus on big tech in a negative way. Big tech has its problems and should be regulated. On the other hand, I question the NYT and their motive. This clearly isn’t honest journalism but NYT focusing on companies that are now directly competing with the NYT. Edit: article I was referring to https://fair.org/home/sidney-embers-secret-sources/ https://fair.org/home/sidney-embers-secret-sources/

Spooky23 7y ago
The problem is that Sanders is in a democratic primary. If people in the circle of democratic party thinking aren't valid sources for reporting on a democratic political candidate, who is? Clinton was the party nominee -- all of the players will have done something connected to that campaign. The democratic party is a big-tent and demands consensus. When all of these connected folks eyeroll at the guy, it hints that he would have trouble governing. An "out-there outsider guy" persona works for the GOP because the GOP is a political machine party... some state senator from North Dakota would kill kittens on TV if instructed to.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  The problem isn't that the democratic party is doing what's best for the democratic party. The problem is that The New York Times is doing what's best for the democratic party. They claim to be journalism but more and more, they are clearly biased political activism (as is the case with this story).
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    Who would you suggest that they talk to? Journalists get stories, they do that by talking to people and getting information. The New York Times has a pretty obvious mainstream approach. Very few credible people in that community have anything to say about Sanders. I didn’t notice lots of biased political activism when they were reporting on the prosecution of NY legislators and a governor. When did the switch flip?
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      > Very few credible people in that community have anything to say about Sanders. He's consistently polled in the top three for the democratic primary. He's also consistently ahead of Warren who the NYT often promotes. The New York Times is trying to manufacture credibility by selectively covering candidates.
eanzenberg 7y ago
Well, yeah. First of all, tech is a threat to established media. They were asleep at the wheel in the 2000's and most of the 2010's and missed that many people started getting their news from online sources. Secondly, established-leftist-media such as the NYT is anti-tech because their belief that tech helped elect the current administration. You will see these calls to action dissipate when a new administration gets elected.
- asdfgasd 7y ago
  > established-leftist-media such as the NYT The NYT is decidedly _not_ leftist. Slightly-liberal leaning maybe, but in no way leftist. They supported the Iraq war of all things. I honestly can't think of a paper that leftists are more critical of... Maybe the Washington Post?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

rolltiide 7y ago

> “Associating unions with blue-collar work and making it a stigma to talk about unions in white-collar circles, that’s very deliberate” This is my observation too, right now there is simply a correlation that doesn't have to be. It doesn't matter that you get paid a comfortable amount, and that another startup delivers snacks all day, and another startup delivers catered food to you: you aren't getting paid what you are worth to these companies. The board members are just the VCs and the founders and they aren't in a position to change that. The fraction of a fraction of a percent equity that they told you "was a generous amount" after feeding your face has nothing to do with what a more equitable amount could be. Doesn't give you any information about all the scenarios in which you would get nothing because the strike is too high and the preferred shares liquidity preferences are too onerous. Even the cash component of tech compensation could likely be 75-150% higher. This has nothing to do with the stagnating wages in other sectors, we are working with this generation's largest and fastest growing companies and could accelerate comp growth and other changes.

jjeaff 7y ago
I think that's not the only factor. Unions will also cap wages for the highest earners. And everyone thinks they are going to end up in that 1 percenter salary.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > Unions will also cap wages for the highest earners. its okay if the average moves up, and transparency increases on stock options and the liquidity preferences of preferred shareholders. this is only currently relevant to non-public companies, and this article was about startups so thats fitting

viburnum 7y ago

The countries with the best human welfare indicators also have the highest percentage of people in unions. It’s the only countervailing force against plutocratic power.

stcredzero 7y ago
It’s the only countervailing force against plutocratic power. "Only?" It can itself, become a nexus of plutocratic power. The best antidote to corruption is transparency and the dispersal of power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- viburnum 7y ago
  I’m talking about the Nordics at the top, with 70% of people in unions, followed by Germany/France/Benelux. Transparency doesn’t give create political power. Coordinating the interests of millions of workers takes organization, and a broad and politically active trade union movement is the only successful example in history of delivery widely shared prosperity.

