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Why "probably"? A union is whatever its members make of it, and most engineers at any given tech company have relatively little seniority. It's hard to imagine

Why "probably"? A union is whatever its members make of it, and most engineers at any given tech company have relatively little seniority. It's hard to imagine them voting to join a union that would so obviously not prioritize their interests like that. My guess is in most cases you'd still end up with an avenue for merit based layoffs, they just wouldn't start until new hiring had been completely stopped, and perhaps include an option for everyone to take a pay cut instead (which might be bad! but it's an idea I've heard floated by engineers way more than seniority based protections).

codekansas 4y ago
What's wrong with employees just voting with their feet, instead of mandating rules like this? If a company behaves horribly just go somewhere else
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Doesn't seem to happen in tech judging by Amazon horror stories about PIP culture and the like.
  - klipt 4y ago
    I think it's pretty easy for an average US citizen or green card holder engineer who gets pipped at Amazon to get hired elsewhere. The people who really get screwed are the OPTs/H1-Bs who have a very short grace period to get a new job or leave the country.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Sure, but 1) it goes to show that tech workers won't necessarily "vote with their feet", 2) in the event of an industry-wide downturn, that ability to vote becomes far more limited.
      - leereeves 4y ago
        Amazon pays software engineers very well (compared to software engineering jobs in general). Perhaps people don't vote with their feet because they like the money.
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Amazon comp was entirely predicated on stock, wasn't it? Because they uniquely have a salary cap that's not particularly high. https://www.levels.fyi/blog/amazon-salary-negotiation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/amazon-salary-negotiation.html It seems like there is more Amazon non-warehouse employees interest in unionizing now anyway: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-layoffs-corporate-employees-discuss-forming-union-unionization-2022-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-layoffs-corporate-emp...
        comp_throw7 4y ago
        Not exactly - while the initial stock they grant vests on a 5/15/40/40 schedule, they also have a large cash "bonus" which "vests" monthly for the first two years. With their assumption of 15% stock growth per year, you should have equal TC per year for your first 4 years. Of course, assuming 15% annual stock growth is silly, but you can run the numbers however you want. The point is that compensation for the first two years is predominantly cash.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    No? I've definitely heard stories that Amazon is having a harder time hiring people because many workers are churning out.
klipt 4y ago
> an option for everyone to take a pay cut instead (which might be bad! but it's an idea I've heard floated by engineers way more than seniority based protections). We already do that, it's called RSUs. If a portion of your compensation is in RSUs and the market goes down, you automatically get a paycut. Better than being laid off, isn't it?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
HEmanZ 4y ago
This is like doing the same thing but expecting a different result. You think unions follow some optimal logic but I’ve seen no examples that do. The only real expectation you can have is that it would end up roughly like existing unions. I have had personal experience with men in leather jackets giving you the “better vote x or you might have an accident” unions. So I’m a bit biased.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  > This is like doing the same thing but expecting a different result. Tech culture, and Silicon Valley in particular, is so obsessed with recreating things from first principles and experimenting for the sake of it, that you would expect that they'd give reinventing unions but under a different name a shot.
philwelch 4y ago
There are a few problems with unions, many of which can be summed up as principal/agent problems. But another issue is that unions are fundamentally democratic, which leads to some misaligned incentives. Seniority is a completely legible and unambiguous criteria, and it’s one that most workers can eventually benefit from in the long run. Merit is more of a judgment call. Management at least has the incentive to get that judgment call right (which isn’t to say they do get it right, but at least they have the incentive to, modulo the same principal/agent problems that unions also introduce), but unions don’t. So if I’m part of the top 20% of workers at a firm, or part of the top 20% that the firm could reasonably hire, my incentives are actually better aligned with management than with the other 80% of workers who would dominate the union. The classic union solution to this problem is closed shops, but that’s hard to achieve without specific legal and regulatory moats. Also: > My guess is in most cases you'd still end up with an avenue for merit based layoffs, they just wouldn't start until new hiring had been completely stopped This is another common failure mode of unions. People who already work in a given field are in the union, but people trying to break into the field are not. So it becomes harder to hire new people, which actually leads to longer tenures and makes seniority seem like a better deal for the union members.

