5 ms·
This is the right move. Unionise when things are good enough that labor can take a hit and keep standing, or when they’re so bad that people might actually die.
by Arubis 11d ago
This is the right move. Unionise when things are good enough that labor can take a hit and keep standing, or when they’re so bad that people might actually die. Either way labor has a strong BATNA.
Right now a lost of software work is kinda in the middle; it’s not very secure and labor isn’t confident and doesn’t have a lot of great, easy alternatives, but by and large getting food on the table tomorrow isn’t an open question.
- cyanydeez 11d ago[flagged]
- bitshiftfaced 11d ago> or when they’re so bad that people might actually die Care to elaborate? Am I understanding correctly that the implication here is that there is some condition for which a software engineer having a union agreement could prevent that worker from dying?
- NewJazz 11d agoOr prevent that worker's work output from killing innocent, uh... Externalities. Folks. Animals. Ecosystems.
- Arubis 11d agoYes, certainly: the ability to say “no” to abusive labor conditions without risk of irreversibly losing any source of income while living in a society that treats lack of income as deserving of whatever pains and suffering come with it. The word “any” is doing a lot of work here—I’m implying a denylist or “social credit score” or other way of persisting punishment against an individual beyond mere job loss. You’re right that we’re not there right now. We’re in the wide middle and still closer to the “we have lots of bargaining power because we’re in demand” end of the continuum—_directionally_ it does not feel that way, but we don’t have a ton of folks dying of Boolean lung in the code mines. But I’d not rule out the possibility. The range of possible human experiences is vast.
- aliasxneo 11d ago> living in a society that treats lack of income as deserving of whatever pains and suffering What does the opposite society look like? Universal income?
- AndrewKemendo 11d agoIt looks like a healthy extended family where resources are shared towards a common goal of health and liberty.
- aliasxneo 11d agoWhat if health and liberty to someone looks like them not providing any net positive to society? What compels someone to work 12 hours a day to share those resources with such a person?
- MrDrMcCoy 11d agoSome people look to the nice things they have and think to themselves "I want everyone to have these things."
- aliasxneo 11d agoNo argument there. The question is whether history shows us that that represents a majority or minority of people.
- AndrewKemendo 11d agoSounds like an unhealthy person and situation such that 12 hours of labor is mandatory Step one would be to help them get into a situation where that wasn’t true
- aliasxneo 11d agoIf enough people decide they want to spend their liberty not working, then the 12 hours is a necessity, not something "unhealthy" about the person.