9 ms·

Yeah just wait until you get laid off

alephnerd 1mo ago
Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit. Or, from an IP-driven industry perspective, the offshoring of Hollywood following the SAG and WGA strikes in the early 2020s. And if IATSE couldn't stop VFX from being offshored back in the 2000s and 2010s, then tech unions wouldn't be able to either. Edit: can't reply > Without film industry unions, might the offshoring have been undertaken even earlier? Not really. VFX was already largely offshored by the early 2010s despite only starting as an industry in the 1990s. > Yeah but this is a limited perspective. If the union was truly international (like they _used_ to be) VFX workers could push for high wages wherever they worked. VFX workers in most countries are not unionized either, and much of the industry has already shifted to ASEAN, China, and India where there is no real unionization to begin with.
- mikojan 1mo ago
  Volkswagen is perhaps the greatest counter-example. The union in Germany converted every layoff initiative in whole or in part (more often in whole) into partial retirements, backfill stops, reduced working hours, compensation freezes.
  - alephnerd 1mo ago
    100,000 jobs were still lost and there is no one else who can absorb them. And the experience of the VFX industry is probably the best example of what would happen to a heavily unionized software driven industry. Edit: can't reply > are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people Nope, but there is a real risk that what arises is labor immobility and blocking new entrants.
    - DiscourseFan 1mo ago
      Wait a second, are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people? In that case, the company is absorbing the lion’s share of the profits (or whatever profit is left) so you are effectively arguing in favor of shielding an entity over the livelihoods of the people who work within it.
      - throw-the-towel 1mo ago
        To butcher a famous poem, it's better to have hired and lost than never to have hired at all. Restrictions on letting go of enployees mean that companies are afraid to hire. They double check and triple check, they reject everyone they feel even the tiniest bit suspicious of, they try to protect themselves with ultra long probation periods, etc. I don't know about the US, but I spent 4.5 months trying to get a new job here in the EU as a senior dev. Everyone tells me that was quick.
    - johnnyanmac 1mo ago
      >there is a real risk that what arises is labor immobility and blocking new entrants. We're already doing that without uniuons. Older folk can't afford to retire and new grads cannot get a leg in to start their careers. we're talking something like a quarter of new grads who cannot get any job in their field out of college.
- Apocryphon 1mo ago
  Without film industry unions, might the offshoring have been undertaken even earlier?
  - throw-the-towel 1mo ago
    History knows no conditionals.
- Melatonic 1mo ago
  VFX workers did try to unionize along with software engineers. Major tech companies colluded illegally and were caught doing this. This was way before the AI boom
- DiscourseFan 1mo ago
  Yeah but this is a limited perspective. If the union was truly international (like they _used_ to be) VFX workers could push for high wages wherever they worked.
- johnnyanmac 1mo ago
  >Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit. Yes, let's point to examples of intentional union decay as proof that unions do not work. >VFX was already largely offshored by the early 2010s And there's still VFXs jobs domestically. For the same reasons offshoring tech in the 2010's didn't work out > much of the industry has already shifted to ASEAN, China, and India where there is no real unionization to begin with. Most countries are not "at-will" like the US. those houses cannot just layoff people on whim. That said, yes. VFX is very much a contractor-driven field. But there's a different between knowing the end of a contract, and waking up one day to realize your key fob doesn't work and you're locked out of your account. You get to plan around the instability.
jamestimmins 1mo ago
I've been laid off. It was fine because software is literally the most marketable skill in the world. Edit: But also, this was a pre-profit VC-backed company. If those companies can't lay people off, it's not like you make good money with more job security. Either the company just has less runway (so I still lose my job, just later and with everyone else) or they adapt by hiring fewer people at lower salaries.
- Apocryphon 1mo ago
  Within the last four years?
  - hylaride 1mo ago
    I was canned early last year. Looking for a new job was mostly fine. It wasn't insanely easy like 4 years ago and I had to network a bit, but there very much is still demand for qualified people. Would suck to be in this market as an entry-level engineer, though.
    - johnnyanmac 1mo ago
      My network has all experienced at least one layoff in the last 2 years. Every single person I talked with except maybe 1 or 2 people. And they don't feel good about their studio. YMMV.
- johnnyanmac 1mo ago
  > software is literally the most marketable skill in the world. I see you haven't been in the current job market.
throw-the-towel 1mo ago
It's still not clear to me whether union protection is going to be worth the decrease in job creation. There's a reason Europe has way less IT positions with worse salaries.
- DiscourseFan 1mo ago
  I think you’ll find that at the very least unions preserve jobs in contracting industries, which software is clearly in the process of.
- eatYourFood 1mo ago
  [dead]
- braiamp 1mo ago
  Salary isn't even be all end all. In fact, higher salary might be worse, because in total you have to pay out of pocket for things your europeans counterparts. Therefore they should have more discretionary income compared to a US worker (I don't think I have to source this).
  - satvikpendem 1mo ago
    Actually it is, because you can make money in the US and then retire in Europe or wherever else you want and live like a king, as many people I know have done.
  - throw-the-towel 1mo ago
    This gets trotted out every time, but let's be realistic: you can't pay your rent in European good vibes.
  - DiscourseFan 1mo ago
    No, the benefits Europeans get do not translate to any equivalence to the money an Average American makes. The per capita income is like 100k a year now.
  - ThrowawayR2 1mo ago
missedthecue 1mo ago
Most tech workers I have met with parent commenters opinion have been laid off at various times in their career. I think it's important to note that unions aren't very good tools to avoid layoffs. If there is a company specific hardship, the union can't simply force the company to maintain headcount all the way into bankruptcy. On the other hand if there is a secular change across the industry, the unions can't prevent that change either. Easy example is how Big 3 automakers were 100% unionized in the 1970s and have since shed about 500,0000 American jobs despite producing more automobiles than ever. Unions tend to be good at bargaining for better pay and benefits, but the current status quo is that most tech workers already have decent pay and benefits anyway.
- triceratops 1mo ago
  > most tech workers don't have bad pay or benefits anyway. But what if they could be even better? This is an industry with 75-80% gross margins, quite unlike any other industry in history.
  - missedthecue 1mo ago
    But despite those margins, it's also an industry with a LOT of unprofitable businesses, unlike any other industry in history. From many people's perspective, if they already earn well, why rock the boat in a high effort high risk way so that the union can negotiate an 8% raise instead of a 4% raise. I don't need the money. And the bad to worst case outcomes could give me serious irreversible buyers remorse.
    - triceratops 1mo ago
      > I don't need the money. I promise you, management doesn't think that way.
- DiscourseFan 1mo ago
  A friend of mine at Amazon got laid off during their big stupid AI push last year and yeah, being paid like $150k a year sounds nice until you realize that only covers basic living expenses in, say, Manhattan. Now was Amazon right to fire so many people for basically no reason? No, but software on its own is no longer marketable. One person can generate a hundred times more code than before the advent of LLMs, so you only need one person to do the job of a hundred. Now, it takes some skill, that takes years to develop, to use LLMs effectively in the workplace, so Amazon was incredibly short sighted to believe it was just some magical box that fixed everything automatically. But that doesn’t mean companies won’t be making similar moves, in the aggregate, in 10 years, when leaner competitors come to rip a chunk out of their profits. Do you see the capex of major tech companies now? They are _scared_, they have every right to be. You have to be just as nearsighted as those Amazon bosses to believe that things will continue as they always have, that this is just a short dip in a long term regression to the mean.

Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit. Or, from an IP-driven industry perspective, the offshoring of Hollywood following the SAG and WGA strikes in the early 2020s. And if IATSE couldn't stop VFX from being offshored back in the 2000s and 2010s, then tech unions wouldn't be able to either. Edit: can't reply > Without film industry unions, might the offshoring have been undertaken even earlier? Not really. VFX was already largely offshored by the early 2010s despite only starting as an industry in the 1990s. > Yeah but this is a limited perspective. If the union was truly international (like they _used_ to be) VFX workers could push for high wages wherever they worked. VFX workers in most countries are not unionized either, and much of the industry has already shifted to ASEAN, China, and India where there is no real unionization to begin with.

mikojan 1mo ago
Volkswagen is perhaps the greatest counter-example. The union in Germany converted every layoff initiative in whole or in part (more often in whole) into partial retirements, backfill stops, reduced working hours, compensation freezes.
- alephnerd 1mo ago
  100,000 jobs were still lost and there is no one else who can absorb them. And the experience of the VFX industry is probably the best example of what would happen to a heavily unionized software driven industry. Edit: can't reply > are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people Nope, but there is a real risk that what arises is labor immobility and blocking new entrants.
  - DiscourseFan 1mo ago
    Wait a second, are you arguing that it’s better to just straight up fire people? In that case, the company is absorbing the lion’s share of the profits (or whatever profit is left) so you are effectively arguing in favor of shielding an entity over the livelihoods of the people who work within it.
    - throw-the-towel 1mo ago
      To butcher a famous poem, it's better to have hired and lost than never to have hired at all. Restrictions on letting go of enployees mean that companies are afraid to hire. They double check and triple check, they reject everyone they feel even the tiniest bit suspicious of, they try to protect themselves with ultra long probation periods, etc. I don't know about the US, but I spent 4.5 months trying to get a new job here in the EU as a senior dev. Everyone tells me that was quick.
  - johnnyanmac 1mo ago
    >there is a real risk that what arises is labor immobility and blocking new entrants. We're already doing that without uniuons. Older folk can't afford to retire and new grads cannot get a leg in to start their careers. we're talking something like a quarter of new grads who cannot get any job in their field out of college.
Apocryphon 1mo ago
Without film industry unions, might the offshoring have been undertaken even earlier?
- throw-the-towel 1mo ago
  History knows no conditionals.
Melatonic 1mo ago
VFX workers did try to unionize along with software engineers. Major tech companies colluded illegally and were caught doing this. This was way before the AI boom
DiscourseFan 1mo ago
Yeah but this is a limited perspective. If the union was truly international (like they _used_ to be) VFX workers could push for high wages wherever they worked.
johnnyanmac 1mo ago
>Unions don't help with that as can be seen with Volkswagen or much of Detroit. Yes, let's point to examples of intentional union decay as proof that unions do not work. >VFX was already largely offshored by the early 2010s And there's still VFXs jobs domestically. For the same reasons offshoring tech in the 2010's didn't work out > much of the industry has already shifted to ASEAN, China, and India where there is no real unionization to begin with. Most countries are not "at-will" like the US. those houses cannot just layoff people on whim. That said, yes. VFX is very much a contractor-driven field. But there's a different between knowing the end of a contract, and waking up one day to realize your key fob doesn't work and you're locked out of your account. You get to plan around the instability.

