10 ms·

Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?

• shams93 10y ago
  If it wasn't for Steve Jobs we might have agents like Hollywood actors. To me the real question is why don't we have agents like actors and basketball players? We could be like actors and have both a union and our own agents. But thanks to Jobs conspiring to hold back engineer income we have a situation where we are often leveraged into poverty.
  • gigatexal 10y ago
    Leveraged into poverty? Developer salaries range from 50-65k starting to 250k plus. Then there's freelancing.
    • quinequine 10y ago
      Depends on where you're at, right? You'll find tons of developers on Upwork willing to work for less. Isn't that the future for most of us? We're tomorrow's factory workers. Corporations have already shown that they'll work to suppress wages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... The long game is to promote STEM fields and increase supply - pushing down wages and benefits.
      • q3r3qr3q 10y ago
        Haven't people been saying that for decades now?
      • nightski 10y ago
        No offense, because this isn't directed at you specifically, but developers on Upwork selling themselves short are doing so because they lack the social skills necessary to thrive in a freelance environment. There are so many business opportunities to build quality software for a very steep price it's incredible. But developers can have a pretty hard time understanding how to sell themselves.
        • gremlinsinc 10y ago
          Well, what if the union was more of a supplier of Benefits if contract worker (Group healthcare plan, dental, vision), had a lawyer on staff to checkout contracts to make sure they're up and up for freelancers, helped encourage companies to raise incomes for devs across the board, and also had a marketing team/sales team dedicated to helping freelancers who are primarily introvert sell their skills for the top dollar...though -- you could work for an outfit like Topcoders which does do a lot of these types of things..
          • madamelic 10y ago
            You are describing consulting.
        • pryelluw 10y ago
          Could you point to these opportunities? One concrete opportunity. Please and thank you.
          • madamelic 10y ago
            http://meetups.com http://meetups.com Networking.
      • solipsism 10y ago
    • lap42 10y ago
      Then there's create your own software company.
  • lappa 10y ago
    Agents are expensive overhead. Agents are for people who shift between "clients" frequently. The thing that both actors and athletes share (at least the ones with agents) is giant salaries and a frequently changing employer.
  • kukac 10y ago
    Why would developers need agents? Hollywood actors earn orders of magnitude more than your average 10X-er developer.
    • scarface74 10y ago
      Actually, a good recruiter can serve the role of an agent. They will look for opportunities for you because it's in their own best interest. But just like an athlete, you have to be smart enough not to get taken advantage of.
    • dexterdog 10y ago
      Even starving actors typically have agents.
  • deleted 10y ago
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• fiedzia 10y ago
  > Why don't developers unionize? They don't need to. For any combination of those goals, you can find some company that aligns with them, so just go there. It may not be google or facebook, but you have choice.
  • quinequine 10y ago
    You're right. Most developers don't care about these sort of issues. No need to unionize if you don't care about effecting change. And when you do, just send a donation and call it a day.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
• WorldMaker 10y ago
  Part of it is that unions are associated with blue-collar work and developers feel that they are "too white-collar" for that sort of thing. There's no collar boundary to unionization, of course, but there is a perception that there is.
  • rileymat2 10y ago
    Many professionals like lawyers and doctors may not have Unions, but have strong professional oranizations.
    • ThrowawayR2 10y ago
      Lawyers and doctors require a extensive examination and continuing education requirements in order to get and keep their accreditation in their professional organizations. Developers, as a group, are unlikely to support such a professional organization because many of them got their expertise in non-traditional / unconventional ways and would fear being excluded.
      • WorldMaker 10y ago
        Which leads back to unions as the next best fit. If developers and the software industry don't want to deal with professional organizations and professional certifications then unions are the next best option for collective action.
    • WorldMaker 10y ago
      Right, just about every sort of engineers except "software engineer" (the way SV throws the title around) has ABET accreditation requirements, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, the Professional Engineering exam in their field of work, the Engineer in Training work apprenticeship steps, and finally the Professional Engineer certification and the organization involvements and professional learning requirements to keep that certification current. I've considered trying for a PE certification (now that there finally is a software engineering PE, which was not the case when I graduated) to get the "engineer" back into my title at my current job (which as a broader engineering firm that serves multiple disciplines has an absolute requirement for a PE to claim the title), but getting the certification wouldn't really help me much in the industry anywhere else, so it doesn't seem worth it.
