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Good luck...the "scabs" crossing your picket line all WFH and you'll never even know who they are. WFH means work-from-anywhere, which dooms the leverage of a

Good luck...the "scabs" crossing your picket line all WFH and you'll never even know who they are. WFH means work-from-anywhere, which dooms the leverage of a union

consp 3y ago
This was thought to be the solution in the 90's en early 00's, offshore everything (basically wfh but wf-lower-income-country). Turns out it works sometimes but is hardly a panacea.
hrnnnnnn 3y ago
Digital work leaves lots of traces. Unions, at least where I live, will kick you out for strike breaking.
- 0zemp2c 3y ago
  kick who out of what? foreign workers wouldn't be in, or care about, your union
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    If a foreign worker could do what most of us do, they would already have your job, because they are infinitely cheaper. 30 years after first trying to replace all of us, they have still been unable to do so because it just doesn't work that well, even with a hybrid WHF company.
  - hrnnnnnn 3y ago
    The union would kick out members who are strike breaking. It isn't possible to break the strike if you're not part of it. It wouldn't be effective to hold a strike in the first place if it was only a small minority of employees.
MarketingJason 3y ago
I had an idea regarding this. What if a new CC license was developed for open source projects where that code could only be used by union-participant companies/individuals?
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  That would be interesting, but it would probably only pressure small to midsize businesses without resources to just develop everything in-house anyway, and even then, only if it starts to comprise the majority of open source software
- amelius 3y ago
  They would develop a tool based on ChatGPT/Copilot to automatically transform FOSS software into an obfuscated form such that they could invoke plausible deniability in court cases.
- gfdsgfsdgfs 3y ago
  A competitor would just recreate it without union requirements.
mdgrech23 3y ago
that's such a good point. hell they could just have them create a new app.
spacemadness 3y ago
While I don’t agree with your hot take, it would be amazing if all the C-suite hand wringing about RTO being the best thing ever resulted in strong unions as a result.

Good luck...the "scabs" crossing your picket line all WFH and you'll never even know who they are. WFH means work-from-anywhere, which dooms the leverage of a union

consp 3y ago

This was thought to be the solution in the 90's en early 00's, offshore everything (basically wfh but wf-lower-income-country). Turns out it works sometimes but is hardly a panacea.

hrnnnnnn 3y ago

Digital work leaves lots of traces. Unions, at least where I live, will kick you out for strike breaking.

0zemp2c 3y ago
kick who out of what? foreign workers wouldn't be in, or care about, your union
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  If a foreign worker could do what most of us do, they would already have your job, because they are infinitely cheaper. 30 years after first trying to replace all of us, they have still been unable to do so because it just doesn't work that well, even with a hybrid WHF company.
- hrnnnnnn 3y ago
  The union would kick out members who are strike breaking. It isn't possible to break the strike if you're not part of it. It wouldn't be effective to hold a strike in the first place if it was only a small minority of employees.

MarketingJason 3y ago

I had an idea regarding this. What if a new CC license was developed for open source projects where that code could only be used by union-participant companies/individuals?

pcthrowaway 3y ago
That would be interesting, but it would probably only pressure small to midsize businesses without resources to just develop everything in-house anyway, and even then, only if it starts to comprise the majority of open source software
amelius 3y ago
They would develop a tool based on ChatGPT/Copilot to automatically transform FOSS software into an obfuscated form such that they could invoke plausible deniability in court cases.
gfdsgfsdgfs 3y ago
A competitor would just recreate it without union requirements.

mdgrech23 3y ago

that's such a good point. hell they could just have them create a new app.

spacemadness 3y ago

While I don’t agree with your hot take, it would be amazing if all the C-suite hand wringing about RTO being the best thing ever resulted in strong unions as a result.