scythe 7y ago

It’s generally my understanding that unions tend to decrease labor mobility, and are most effective for improving working conditions when labor mobility is naturally very low, as in industries dominated by a few players (shipping, auto) or where company-specific knowledge becomes very important (retail, maybe construction?). Industries with a high proportion of freelancers tend to form guilds, which are slightly different and often focus on licensure (barbers, doctors, lawyers). But programmers — like managers, accountants and bankers — have highly transferable skills that give them lots of employment options. Additionally, programming creates its own communication skills by (literal) networking, which aids programmers searching for jobs (they can send code samples over a wire). As such, competition for labor is more effective in tech than in many other fields.

baybal2 7y ago

For a long time I had an impression that Microsoft had some kind of union(s) like group running things there. Is it so, or my memory is playing tricks with me?

negamax 7y ago

The benefit in tech is options. Don't like your job, get another one. Don't like your boss, get another one. For many locations it's just the matter of turning a button on Linkedin or for many people sending some emails. That keeps people idealistic, vocal and demanding of the behavior from their employer/bosses. This is not the norm in other business functions. Unfortunately.

ahelwer 7y ago
This current state of affairs gives employees a lot of power, as you observed, but it's important to realize it will not last. The downturn will come. The question is whether we want to use our current ephemeral labor power to protect ourselves when the downturn comes, because organization will be 100x more difficult when things go to shit and people don't think they have the luxury of risking their career to build a union.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  If a downturn comes, it will be due to larger economic reasons. If firms aren't profitable and need to cut costs, having a union that makes that more difficult could actually exacerbate the downturn. I'd rather have to lay off under performers and keep the company in business, than go out of business and have everyone lose their jobs.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    What you say is true, however these things can be negotiated with a union. All a union does is give centralized power to the employees. If employees need to be cut for survival or salaries need to be lowered temporarily than these are things that an employer can provide proof of to the union and together with employees as a union work something out. A union prevents the laying off of employees as a profit boosting measure even when it IS'NT required for survival. That is wrong on every count. The employees are a greater part of the company than shareholders, board members, owners and C-level executives combined. Employees are not sheep to be herded and they deserve a centralized voice.

dawhizkid 7y ago

Biggest question is if a union or union-like system makes sense in companies where the average tenure is ~2-3 years mostly due to employee choice.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
When your only reliable way to get a pay bump is switching jobs adopting any system that ties pay to tenure seems awfully synonymous with pulling up the ladder behind one's self.
- vcarl 7y ago
  Not sure where "tying pay to tenure" came up, unless that's how you view what unions do? A union just means a group of employees negotiating as a unit, what changes they ask for isn't dictated in advance.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >Not sure where "tying pay to tenure" came up, This is how basically every union workplace in the US works. The pay-scale becomes very rigid. Why would tech be different?
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Surely a next-gen labor union based in the tech industry could find a new way to fight ageism without mandating a seniority system. Why does tech have to act the same way as before? I thought we were supposed to be innovators?
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        The status quo is pretty good, good enough that I (and a lot of people) don't want to make that bet.
        7y ago

LarryDarrell 7y ago

I used to be all around anti-union. Now that I'm older I regret that position. There are bad unions and there are good unions. Sometimes they can be corrupt, but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with. It's an imperfect solution, but it's the only one that seems to work. The idea that we are all lone super stars that need to negotiate for ourselves is not only selfish, but more than likely wrong. Even if I considered myself a super-coder, should I be willing to sacrifice the well-being of everyone else in my field? Tech workers feel pretty good here in the US because they are compensated better than most. The time to organize is now, not after worker supply has increased or during a recession when workers are more desperate. We have real issues (Ageism, Working Conditions, etc) that we'll never be able to address individually.