• tacostakohashi 10y ago
  What you're talking about sounds more like professionalizing than unionizing (although, outside the U.S., the contrast is less profound). For the reasons you cite, it's a nice idea. The immediate answer is because nobody would agree on what a developer is (do front end developers count? web designers? excel macros?).
• zubat 10y ago
  The market is fluid enough - which isn't to say it's in good shape - that developers who are decent can usually find a high enough salary to stay quiet and cooperate. Unions arise when workers have a reason not to stay quiet and they lack recourse. But in tech the response to not getting what you want tends to be to raise funds and start your own company, or at minimum freelance. This is imperfect and allows vulnerable people to slip through the cracks. But again, it's not enough to make for a turning point, at least yet.
• czep 10y ago
  There's probably some element of the Prisoner's Dilemma at play here. I'd join a union if I knew that we'd all have normal working conditions, no forced or coerced overtime, guaranteed health care, a pension plan, and a reserve in case of strike (the only thing unions have to negotiate with management). I'd accept a sizable pay cut if all that could be brought to the table. But unless there's critical mass, it's every code monkey for his or herself. So I contract myself to the highest bidder and wait for the revolution :)
  • solipsism 10y ago
    Why would a pay cut be involved? It's not clear to me the would be a pay cut. And without a pay cut how is the Prisoners Dilemma relevant?
    • dsacco 10y ago
      In principle there is a pay cut if you have to pay dues, if nothing else.
• q3r3qr3q 10y ago
  Nice speech, Tony Robbins.
  • scamracket99999 10y ago
    *quote "It's like asking why cats don't herd." rebuttal. http://english-zone.com/members/reading/ani-groups.html http://english-zone.com/members/reading/ani-groups.html No, 'zero'. Cats do NOT herd together like cows. they CLOWDER together, like birds flock together in a V formation, flying south for the winter. Lions hunt in packs. The first thing you do at ANY organization is to read Orwell's Animal Farm and classify the types of groups, organizations, cultures, etc. Some developers are TOP PREDATOR Lion cats. Perl versus Python versus Java versus Rust versus Haskell. They love fighting and snarling at one another. The INTERNET WORKS BY diversity and PERL and Java and even Javascript. Even if javascript is such an ugly, ugly language. this is a joke. OK, I write OCaml to typescript to ??? to Javascript. metaphor: programmers union is like 'herding cats' is a LAKOFF 'false framing.' WRONG and false argument. not based on nature and/or observation of nature and bio-mimicry patterns. 'disinformation campaign.' aka TROLLING aka - making you think your life's passion/career is like being a cat. Screwing your mind over. Psyops. fill in your own term. Scam Racket. The Teamsters do driving. Even a Child and a robot can drive. But the Teamsters Union survives. WHY? If the crime-ridden Teamsters Union can do it, then even the 'cat-ridden' SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS UNION' can do it. insert cat smiling, LOL.
• aerovistae 10y ago
  Maybe I'm mistaken, but I feel like people unionize when they're being taken advantage of and need to fight for better employment conditions....but developers have it pretty nice, all in all, most of us. I don't feel much incentive to unionize when I'm making $50/hr+ and have unlimited vacation.
  • goalieca 10y ago
    Not like that in most of the world I bet. It's not like that where I live.
  • drizzt396 10y ago
    > unlimited vacation You realize that's a ploy to get you to take less vacation/not pay out accrued hours on leaving the company right?
  • kakamba 10y ago
    I agree with you, that is one side of unionization, but you don't need to suffer to build a union. I am also in the bay area and have a pretty decent working conditions. However, if a sector creates a substantial value to the economy, their unions affect governing organs, they heavily influence cities or states to work in their favor not against them. If we look at for instance how tech companies are treated in bay area vs the automotive giants over in Detroit, or potato farmers in Idaho we can see the difference.
  • NetStrikeForce 10y ago
    > and have unlimited vacation. How much of that is paid?
    • dlhavema 10y ago
      unlimited vacation is starting to be more common... the company that is buying the place i currently work at is doing it as well.. they don't have to keep PTO hours on the books, and don't have to pay out for hours not taken when you leave either...
• ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Generally unionization is fought fairly hard by companies for the simple reason that it restricts what they can do and takes some control out of the hands of management. In the Bay area in the late 80's there was mumbling about unions after the great semiconductor flame out. A lot of people were laid off without warning and since it was widespread the ability to walk across the street and get rehired was limited. Since you can't really unionize when you aren't working somewhere, and when the people working somewhere are just glad they weren't the ones laid off, its hard to convince them they need to come on board. As employer abuses, such as the 'no poaching agreement' came to light, or sudden changes in salary compensation etc. That provides incentive but it often isn't enough incentive to start the really vicious knock down drawn out fight that unionizing would entail. Bottom line I think it would take a perfect storm of events, gross employer abuse, a large group of people who feel they have nothing to lose, and the prospect of a very bleak future unless something radical changes. We saw what happens when those forces align last Noveember, it doesn't happen all that often.
  • cam_l 10y ago
    Fully agree.. but I wonder what would happen if unions started to take a leaf out of the 'no poaching' corporate playbook and simply unionised secretly. Collective bargaining via synchronised individual bargaining, where everyone demands the same conditions on their employment. (Surely this could be appified ;) Perhaps if there were no official union, the vicious knock down would be much more difficult to focus. And it could be much easier for a coordinated and realtime response direct from the employees, rather than an intermediary. I think the thing that people forget with regard to unions and employers is they are simply about redressing a massive power imbalance in a potentially mutually beneficial relationship.
    • slavik81 10y ago
      Unions are essentially a form of cartel, and they suffer from all the same organizational problems. Workers are faced with a prisoner's dilemma. The best individual choice is always to defect. To keep a unified front you need some sort of centralized force that prevents people from defecting. In traditional unions, it is enforced by law that all employees must join the union if the shop is unionized. A secret voluntary union would lack that unifying force and would collapse as workers pursue their personal self-interest.
• LyndsySimon 10y ago
  I can only speak for myself, but I will never join a union. It's a political thing for me. I know not everyone feels that way, but I also know that I'm not the only one strongly opposed to unionization.
  • solipsism 10y ago
    Scab!
    • wattt 10y ago
      I wish you weren't being downvoted! If you join an organization that is union you should almost certainly join. Otherwise... You're a scab. That's how it goes. Sorry HN doesn't see reality.
      • prodigal_erik 10y ago
        Extortion is the only power a union can wield. We have a name for that kind of organization and it's a hell of a lot more damning than "scab".
        • giaour 10y ago
          Extortion is not the only power a union can wield. They can also engage in collective labor action per the National Labor Relations Act[1]. [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act
          • prodigal_erik 10y ago
            "Collective labor action" is another kind of threat used against managers who might otherwise accept a better offer from other workers. We've surrendered and begin to encourage unions to perform their extortion in open court to reduce the body count.
            • 10y ago
• cperciva 10y ago
  What you're describing isn't a union; it's a professional association like the ACM.
• Kalium 10y ago
  What could I expect to change in my daily working life by joining your "new model union"? Unions got buy-in from workers because they offered tangible benefits to workers. Shorter days, medical care, better pay, and so on. The items you list are public policy concerns that align well with a variety of advocacy groups. In virtually all cases, a specialist advocacy group seems better-suited to addressing the problem than a union.
  • ReedJessen 10y ago
    This is right. Unions need to be viewed as service providers, just like other kinds of organizations/companies. They need to provide benefits to their customers/members in order for them to be willing to pay membership fees.
  • quinequine 10y ago
    You're right. Most developers could care less about anything that doesn't impact their daily working life. But I would argue that issues like wage suppression, security, and privacy have a huge impact on our work-life balance, income and the software we write. An organization of developers dedicated to collective bargaining would be able to support advocacy groups and give them teeth in their dealings with large multinational corporations and even governments. Would you agree?
    • dsacco 10y ago
      No, I wouldn't agree. Collective bargaining organizations ("unions") are fundamentally designed to advocate for their members, not for peripheral issues in the industry (except where they directly impact members' work life balance, safety or compensation in a tangible way). Personally, I would not be willing to join a union because I don't see any benefits they could give me in return for my money. I'm quite happy bargaining on my own, and advocating for the issues I care about, without a conglomerate middleman.