jamestimmins 1mo ago

I've been laid off. It was fine because software is literally the most marketable skill in the world. Edit: But also, this was a pre-profit VC-backed company. If those companies can't lay people off, it's not like you make good money with more job security. Either the company just has less runway (so I still lose my job, just later and with everyone else) or they adapt by hiring fewer people at lower salaries.

Apocryphon 1mo ago
Within the last four years?
- hylaride 1mo ago
  I was canned early last year. Looking for a new job was mostly fine. It wasn't insanely easy like 4 years ago and I had to network a bit, but there very much is still demand for qualified people. Would suck to be in this market as an entry-level engineer, though.
  - johnnyanmac 1mo ago
    My network has all experienced at least one layoff in the last 2 years. Every single person I talked with except maybe 1 or 2 people. And they don't feel good about their studio. YMMV.
johnnyanmac 1mo ago
> software is literally the most marketable skill in the world. I see you haven't been in the current job market.

throw-the-towel 1mo ago

It's still not clear to me whether union protection is going to be worth the decrease in job creation. There's a reason Europe has way less IT positions with worse salaries.

DiscourseFan 1mo ago
I think you’ll find that at the very least unions preserve jobs in contracting industries, which software is clearly in the process of.
eatYourFood 1mo ago
[dead]
braiamp 1mo ago
Salary isn't even be all end all. In fact, higher salary might be worse, because in total you have to pay out of pocket for things your europeans counterparts. Therefore they should have more discretionary income compared to a US worker (I don't think I have to source this).
- satvikpendem 1mo ago
  Actually it is, because you can make money in the US and then retire in Europe or wherever else you want and live like a king, as many people I know have done.
- throw-the-towel 1mo ago
  This gets trotted out every time, but let's be realistic: you can't pay your rent in European good vibes.
- DiscourseFan 1mo ago
  No, the benefits Europeans get do not translate to any equivalence to the money an Average American makes. The per capita income is like 100k a year now.
- ThrowawayR2 1mo ago

missedthecue 1mo ago

Most tech workers I have met with parent commenters opinion have been laid off at various times in their career. I think it's important to note that unions aren't very good tools to avoid layoffs. If there is a company specific hardship, the union can't simply force the company to maintain headcount all the way into bankruptcy. On the other hand if there is a secular change across the industry, the unions can't prevent that change either. Easy example is how Big 3 automakers were 100% unionized in the 1970s and have since shed about 500,0000 American jobs despite producing more automobiles than ever. Unions tend to be good at bargaining for better pay and benefits, but the current status quo is that most tech workers already have decent pay and benefits anyway.

triceratops 1mo ago
> most tech workers don't have bad pay or benefits anyway. But what if they could be even better? This is an industry with 75-80% gross margins, quite unlike any other industry in history.
- missedthecue 1mo ago
  But despite those margins, it's also an industry with a LOT of unprofitable businesses, unlike any other industry in history. From many people's perspective, if they already earn well, why rock the boat in a high effort high risk way so that the union can negotiate an 8% raise instead of a 4% raise. I don't need the money. And the bad to worst case outcomes could give me serious irreversible buyers remorse.
  - triceratops 1mo ago
    > I don't need the money. I promise you, management doesn't think that way.
DiscourseFan 1mo ago
A friend of mine at Amazon got laid off during their big stupid AI push last year and yeah, being paid like $150k a year sounds nice until you realize that only covers basic living expenses in, say, Manhattan. Now was Amazon right to fire so many people for basically no reason? No, but software on its own is no longer marketable. One person can generate a hundred times more code than before the advent of LLMs, so you only need one person to do the job of a hundred. Now, it takes some skill, that takes years to develop, to use LLMs effectively in the workplace, so Amazon was incredibly short sighted to believe it was just some magical box that fixed everything automatically. But that doesn’t mean companies won’t be making similar moves, in the aggregate, in 10 years, when leaner competitors come to rip a chunk out of their profits. Do you see the capex of major tech companies now? They are _scared_, they have every right to be. You have to be just as nearsighted as those Amazon bosses to believe that things will continue as they always have, that this is just a short dip in a long term regression to the mean.