4 ms·

Everyone loses union dues. High performers lose high compensation relative to the mean engineer. There are plenty more arguable things you can say engineers l

Everyone loses union dues. High performers lose high compensation relative to the mean engineer. There are plenty more arguable things you can say engineers lose (stock option value with lost company competitiveness, etc) but I'm not going to bother with those. The top two are not arguable, which is enough to invalidate a simplistic clickbait title.

fweespeech 11y ago
https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage... Unions can fight this alot more effectively than engineers can. The simple fact is the large companies willingly and with full knowledge of the illegality, abuse their position, even when it comes to software engineers. Pretending you are protected when you can't afford a 6 figure lawsuit, isn't really true.
- bpodgursky 11y ago
  How does this address either of my points? I do not want to get in a wider debate about unionization, I am stating that the title is clickbait and obviously false.
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    "Losing" union dues and receiving legal protection in return that likely won't take anywhere near as long to resolve as that court case did isn't "losing" given we know for a fact that these companies are willing to abuse their position to the point of engaging in illegal activity. We pay the police too, is that really "losing"? Similarly, "high performers" aren't immune as they are the ones most affected since the various companies are going to try to recruit them from the others the most. A union that provides legal representation and a standardized process for appealing various issues that are clearly illegal [e.g. The link I posted] before it goes to court is possible without you having to negotiate specific salary tiers and the like.
  - hiou 11y ago
    Can you explain how it is mandatory for wages to be part of the collective bargaining agreement? It is my understanding that bargaining agreements can have nothing at all to do with compensation and instead on worker treatment or any other issues the workers may prioritize.
  - incision 11y ago
    > How does this address either of my points? It addresses it as a human being discussing the meaning of the article as opposed to a pedant-bot dicing words to 'win'.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    you say don't want to start wider discussion yet you try hard to start one... not really good in communication skills, are you? I mean, I hate unions with passion, but your post almost makes me like them
  - Trombone12 11y ago
    Look everyone, its the clickbait hero! The clickbait hero has the superpower to comment on all the clickbaity titles, denouncing the content (of said title) as a wretched hive of scum and villainy! Such a shame about the fear of long texts and coherent arguments though...
hiou 11y ago
When anyone uses "Everyone", "Always", "Never" etc it creates strong signaling that the writer is an idealist and not looking at the issue at hand pragmatically. I would find it unlikely that "Everyone" loses. I'm not saying that you are, but wanted to let you know that when you use terms like that many people will discredit the rest of your message.
- bpodgursky 11y ago
  If you find a union where union dues are selectively paid, let me know. Until then, I will continue using English accurately.
  - hiou 11y ago
    Do you mean like this?[1] Also, I was unaware of any laws that required unions to charge dues. It is true that many do, but one can certainly create a union without dues. [1] http://www.nrtw.org/c/vartwlaw.htm http://www.nrtw.org/c/vartwlaw.htm
    - bpodgursky 11y ago
      Right to work is completely different. Right to work says that employees are not compelled to JOIN a union in the first place. I have never heard of a union where some employees are required to pay dues and others aren't (and in fact, I have never heard of a union where employees pay no dues at all.)
      - johnward 11y ago
        How would selective dues even work? If the union requires dues you either pay and are represented or you don't join (go work somewhere non-union). I'm struggling to figure out where it would even make sense to be selective.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    no you're not
crdoconnor 11y ago
>Everyone loses union dues. All they get in return is a salary that is above industry average. >High performers lose high compensation Sure, because unions in Hollywood totally ruined it for A listers.
- brightball 11y ago
  > All they get in return is a salary that is above industry average. I've always wondered if that's actually true. Typically, unions form around well established businesses that are already dominating their market where the employees can clearly see the amount of money being made hand over fist. This works great for employees whenever things are going great but cripples the company from adapting when things are going poorly. Hostess was a decent example of that. In other words, Unions basically seem to form to take advantage of a good situation so when they're able to extract higher salaries from the company it's because they are already at very successful companies. That would seem to imbalance the sample data because you'd need to compare them to all of the other non-unionized equivalently successful companies for a real comparison rather than the entire industry including small players.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    >I've always wondered if that's actually true. Not hard enough to Google for it, apparently... http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/jobsemployment/a/unionwages.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/jobsemployment/a/unionwages.ht... >This works great for employees whenever things are going great but cripples the company from adapting when things are going poorly. Hostess was a decent example of that. Hostess was a prime example of management making a slew of terrible decisions and then trying to foist the results of their failure on to the workers while giving themselves fat bonuses. Towards the end the deal they were offered was so shit that they didn't care that striking made the company go under. And why should they? If the company goes under they just go and get another job. The private equity firm that got in on that deal with a view to union busting for profit got everything it deserved when they lost their money.
    - brightball 11y ago
kasey_junk 11y ago
Your second point assumes that high performers are both a) identifiable and b) are rewarded with higher levels of compensation currently. I'm not sure how we could quantify that, but I'm not convinced either is true. (All that said, I'm not fired up about unionization as a software professional)
duaneb 11y ago
You're not counting the losses that would be negated by the union: low median engineer salary, low turnover, anti-competitive clauses, no overtime, terrible ranking schemes, low chance of advancement compared to management. Not sure if being located in the bay area is a straight-up loss for everyone—it's necessary for some businesses—but I would argue ratio of salary to median annual rent should be included. You should not have to move to the earth's anus to find employment. Finally, those stupid fucking engineers who are "high performers", whatever that means, unfairly weight compensation packages, lowering average salary, and draining the market of competition, and encouraging "investing" in acquihires and getting nothing in return. I'm looking at you, Sparrow. You were supposed to fix gmail and it ended up getting worse to the tune of millions of dollars. So you have two points, but you haven't addressed whether it's a net loss. Very few things in the world are truly free.