      • quinequine 10y ago
        Yeah, I see what you're saying. Developers like most people are motivated by self-interest and have little motivation to see change in the status quo. With regards to advocacy, it's much easier to cut a check to the EFF (or similar organizations) when your conscience is moved. We as developers could careless about actually seeing meaningful results outside of the code we write and money we make. That's what you're saying more or less? I strongly disagree with your statement that collective bargaining isn't beneficial because at no point are the efforts of individuals more effective than that of a group. Only together is there change. The people's movements of the world have demonstrated that time and time again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_Unit...
• mrmaximus 10y ago
  "Why am I getting reprimanded?" "Because you ran a unit test..." "What is wrong with that?" "It's Brian's job to press that key, not yours. You violated Union rules"
  • na85 10y ago
    You know unions can make and not make whatever rules they want, right? There's nothing intrinsic about unions that would cause that rule to exist.
    • NoPiece 10y ago
      Yeah, but Brian really wanted that rule.
  • 6t6t6t6 10y ago
    - "Hi, we decided to change the terms of your contract and you have to sign this document right now... or else." - "Sorry, I need to talk with he Union first to see what my options." - "Hi, we decided that you need to come to work all the weekends in March and we still have to decide if we will pay for the overtime and how much". - "Mmm... Well, let me ask the Union, but I think that this is not going to happen... I actually had lots of plans for the weekends in March." - "Hi, you are fired. Not because you are a bad professional but because you ask too many questions and because you don't show yourself submissive in front of me". - "Mmm... I am afraid that you will need to have a long conversation with the lawyers of the Union first". That's what Unions are for in many countries.
    • dozzie 10y ago
      Apart from US, in which countries: 1. employer is allowed to unilaterally change contract with employee? 2. employer is allowed not to pay for overtime? 3. employer can fire somebody at a whim? In my country all three are forbidden by law, and I haven't talked about unions yet.
      • 6t6t6t6 10y ago
• MrLeap 10y ago
  Advocate for those affected by automation? That's like the teamsters advocating for bicycle couriers who lost their jobs to UPS. I don't understand how that would work. Good luck though.
• mixedCase 10y ago
  I despise the bullyish behavior of most unions, in fact, the central organization that coordinates them in my country has often been called our "shadow government" due to how they blackmail the state on every issue to take advantage and force them to be wasteful with tax dollars, causing far more damage than what they undo. I am just a single person, but I wouldn't be caught dead in an union just from what I've seen them do.
  • scott_karana 10y ago
    How are companies themselves any different, except that they lobby publicly, with propagandist PR fanfare?
  • el_isma 10y ago
    Sounds like my country... It leaves me wondering if it's the same country or it's the same issue
• specialist 10y ago
  Two big reasons. #1 Abundant labor, meaning buyers market, so developers don't have leverage. This has a pretty good primer on the topic: Democracy At Work https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/1608462471 https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/... #2 I'm as pinko commie liberal socialist as they come, and I can't imagine how even the most well intentioned (least alt-factual neo-reactionary libertarian) group of developers can coordinate collectively. Said another way, I can't imagine preventing the free-rider, defector problem. This book covers the sociology of collective action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action Maybe, just maybe, there's a unifying issue or policy, like protecting privacy rights, that could motivate most developers to pull in the same direction... Just to throw out an idea as an example.
  • wattt 10y ago
    Wow you and I live in alternate universes. In my experience, and having been without work at various times, and freelancing... I believe developers are scarce. You need an aptitude and some (self?) training to take part and a lot of people can't be bothered. That being said, I see you describe yourself as a "pinko commie" and as a business owner who was at one time a union administrator in a past life I would never hire you, so perhaps that explains the bubble you are living in.
    • NoPiece 10y ago
      Good developers are scarce, bad ones aren't.
      • wattt 10y ago
        I guess if you aren't good you start calling yourself a "pinko commie" as if it was a virtue!
      • tacostakohashi 10y ago
        I think this is probably the crux of why organizing isn't appealing for developers / tech workers. There is huge disparity and in worker skill levels, productivity and salaries. Lots of mediocre developers on, say $60,000, but also lots of guys on $150,000 and up, with pretty different concerns (e.g., maybe the guy on $200,000 can live with a few late nights). Pretty different from, say, auto workers or bus drivers where you have thousands of staff at the same skill and salary level, with the same interests and concerns.