duxup 7y ago
> but they never really exceed the corruptness of the corporate powers they negotiate with I'm not convinced that is the case, nor is it an either or (union or corporate powers). Your protection by the union depends on what the union negotiates... beyond that their ability to effect change pretty much stops there. Then you are again at the mercy of your employer. I've had first had experience with "oh yeah they can do that" union situations. Also premature organization IMO is much like premature optimization, more likely to be a bigger problem and miss any real issues.
- smallbigfish 7y ago
  You only have the current benefits because some sort of union fought for them. Call it government, call it whatever but it was an organization fighting on your behalf. > beyond that their ability to effect change pretty much stops there. Is that true? You can't negotiate even further by yourself? I think you do.
  - duxup 7y ago
    >You only have the current benefits because some sort of union fought for them. I think that is a bit of a grand statement don't you think? I've worked non union jobs and I'm pretty sure the benefits I get are not directly due to a union... I wouldn't associate ALL benefits with a union, nor would that necessitate forming one simply if you thought those benefits were related. I've worked for some nice people, I do belive they seriously want to provide their people benefits... >Is that true? You can't negotiate even further by yourself? I think you do. Negotiate what exactly? The Union and corporate relationship generally lays out what the lay of the land is, the the areas that the employer gets to decide are usually pretty obvious and the union isn't likely to call a general strike because an employer made a choice.

javagram 7y ago

“In other cases, highly compensated engineers may see themselves as independent operators who have plenty of leverage on their own and thus do not need to join a union effort.” This is definitely my feeling. When I can just open up LinkedIn and browse all the unsolicited interview requests I get, I don’t end up feeling like I really need a union to protect my current job - I can always just leave and go somewhere else if I’m unhappy. That said, if someone asked me to vote for it I might do that, but I wouldn’t put the effort into organizing myself.

sjg007 7y ago
In the long term, you may not want to switch companies. It forces upon you a whole lot of unexpected costs, even accounting for a higher pay.
- ivl 7y ago
  And staying at the same employer indefinitely is a sort of soul crushing purgatory in my mind. Software work is one of the few industries where you can completely change the business problem you're addressing by changing employers without your skill set being irrelevant. I love the fact that if I grow tired of the industry the company I'm working at is servicing, I can easily move to another employer with a totally different business problem.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    Having a union doesn't change that option for you.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      It certainly would when the union implements seniority based protocols.
      - sjg007 7y ago
        Good thing you could choose to work somewhere else then.

leftyted 7y ago

There has to be a balance of power between labor and management. When management has too much power, that power will be abused. When labor has too much power, that power will be abused. Unions make sense when labor doesn't have any power. Do programmers have enough power? I'd say yes. Maybe not across the board but -- in general -- yes. We aren't coal miners, that's for sure.

moorhosj 7y ago
But not all tech workers are programmers. To compare to another union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) represents machinists from Boeing and Harley-Davidson, distribution center workers at IKEA, and also wood, pulp and paper workers. > https://www.goiam.org/ https://www.goiam.org/
eswat 7y ago
It depends on the specific industry in tech. Do programmers in general tech startups have enough power? I’d say yes too. Do programmers in the gaming industry have enough power? Definitely not.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  And even still where tech workers do have a lot of power, there are plenty of issues that we could use that power to improve (IP restrictions for off hours/open source projects, non-competes, parental leave, etc.)
- ivl 7y ago
  The gaming industry has an interesting problem: a lot of fresh college grads that want to work on games because they are passionate about games. In that case, I'm unsure of how unionizing would help much, as publishers could simply invest in games from non-union shops, and happily abandon the studios that are unionized.
  - sigstoat 7y ago
    > In that case, I'm unsure of how unionizing would help much, as publishers could simply invest in games from non-union shops, and happily abandon the studios that are unionized. and game development work is probably the most trivial software development to move to foreign jurisdictions. unless the union promoters would like video game tariffs.

CSMastermind 7y ago

In my opinion, unions are very valuable in cases where employees cannot effectively realize market value for their skillset. This can happen for a number of reasons: 1. In cases of specialized skills (like working at a factory where you've trained on a particular machine). 2. In cases of natural or artificial monopolies (like working for a federal government). 3. In cases where companies and workers incentives are misaligned (like that of a construction worker). Probably more that I'm missing. I don't see how the current software engineer market meets this condition. There are more open software engineering jobs than there are software engineers. If my employer mistreats me, I'll leave and go to a different company, and likely I can find a job just as good very easily. I'm not sure how a union would benefit me personally.

