5 ms·

Hopefully next time the tech market is in an upswing, we can unionize?

avidiax 3y ago
Now would be the time to unionize. Nobody wants to join a union during a hot market. It's easier to negotiate for yourself at a new job.
- earthwalker99 3y ago
  >Now would be the time to unionize. As someone who actually knows something about unions and their history, it literally never works that way. OP is correct. You can't make moves when you don't have power. >Nobody wants to join a union during a hot market. That's what has to change. I'm not saying it will change, but it's the only way. If your union is dependent on temporary conditions, it's weak. Weak unions are usually worse than no union at all. There are no shortcuts.
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    While it's true that this would be a difficult time to unionize, I think part of that is that companies are looking to replace software devs with AI over the next decade. Not entirely, but a future where companies can get the same amount done with half the number employees seems reasonable with tooling improvements. Which is to say, it may not be the historically best time to unionize, but it also might be the best time that we'll see in the future, and the most critical time to do so.
- qwertyuiop_ 3y ago
  What do you think is stopping tech employees from unionizing?
  - garciasn 3y ago
    Money. Perceived or actual self-control of your own destiny. —- I worked as a unionized employee for the first part of my career and all it did was severely limit my pay and growth trajectory. I’m not going back to that.
  - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
    The fact that there is really no need cause as a general rule software engineers are treated very very well
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    Perceived exceptionalism, IMHO. I spent a lot of time in school, but eventually dropped out and became a union electrician — which is a much different mindset than tech talent possesses. There is no better way to get trained [than being paid to learn as a union brother] but eventually the fiscal reward for exceptional electrician talent isn't incentivized enough to retain top talent. A reason I began my journey out of IBEW [and started my own electric shop] was when union dues raised almost 2x because too many retirees needed increased healthcare for their spouses; combined with the whack healthcare fees for a bachelor [same montly deduction for one man VS family with a dozen kids]. As for techbros: I think there are too many "aces" that negotiate well for themselves and have no incentive to foster the brotherly spirit [whether aspie or asspie].
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    There's some "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" chicken-and-egg problems to solve: tech thinks of itself as inherently white collar and closer to upper management and riches rather than blue collar and closer to the masses and collective problems. Not all Unions are "blue collar", of course, but there's definitely a perception problem to fix if you are starting from the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire individual on the fast track" mindset seeing how unionization can apply to you.
    - tqi 3y ago
      That is a pretty dismissive and patronizing view of the very people you'd like to form a union with...
      - WorldMaker 3y ago
        It's not meant to be dismissive and I'm not sure it is patronizing when I know that I also struggle with this phenomenon, though I forgot to mention it. It's definitely a "we all" problem, I just wasn't great at expressing it that way in this particular approach. In tech we all often default to a clinical voice rather than a personal one, even for personally applicable things. I'm trying to get better about that. The industries want us to think we are all alone and in it for ourselves and only ourselves. Eliminating that mindset is hard for all of us not just because we have that mindset, but that there are many systems in place to continue to feed that mindset to us. It's the opposite of dismissive to say that we all have this problem, it is about trying to be very aware of the systems in place designed to keep us in this problem and that the problem is hard to dismiss (otherwise we'd have done it already, right?).
        tqi 3y ago
        Thanks for the measured response, and I do appreciate the perspective. I personally think that unions are a solution to many problems, but come with a set of tradeoffs and genuine issues. There I think it is unhelpful (and why I used the word patronizing) to assume that people who are not on board with unionization must either be a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" and/or the under the influence of some unseen force ("the industries").
  - kilolima 3y ago
    The H1-B program and its system of internationally sourced indentured captives.
atonse 3y ago
Genuine question, what are some of the grievances for tech people that we could only solve with collective bargaining?
- coldbrewed 3y ago
  Reasonable working hours where employees aren't pressured to work more than 40 hours per week, actual PTO rather than "unlimited time off," limits to on-call rotations, protection against layoffs masquerading as PIPs, reasonable release schedules, protections that prevent junior engineers from getting screwed on salary, etc cetera. While all of these things don't strictly require a union, all of these things become much easier when there's a unified front advocating for change rather than individual engineers trying to advocate for change with their managers.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    Good points, but most calls to unionize are based on times like these: companies going on massive hiring surges, with the salaries to match, and then times dry up everyone wonders what happened to the party.
    - erik_seaberg 3y ago
      Every price that’s good for somebody is bad for somebody else, and markets have to go down as well as up. Making hiring into a punitive commitment just prevents taking advantage of boom times.
  - dopylitty 3y ago
    In addition to unionizing people in the US need to fight for an update to the FLSA to remove the ridiculous exceptions to overtime rules that exist for any person who might be working with a computer.
  - atonse 3y ago
    Yeah I could definitely see that something should be done about IT people having to work overtime without compensation, and that is company specific. So unless there's a larger push to change that culture, some companies (like what EA used to be) will happily exploit their workers.
bdcravens 3y ago
I don't see how unionization can work with pretty much no authority. You don't need a license or even a college degree to write code. The workforce is distributed. In many cases, there wouldn't even be a picket line to block. If anything, it'd have to be a series of smaller, focused unions (say, infrastructure engineers, akin to pilots unions)