• appleflaxen 10y ago
  When unions are organized, they are interested in improving the workers' positions. Over time, though, they just become one more entity in the workplace, and advocate for their own power and money over all else. It is a corrosive influence that starts out ok, but degrades to a very low common denominator, and puts a company on the ropes. There is no better example of this than detroit.
• booleandilemma 10y ago
  Because things are good now. Developers are making decent salaries. In most cases far better than their friends who chose other career paths. But I don't think it will always be this way. With the rise of bootcamps and the influx of new developers we're going to see over the next 15 years, thanks to all of today's kids learning to code, I think developers are at serious risk of becoming commoditized. I see a future where a developer is paid the salary of a retail cashier and it scares me.
  • mrmaximus 10y ago
    > I see a future where a developer is paid the salary of a retail cashier and it scares me. The only way that will happen is if Point-of-Sale systems become so complex that a developer has to run them, or development becomes as easy as punching buttons on a Point-of-Sale system.
    • booleandilemma 10y ago
      The difficulty of development doesn't have to change, and I'm not saying it will, but the number of people who know how to program will increase.
      • dsacco 10y ago
        That concerns me as well. If you'd like some consolation, make a job post and interview "senior software engineers" sometime. Try fizzbuzz as a first question (yes, even in 2017).
  • madamelic 10y ago
    Yeah. It was a really sad day when they started teaching English and Math to elementary school kids. Kids today are just punching out novels and theorems like there is no tomorrow...
• solipsism 10y ago
  I think a key component to unions is a marked class dichotomy. Blue collar on one side, white on the other. This leads to strong "us vs them" tribal instincts to prevail. I don't think that dichotomy is as strong in tech industries, if it exists at all.
  • specialist 10y ago
    Very interesting observation. I had always seen the fight as between capital and labor. But then again, I'm an elitist white urbanite. The book Democracy at Work (linked upthread) attempts to find a third way. Worker owned democratically run organizations. My personal interest comes from when I used democratic decision making on my own teams, to great effect. Alas, we didn't control the capital, so our efforts had limited broader success.
    • adrienne 10y ago
      The fight is between capital and labor. The problem is that most developers see themselves as potential capital - it's the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" quip in another form. Nearly everyone on Hacker News seems to think they could be the next unicorn founder, if they wanted to.
• DelaneyM 10y ago
  You seem to be describing donating to the EFF. That's good, I support the EFF. But an EFF which gets to negotiate my salary for me? No thanks. I'll keep donating to the EFF and just not join the union, thanks. Without collective bargaining, what you're describing isn't a "new style of union" but an advocacy organization. We probably need more of those, but they're really hard to run effectively.
• wattt 10y ago
  Scarcity. Once you know how to program, and others know that, everyone wants to hire you. There are simply not enough developers yet for all the things people want to do right now.
• sshine 10y ago
  Developers do unionize. Some developers. In some countries. [Bernie]Take for example Denmark[/Bernie]. In Denmark, PROSA is the union of IT professionals and lives up to several of your ideas of a new style of union. They have a strict definition (job titles, educational background) that excludes designers but includes front-end developers. But since IT workers, compared to so many other industries, are rather well off, PROSA is not a typical worker's union. I assume the main reason why people are members is to get access to the part-government funded unemployment fund, and the secondary reason is to support its IT politics. Yes, they've handled large-scale conflict and strikes in the past, and yes, they handle collective agreements for workers in a few larger organisations. But because there's so little conflict in this sector in Denmark, it is mostly handled on a case-by-case basis (where the union membership fee can be seen as a subscription to legal aid) and the union can spend its energy on[1]: - Lobbying for better IT policy. Unlike like-minded non-profits, the union has a good budget, full-time employees, career lobbyists etc. Still, IT policy is not being taken very serious in Denmark (being just a series of tubes) - Running citizen-focused campaigns that focus on privacy, use of FOSS, the free internet, TPP, automation, etc. - Donating, on occasion, to non-profits that really need it. I think EFF were targets at least once. It does not maintain or create standards. It does not hold companies responsible for privately made security choices. (The media does to some extent, but as you may have read, paying for security is more expensive than screwing up and dealing with the consequences.) It does not support FOSS directly, AFAIK, but since Denmark is such a small place, there are active FOSS players both among union members and employees. Among other things PROSA does, which you have not mentioned that a new style of union could is: Create a geographically based community. Some meetup groups use their meeting rooms (e.g. Functional Copenhageners; MF#K). And there's a lot of user groups organized within PROSA, so in a sense they've taken over the social aspect of LUGs (Linux User Groups); e.g. makers, roboticists, board gamers, network admins, etc. If you ask me, unions in IT are useful if you're the hundred-something or thousand-something employee in a large corporation. If you can't simply switch jobs from one month to the next. If you don't get paid so well that you could take months off if you wanted. And IT is large enough to encompass people for whom that makes total sense. And then there's those who probably get paid more without a collective wage agreement. In Denmark, some of those choose to stay for the cozy atmosphere. :) [1]: Note, I never worked for PROSA. I'm sure they do a hell of a lot more union-related work than I can imagine exists. Also, I know nothing of how IT unions work elsewhere. I just wrote articles for their magazine while I was a student.