LarryDarrell 7y ago
How confident are you that this climate will continue for the rest of your working life? How confident are you that this climate will extend past your working life?
- dymk 7y ago
  We can form a union when we need to form a union. There's no point in forming one just in case software engineering no longer becomes a sought-after skilled job.
  - moorhosj 7y ago
    ==We can form a union when we need to form a union.== In my 35 years of life, it has become harder to start a union, so it isn't out of the question that it becomes harder and harder to start a union when software engineers "need to". There's no guarantee that what exists today will exist tomorrow.
    - dymk 7y ago
      I agree with that, but I don't agree with the underlying notion of us ever needing to unionize. Do people actually think that software engineering is going to become a job that isn't skilled, and isn't sought after?

mawburn 7y ago

Maybe unionization needs a disrupt? I'm not against unionization in a lot of industries, but it just doesn't make sense in its current form for the tech scene or any other high demand position. It feels like an outdated mechanism used for people who were happy to sit in the same role, doing the same thing, for 45yrs.

negamax 7y ago
I don't know how to feel about it. There are some really bad employers out there. Tech culture is fairly liberal and new. I remember reading a book long ago where managers would sit on a higher chair in negotiations. It was a different atmosphere.
mavelikara 7y ago
Unions exist in high demand positions too - sports, entertainment etc. Can tech unions be modelled closer to those, and less on the style of jobs you mentioned?
- schnable 7y ago
  These are not high demand professions. They are a very limited number of jobs available with many more people who would love to fill them.
  - chongli 7y ago
    Yes, and professional athletes don't get promoted to management at all. Some do become managers or other executives but that requires them to retire as a player and then negotiate an entirely separate contract for the management job.
    - blub 7y ago
      "professional athletes don't get promoted to management at all" Neither do most employees either, what does that have to do with anything? We can't organize because there's a 5% chance that we're promoted to management?

noego 7y ago

This is going to be a unpopular opinion. I think a tech union would likely be good for the average tech worker - and bad for absolutely everyone else, broader society included. Cartels and price-fixing agreements are extremely lucrative, which is why they were commonplace until outlawed by antitrust legislation, and why cartels like OPEC still operate today. Unions and collective bargaining are no different. Unions are equivalent to a cartel of labor-suppliers, and collective bargaining is identical to price-fixing. Just like with cartels and price-fixing agreements, unionizing would likely benefit the average tech worker. It would also have an extremely bad effect on innovation, bureaucracy, and cost-of-tech-development which would spill over to consumers in the form of higher prices. I'm in favor of breaking up big corporations, as well as implementing a wealth tax, raising the top tax rates, and strengthening the social safety net. But I don't think encouraging the formation of cartels and price-fixing agreements is in society's best interests.

Apocryphon 7y ago
This comment is worth discussing about because it actually criticizes the macroeconomic effects of unions, not just another "well I don't need a union and I don't want to be stuck paying dues" personal complaint. It's an interesting point for union proponents to debate, and perhaps a next-gen tech union should try to address the concerns. Another solution to add to the ones you mentioned can be the promotion of founding tech companies run as worker cooperatives, similar to Mondragon in Spain. If tech companies leadership will flirt with anti-hierarchial management fads like flat organizations and holocracy, why not putting their equity where their mouth is and allowing the workers themselves to own the means of production?
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  The macroeconomic effects of unions have been overwhelmingly positive. Workers across the entire spectrum of the workforce enjoy and take for granted many labor rights and leisure opportunities today that simply would not have come into existence if it wasn't for heavy activism by unions back in the day. For example, did you know that the 40-hour workweek became standard in 1937 because of a militant labor movement?