Now would be the time to unionize. Nobody wants to join a union during a hot market. It's easier to negotiate for yourself at a new job.

earthwalker99 3y ago
>Now would be the time to unionize. As someone who actually knows something about unions and their history, it literally never works that way. OP is correct. You can't make moves when you don't have power. >Nobody wants to join a union during a hot market. That's what has to change. I'm not saying it will change, but it's the only way. If your union is dependent on temporary conditions, it's weak. Weak unions are usually worse than no union at all. There are no shortcuts.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  While it's true that this would be a difficult time to unionize, I think part of that is that companies are looking to replace software devs with AI over the next decade. Not entirely, but a future where companies can get the same amount done with half the number employees seems reasonable with tooling improvements. Which is to say, it may not be the historically best time to unionize, but it also might be the best time that we'll see in the future, and the most critical time to do so.
qwertyuiop_ 3y ago
What do you think is stopping tech employees from unionizing?
- garciasn 3y ago
  Money. Perceived or actual self-control of your own destiny. —- I worked as a unionized employee for the first part of my career and all it did was severely limit my pay and growth trajectory. I’m not going back to that.
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  The fact that there is really no need cause as a general rule software engineers are treated very very well
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  Perceived exceptionalism, IMHO. I spent a lot of time in school, but eventually dropped out and became a union electrician — which is a much different mindset than tech talent possesses. There is no better way to get trained [than being paid to learn as a union brother] but eventually the fiscal reward for exceptional electrician talent isn't incentivized enough to retain top talent. A reason I began my journey out of IBEW [and started my own electric shop] was when union dues raised almost 2x because too many retirees needed increased healthcare for their spouses; combined with the whack healthcare fees for a bachelor [same montly deduction for one man VS family with a dozen kids]. As for techbros: I think there are too many "aces" that negotiate well for themselves and have no incentive to foster the brotherly spirit [whether aspie or asspie].
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  There's some "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" chicken-and-egg problems to solve: tech thinks of itself as inherently white collar and closer to upper management and riches rather than blue collar and closer to the masses and collective problems. Not all Unions are "blue collar", of course, but there's definitely a perception problem to fix if you are starting from the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire individual on the fast track" mindset seeing how unionization can apply to you.
  - tqi 3y ago
    That is a pretty dismissive and patronizing view of the very people you'd like to form a union with...
    - WorldMaker 3y ago
      It's not meant to be dismissive and I'm not sure it is patronizing when I know that I also struggle with this phenomenon, though I forgot to mention it. It's definitely a "we all" problem, I just wasn't great at expressing it that way in this particular approach. In tech we all often default to a clinical voice rather than a personal one, even for personally applicable things. I'm trying to get better about that. The industries want us to think we are all alone and in it for ourselves and only ourselves. Eliminating that mindset is hard for all of us not just because we have that mindset, but that there are many systems in place to continue to feed that mindset to us. It's the opposite of dismissive to say that we all have this problem, it is about trying to be very aware of the systems in place designed to keep us in this problem and that the problem is hard to dismiss (otherwise we'd have done it already, right?).
      - tqi 3y ago
        Thanks for the measured response, and I do appreciate the perspective. I personally think that unions are a solution to many problems, but come with a set of tradeoffs and genuine issues. There I think it is unhelpful (and why I used the word patronizing) to assume that people who are not on board with unionization must either be a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" and/or the under the influence of some unseen force ("the industries").
- kilolima 3y ago
  The H1-B program and its system of internationally sourced indentured captives.

atonse 3y ago

Genuine question, what are some of the grievances for tech people that we could only solve with collective bargaining?

coldbrewed 3y ago
Reasonable working hours where employees aren't pressured to work more than 40 hours per week, actual PTO rather than "unlimited time off," limits to on-call rotations, protection against layoffs masquerading as PIPs, reasonable release schedules, protections that prevent junior engineers from getting screwed on salary, etc cetera. While all of these things don't strictly require a union, all of these things become much easier when there's a unified front advocating for change rather than individual engineers trying to advocate for change with their managers.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  Good points, but most calls to unionize are based on times like these: companies going on massive hiring surges, with the salaries to match, and then times dry up everyone wonders what happened to the party.
  - erik_seaberg 3y ago
    Every price that’s good for somebody is bad for somebody else, and markets have to go down as well as up. Making hiring into a punitive commitment just prevents taking advantage of boom times.
- dopylitty 3y ago
  In addition to unionizing people in the US need to fight for an update to the FLSA to remove the ridiculous exceptions to overtime rules that exist for any person who might be working with a computer.
- atonse 3y ago
  Yeah I could definitely see that something should be done about IT people having to work overtime without compensation, and that is company specific. So unless there's a larger push to change that culture, some companies (like what EA used to be) will happily exploit their workers.

bdcravens 3y ago

I don't see how unionization can work with pretty much no authority. You don't need a license or even a college degree to write code. The workforce is distributed. In many cases, there wouldn't even be a picket line to block. If anything, it'd have to be a series of smaller, focused unions (say, infrastructure engineers, akin to pilots unions)