codekansas 4y ago

What's wrong with employees just voting with their feet, instead of mandating rules like this? If a company behaves horribly just go somewhere else

Apocryphon 4y ago
Doesn't seem to happen in tech judging by Amazon horror stories about PIP culture and the like.
- klipt 4y ago
  I think it's pretty easy for an average US citizen or green card holder engineer who gets pipped at Amazon to get hired elsewhere. The people who really get screwed are the OPTs/H1-Bs who have a very short grace period to get a new job or leave the country.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Sure, but 1) it goes to show that tech workers won't necessarily "vote with their feet", 2) in the event of an industry-wide downturn, that ability to vote becomes far more limited.
    - leereeves 4y ago
      Amazon pays software engineers very well (compared to software engineering jobs in general). Perhaps people don't vote with their feet because they like the money.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Amazon comp was entirely predicated on stock, wasn't it? Because they uniquely have a salary cap that's not particularly high. https://www.levels.fyi/blog/amazon-salary-negotiation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/amazon-salary-negotiation.html It seems like there is more Amazon non-warehouse employees interest in unionizing now anyway: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-layoffs-corporate-employees-discuss-forming-union-unionization-2022-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-layoffs-corporate-emp...
        comp_throw7 4y ago
        Not exactly - while the initial stock they grant vests on a 5/15/40/40 schedule, they also have a large cash "bonus" which "vests" monthly for the first two years. With their assumption of 15% stock growth per year, you should have equal TC per year for your first 4 years. Of course, assuming 15% annual stock growth is silly, but you can run the numbers however you want. The point is that compensation for the first two years is predominantly cash.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  No? I've definitely heard stories that Amazon is having a harder time hiring people because many workers are churning out.

klipt 4y ago

> an option for everyone to take a pay cut instead (which might be bad! but it's an idea I've heard floated by engineers way more than seniority based protections). We already do that, it's called RSUs. If a portion of your compensation is in RSUs and the market goes down, you automatically get a paycut. Better than being laid off, isn't it?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

HEmanZ 4y ago

This is like doing the same thing but expecting a different result. You think unions follow some optimal logic but I’ve seen no examples that do. The only real expectation you can have is that it would end up roughly like existing unions. I have had personal experience with men in leather jackets giving you the “better vote x or you might have an accident” unions. So I’m a bit biased.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Apocryphon 4y ago
> This is like doing the same thing but expecting a different result. Tech culture, and Silicon Valley in particular, is so obsessed with recreating things from first principles and experimenting for the sake of it, that you would expect that they'd give reinventing unions but under a different name a shot.

philwelch 4y ago

There are a few problems with unions, many of which can be summed up as principal/agent problems. But another issue is that unions are fundamentally democratic, which leads to some misaligned incentives. Seniority is a completely legible and unambiguous criteria, and it’s one that most workers can eventually benefit from in the long run. Merit is more of a judgment call. Management at least has the incentive to get that judgment call right (which isn’t to say they do get it right, but at least they have the incentive to, modulo the same principal/agent problems that unions also introduce), but unions don’t. So if I’m part of the top 20% of workers at a firm, or part of the top 20% that the firm could reasonably hire, my incentives are actually better aligned with management than with the other 80% of workers who would dominate the union. The classic union solution to this problem is closed shops, but that’s hard to achieve without specific legal and regulatory moats. Also: > My guess is in most cases you'd still end up with an avenue for merit based layoffs, they just wouldn't start until new hiring had been completely stopped This is another common failure mode of unions. People who already work in a given field are in the union, but people trying to break into the field are not. So it becomes harder to hire new people, which actually leads to longer tenures and makes seniority seem like a better deal for the union members.