docker_up 7y ago

Tech unions are a way for bureaucrats to take a tax off the backs of hard working tech workers with no benefits. I am well off, have a flexible work life balance, and I enjoy my job. There is nothing that a union would bring to the table for me. If there was a union in Silicon Valley in the early 80s, we would be no where close to where we are today. Look at the stark difference between a Silicon Valley worker vs someone working at Boeing or other unionized shops.

rexpop 7y ago
> Look at the stark difference between a Silicon Valley worker vs someone working at Boeing This is a dishonest comparison for two reasons: (1) it does not cite any of the differences, leaving us to assume your point, and (2) it ascribes the alleged difference to one of many factors. > I am well off. This only means that you are upper-caste, in the global caste system. > The core tenet of “free trade,” the globalized capitalism that has dominated the world since the end of the Cold War, is that capital should be able to move freely across borders, while labor and surplus humanity are constrained by them. The state’s primary role—increasingly, its only role—is to police the interior and guard the border. Citizenship has become the primary determinant in a multi-layered global caste system. -- No Wall They Can Build (https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build) It may mean that you do not stand to gain in obvious ways from the collectivization of your industry, but I suspect that there are many benefits you're not considering. In my thinking, nearly all anxiety, social friction, dietary and health problems arise from the alienating social relations our vocations foist upon us. If you "enjoy [your] job," but sometimes lie awake at night fearful of global warming, nuclear war, or an impending divorce, you should consider the ways your economic and political systems have failed to accommodate you. If you have diabetes from soda, and work for a software company who does business with pepsi's shareholders, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If you have back pain from sitting in chairs all day, and infrequent visits to invigorating wilderness terrain, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If you're balking at the cost of your child's education, anxious about its quality, and employed by a firm represented in their institution's endowment fund, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your employer is financially connected to any polluting organization, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your employer is financially connected to any gentrifying organization, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your employer is financially connected to ICE/CBP who're ramping up a campaign of black mariahs and domestic "undocumented" sweeps into detention centers, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If your neighbor is under-educated, or under-vaccinated, and your employers' profits are going to foreign shareholders instead of local schools and medical services, your job is a thread in the noose around our own neck. If you constrain your vocation's impact to so few criteria, you will never consider workplace organizing a viable lever over the conditions of your life. If, on the other hand, you do a proper accounting of the investment you're putting into your career, and look at the inadequacy of its compensation to quell the myriad disorders about your community, then you'll start to recognize how under-paid you are. It's not against your interest to cut the threads in the noose around your neck. You hold at least one such thread in your hands, and spend 40 hours a week strengthening it.

povertyworld 7y ago

How come the NY Times doesn't push for unions for Wall St? Surely these guys slaving away over spreadsheets for Silicon Valley level pay should be unionized too, right?

ttcbj 7y ago

My Dad owns a construction company in a highly unionized region. He is an advocate for unions, although he acknowledges that quality varies among them. That said, many of the conditions where unions are beneficial don't seem to apply in tech: * Vocational training: unions in our area run schools to train craftsman (e.g. carpenters). This increases productivity and screens for quality. * Shifting workforce: Construction companies expand/contract as they get big jobs. The union is a clearinghouse that enables tradespeople to switch between companies as they expand/contract. The union also helps by running benefit programs that travel with the workers. * Commodity-ish labor: Most carpenters have about the same productivity, so it makes sense to negotiate their compensation in bulk. Unions don't work as well when productivity/value varies greatly between workers. I also worked as an apprentice carpenter for several summers during college. I wouldn't say that the carpenters I worked with had a glowing view of the union. They seemed suspicious that the union reps were corrupt, and talked about how they would "shut down the job" over minor union infractions. They also believed the "hall" was corrupt/political in how it matched carpenters who were out of work to jobs. Several were also contemptuous of what they saw as the union discouraging hard work (if you were working hard, you were "ruining the job.") The main point I am trying to make is that unions are complex from both the employer and employee side.