• serge2k 10y ago
  1. Because most people aren't treated that badly. 2. Because Americans have been systematically brainwashed to think Unions are awful things. Everyone has horror stories of Unions, Unions will take away your "right to work", etc...
• fleitz 10y ago
  Because developers don't see any advantage in unionizing. It's like asking why cats don't herd. Also many of the issues that matter to you don't matter to developers, or aren't convincingly argued. If you want developers to unionize the first step is consulting them on what changes they'd like to see and then creating an organization to effect those changes, treat the union like a lean startup creating an MVP and I bet you may have success.
• meddlepal 10y ago
  No thanks. I prefer to negotiate on my own and represent myself. I don't trust unions and I think they lead to massive inefficiency. I would support a professional organization however that performs some amount of accreditation and peer review especially if it led to better hiring decisions throughout the industry and higher quality software.
• substack 10y ago
  Collective action is hard, particularly when tech companies form and dissolve very quickly and turnover is high. In addition to unions, worker ownership through cooperatives is another avenue for better conditions. In worker cooperatives, workers own the business, so business objectives are much more aligned with labor. Cooperatives don't have to worry about management union-busting or moving production elsewhere.
• RangerScience 10y ago
  I like the line of your thinking, but - seems to me the other commenters have it. Sounds more like a advocacy group, or a professional association. I think the actual answer to your question is "for many of us, things are pretty good". Unionization happens with wide-spread abuses; when things generally suck. I don't know what wide-spread abuses there are in software, particularly salaried positions. I don't necessarily need a union, but I do need the information necessary to negotiate better - that sounds like a professional association.
• kardashev 10y ago
  I was at a conference once setting up a booth for a company I worked for. We ended up borrowing an electric screwdriver from a booth next door, but had to turn it by hand because only union members were allowed to use electric tools to setup a booth. Unions may have helped once upon a time, but now they just take money from your compensation to pay union managers who work against a company being efficient (which makes pay even less over time).
• scamracket99999 10y ago
  IMHO, Developers are unionized! Here is how the scam racket works. 1.)Open Source Software is 'THE INTERNET.' Linux OS, BSD, I am using Firefox and Vim/vi text editor, etc is pervasive and important. 2.)The major media aka 'fake news' point to Linux, founder of Linux with his middle finger upraised. Pun intended. Demonize and scapegoat all developers as 'crazies', hackers, crackers, and co-conspirators for reddit, HN, or other internet discussion areas. 3.)Sure, a twelve year old can code. But, is it quality and sustainable. There are child soldier armies in Africa. Do you get the point? 4.)the real job is called Unix System Administrator or applications engineer or electrical engineer or business analyst. The names of job titles change in order to give you a LOWER SALARY and keep you a 'college student debt slave.' Your real skillset is contributing to the codebase aka knowledge base aka collaboration mesh aka Internet aka e-commerce protocol. Do you get it now about the scam racket? 5.)Even OpenBSD and various New York City Linux Clubs are close to bankrupt. It is difficult to find volunteers. With no volunteers, I doubt there will be any 'organization even considering' the formation of a union. 6.)Look to history! One class of 'skilled worker' aka software developer aka COAL MINER worked harder than slaves. Coal Miners got 'black lung' and lived their life like sucking for air through a straw. Developers got 'eye disease' and lived their life like half-blind cripples. The Coal Miner "Molly McGuires' were a 'secret organization', broken as a criminal conspiracy. Some were 'Irish'; some were not ON BOTH SIDES, the monopoly 'Robber Baron' Franklin Benjamin Gowen versus criminal leader "Hugh McGehan" and Pinkerton Detective Covert Agent and infiltrator "James McParlan." 