fweespeech 11y ago

https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage... Unions can fight this alot more effectively than engineers can. The simple fact is the large companies willingly and with full knowledge of the illegality, abuse their position, even when it comes to software engineers. Pretending you are protected when you can't afford a 6 figure lawsuit, isn't really true.

bpodgursky 11y ago
How does this address either of my points? I do not want to get in a wider debate about unionization, I am stating that the title is clickbait and obviously false.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  "Losing" union dues and receiving legal protection in return that likely won't take anywhere near as long to resolve as that court case did isn't "losing" given we know for a fact that these companies are willing to abuse their position to the point of engaging in illegal activity. We pay the police too, is that really "losing"? Similarly, "high performers" aren't immune as they are the ones most affected since the various companies are going to try to recruit them from the others the most. A union that provides legal representation and a standardized process for appealing various issues that are clearly illegal [e.g. The link I posted] before it goes to court is possible without you having to negotiate specific salary tiers and the like.
- hiou 11y ago
  Can you explain how it is mandatory for wages to be part of the collective bargaining agreement? It is my understanding that bargaining agreements can have nothing at all to do with compensation and instead on worker treatment or any other issues the workers may prioritize.
- incision 11y ago
  > How does this address either of my points? It addresses it as a human being discussing the meaning of the article as opposed to a pedant-bot dicing words to 'win'.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  you say don't want to start wider discussion yet you try hard to start one... not really good in communication skills, are you? I mean, I hate unions with passion, but your post almost makes me like them
- Trombone12 11y ago
  Look everyone, its the clickbait hero! The clickbait hero has the superpower to comment on all the clickbaity titles, denouncing the content (of said title) as a wretched hive of scum and villainy! Such a shame about the fear of long texts and coherent arguments though...

hiou 11y ago

When anyone uses "Everyone", "Always", "Never" etc it creates strong signaling that the writer is an idealist and not looking at the issue at hand pragmatically. I would find it unlikely that "Everyone" loses. I'm not saying that you are, but wanted to let you know that when you use terms like that many people will discredit the rest of your message.

bpodgursky 11y ago
If you find a union where union dues are selectively paid, let me know. Until then, I will continue using English accurately.
- hiou 11y ago
  Do you mean like this?[1] Also, I was unaware of any laws that required unions to charge dues. It is true that many do, but one can certainly create a union without dues. [1] http://www.nrtw.org/c/vartwlaw.htm http://www.nrtw.org/c/vartwlaw.htm
  - bpodgursky 11y ago
    Right to work is completely different. Right to work says that employees are not compelled to JOIN a union in the first place. I have never heard of a union where some employees are required to pay dues and others aren't (and in fact, I have never heard of a union where employees pay no dues at all.)
    - johnward 11y ago
      How would selective dues even work? If the union requires dues you either pay and are represented or you don't join (go work somewhere non-union). I'm struggling to figure out where it would even make sense to be selective.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  no you're not

crdoconnor 11y ago

>Everyone loses union dues. All they get in return is a salary that is above industry average. >High performers lose high compensation Sure, because unions in Hollywood totally ruined it for A listers.

brightball 11y ago
> All they get in return is a salary that is above industry average. I've always wondered if that's actually true. Typically, unions form around well established businesses that are already dominating their market where the employees can clearly see the amount of money being made hand over fist. This works great for employees whenever things are going great but cripples the company from adapting when things are going poorly. Hostess was a decent example of that. In other words, Unions basically seem to form to take advantage of a good situation so when they're able to extract higher salaries from the company it's because they are already at very successful companies. That would seem to imbalance the sample data because you'd need to compare them to all of the other non-unionized equivalently successful companies for a real comparison rather than the entire industry including small players.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >I've always wondered if that's actually true. Not hard enough to Google for it, apparently... http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/jobsemployment/a/unionwages.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/jobsemployment/a/unionwages.ht... >This works great for employees whenever things are going great but cripples the company from adapting when things are going poorly. Hostess was a decent example of that. Hostess was a prime example of management making a slew of terrible decisions and then trying to foist the results of their failure on to the workers while giving themselves fat bonuses. Towards the end the deal they were offered was so shit that they didn't care that striking made the company go under. And why should they? If the company goes under they just go and get another job. The private equity firm that got in on that deal with a view to union busting for profit got everything it deserved when they lost their money.
  - brightball 11y ago

kasey_junk 11y ago

Your second point assumes that high performers are both a) identifiable and b) are rewarded with higher levels of compensation currently. I'm not sure how we could quantify that, but I'm not convinced either is true. (All that said, I'm not fired up about unionization as a software professional)

duaneb 11y ago

You're not counting the losses that would be negated by the union: low median engineer salary, low turnover, anti-competitive clauses, no overtime, terrible ranking schemes, low chance of advancement compared to management. Not sure if being located in the bay area is a straight-up loss for everyone—it's necessary for some businesses—but I would argue ratio of salary to median annual rent should be included. You should not have to move to the earth's anus to find employment. Finally, those stupid fucking engineers who are "high performers", whatever that means, unfairly weight compensation packages, lowering average salary, and draining the market of competition, and encouraging "investing" in acquihires and getting nothing in return. I'm looking at you, Sparrow. You were supposed to fix gmail and it ended up getting worse to the tune of millions of dollars. So you have two points, but you haven't addressed whether it's a net loss. Very few things in the world are truly free.