vcarl 7y ago
Vocational training absolutely could be done in tech, web/app development is much closer to carpentry than it is to computer science in my view. Unions are definitely complex, it's not a silver bullet to solve issues in the workplace. But at its core it's a group of people negotiating as a unit: the rest is just the natural evolution of a group where some power has been attained. More members means more organization needed to keep everything straight, and more organization means more barriers to joining. Once there's a real structure to the power a union gets, it's subject to the same people problems as an other organization.
- ttcbj 7y ago
  True, but one difference is that the market for carpentry talent is local. So, a company that is supporting a union in city X has a reasonable expectation of benefiting from its training. With remote work, computer science is much more global, so someone could easily be trained by a union and then go work for a company that doesn't support the union. Interestingly, this is one of my Dad's main complaints about unions these days: That our city trains great carpenters, but then they are recruited away to non-union areas.

throwaway132435 7y ago

I already feel distrust for my outspoken colleagues who purport to speak for me when making demands of management, but would treat me like James Damore if I dissented from their opinions. The last thing I want is to let those same people formally represent me in a union. Given the current climate, those are very likely to be the people who would be running it.

stefan_ 7y ago

Imagine not getting paid overtime but arguing online how unions in tech are bad (while doing overtime). Sometimes HN is a caricature.

chupa-chups 7y ago
n-gate.com :)

mikeash 7y ago

I'm always amazed at the complete double standard between unions and companies. Look at the discussion here: lots of people arguing against unions, saying they're just plain bad, or they're good in some industries but not in tech, or we just don't need them, or whatever. And not to say that these arguments are wrong, but.... Hands up, how many of you think that it's a good idea to run a business with employees as a sole proprietorship? I'm pretty sure there are no hands up. The first thing you do when you're going to create a business with employees is to organize. This is so ingrained that we don't even think about it. When was the last time you saw "Ask HN: do I need to incorporate?" Of course you do. There are many questions around where to do it and what type of corporation to create and what ownership structure you want to use and so forth, but there's no question about whether it's a good idea. When employees band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "union" and we come up with many reasons why this may not be a good idea. When employers band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "corporation" and nobody takes even a moment to wonder whether or not this is a good thing to do. If workers are better off without organization, maybe the same is true on the management side? Instead of big companies, we should have individual managers on their own, employing a team as a sole proprietor.

ZhuanXia 7y ago
>If workers are better off without organization, maybe the same is true on the management side? Instead of big companies, we should have individual managers on their own, employing a team as a sole proprietor. This actually has some interesting incentives.
Zarel 7y ago
I'm pretty confused by your argument here. When employers band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "cartel" and it's radioactively illegal, and not a single person defends it as a good thing. When employees band together to negotiate collectively, we call that a "union" and have a variety of opinions on it; with plenty of people thinking it's a good thing. Corporations don't seem remotely analogous to unions and are mostly created for legal reasons, not for anything related to collective negotiation?

kodz4 7y ago

The tech industry today, is captured quite well by Rolling Stone's Victor Juhasz illustrations https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJO6ELjJT9/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJO6ELjJT9/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJP9nlDA5c/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BzJP9nlDA5c/ Thinking that unions are going to have an effect is like believing flies effect pigs.

TooCleverByHalf 7y ago
Did you have an alternate proposal for course of action?
- kodz4 7y ago
  Save up and eject as soon as you can, and be realistic about what you are up against. Thats been the MO for people at Big Oil, Big Pharma and Wall Street for a long time now. People are in deep denial about the state of affairs. These are "too big to fail" systems with too much momentum built up behind them, for a trajectory change.

bsmith 7y ago

I acknowledge that there are definite issues at play with employment in the tech industry, but, come on; we are one of the most coddled and well-payed segments of the entire laboring economy. Maybe unions aren't being organized because we aren't forced to work graveyard shifts with few to no breaks for very little pay? I'm not sure the actual issues at hand in the tech industry are best addressed by unions (at least in the traditional sense).

scarejunba 7y ago

No, thank you. I've seen how HN reacts to this stuff. It's always some protectionist nonsense about making sure you have the right degree and training, making sure no immigrants can move to America, all that sorts of crap. That's what a union would look like too. You try it. Make a union at your workplace. See how many people want to join your company after.