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Great to see! I think unions should be the default for most situations.
by glasss 5mo ago
Great to see! I think unions should be the default for most situations.
- culi 5mo agoAnd they are in much of Europe! Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Italy, etc. Even France has over 80% coverage
- zetanor 5mo agoI understand that Europe doesn't have many mandatory union arrangements. In Canada, unions are often shop-wide with no mechanism to opt out, which makes them very sticky and allows them to grow predatory if they can maintain enough corruption or apathy. I'm led to believe that many US states have similar problems, but that's only based on how American unions are portrayed in news and fiction.
- xienze 5mo agoAnd what has that really bought them? The wages are laughable compared to the US where you'd THINK us non-unionized tech workers would be paid minimum wage. And the famous European healthcare and long vacations are more a function of the government than anything the unions have explicitly bargained for.
- culi 5mo agoYou mean to tell me unions can make a government actually responsive to its people? Gee wouldn't that be nice to have here
- satvikpendem 5mo agoI wonder why in America it doesn't happen in the tech sector for devs specifically (as there is Alphabet Workers Union), beyond the typical reasons of American anti union sentiment like corporatism, bootstrap mentality etc, despite which there are many unions in the US like UAW, police and teachers unions etc. For tech, it's largely a different set of reasons, like high wages, no real grievances per se, and the ease of transferring to other companies, plus the work is all virtual so there is no reason why companies cannot outsource to another area where the union has no power, if the workers are just on their computers for work anyway. This latter reason is actually exactly why Netflix is investing heavily in South Korean productions.
- glance9835 5mo agoYea it is odd. Bc then tech workers get fired on mass just to get a little boost in stock price. And yet many don't think we need a union...
- satvikpendem 5mo agoI don't think a union would prevent them getting fired though, much less getting outsourced to areas without unions.
- northern-lights 5mo agoThe point of a union is not prevent layoffs and role reduction in force. It is to make sure that the company has done its absolute best to find another solution to the problem (that they're trying to solve with layoffs) and ensures that the company is accountable for all their decisions.
- satvikpendem 5mo agoThis just limits hiring in the first place as we see in European branches of (generally, American) tech companies. And regardless, what solutions can be found by the union?
- northern-lights 5mo agoIt does not limit hiring in any way. As for what solutions union provide - I have already explained. They exist to protect workers' interests. They do not exist to solve company's problems. That is the job of the company.
- satvikpendem 5mo agoFor hiring, I meant it in terms of a chilling effect in that companies will not hire as many people as they are much harder to fire. You said "It is to make sure that the company has done its absolute best to find another solution to the problem," and I am asking, what solutions have unions "made sure" that the companies have done instead of layoffs? I am looking for concrete examples as I often hear this claim but I'm not sure what a union can do if the solution is layoffs, so my question is, what other solutions are there?