7.)No, IMHO, I don't think "Occupy WallStreet" stands a chance of starting a union. 8.)I like to rewrite basic Perl and shell scripts into Python calling into C++ code. Withe the new evolving standards of C++, I know CHAOS, CONFUSION, even failure and desperation will occur. 9.)This is NOT about EFF or 'do-gooder organizations.' IT IS ABOUT YOU, the CODER. When the new AI robot and flexible hardware architecture based on FPGA, etc. happens and sixty percent of the workers are out of work, THEN IT IS TIMES OF DESPERATION. 10.)only then, will the 'scam racket' aka 'conspiracy theory' aka predatory capitalism aka the alt-right wing of the internet movement will be revealed. Does that answer the question "Why don't developers unionize?" No, zero! It's not about the money or even insurance benefits. The CEO 'leads and manages' to get paid 500 times multiple of lowly coder. THE CEO has trouble fixing the Excel Spreadsheet macro on his laptop. Something is wrong; badly wrong. There is a 'scam racket.'
• scamracket99999 10y ago
  IMHO, Developers are unionized! Here is how the scam racket works. 1.)Open Source Software is 'THE INTERNET.' Linux OS, BSD, I am using Firefox and Vim/vi text editor, etc is pervasive and important. 2.)The major media aka 'fake news' point to Linux, founder of Linux with his middle finger upraised. Pun intended. Demonize and scapegoat all developers as 'crazies', hackers, crackers, and co-conspirators for reddit, HN, or other internet discussion areas. 3.)Sure, a twelve year old can code. But, is it quality and sustainable. There are child soldier armies in Africa. Do you get the point? 4.)the real job is called Unix System Administrator or applications engineer or electrical engineer or business analyst. The names of job titles change in order to give you a LOWER SALARY and keep you a 'college student debt slave.' Your real skillset is contributing to the codebase aka knowledge base aka collaboration mesh aka Internet aka e-commerce protocol. Do you get it now about the scam racket? 5.)Even OpenBSD and various New York City Linux Clubs are close to bankrupt. It is difficult to find volunteers. With no volunteers, I doubt there will be any 'organization even considering' the formation of a union. 6.)Look to history! One class of 'skilled worker' aka software developer aka COAL MINER worked harder than slaves. Coal Miners got 'black lung' and lived their life like sucking for air through a straw. Developers got 'eye disease' and lived their life like half-blind cripples. The Coal Miner "Molly McGuires' were a 'secret organization', broken as a criminal conspiracy. Some were 'Irish'; some were not ON BOTH SIDES, the monopoly 'Robber Baron' Franklin Benjamin Gowen versus criminal leader "Hugh McGehan" and Pinkerton Detective Covert Agent and infiltrator "James McParlan." 7.)No, IMHO, I don't think "Occupy WallStreet" stands a chance of starting a union. 8.)I like to rewrite basic Perl and shell scripts into Python calling into C++ code. Withe the new evolving standards of C++, I know CHAOS, CONFUSION, even failure and desperation will occur. 9.)This is NOT about EFF or 'do-gooder organizations.' IT IS ABOUT YOU, the CODER. When the new AI robot and flexible hardware architecture based on FPGA, etc. happens and sixty percent of the workers are out of work, THEN IT IS TIMES OF DESPERATION. 10.)only then, will the 'scam racket' aka 'conspiracy theory' aka predatory capitalism aka the alt-right wing of the internet movement will be revealed. Does that answer the question "Why don't developers unionize?" No, zero! It's not about the money or even insurance benefits. The CEO 'leads and manages' to get paid 500 times multiple of lowly coder. THE CEO has trouble fixing the Excel Spreadsheet macro on his laptop. Something is wrong; badly wrong. There is a 'scam racket.'
• russelluresti 10y ago
  Historically speaking, unions do not form until the workers are in a crunch/threatened with losing their jobs. During these times, things are good for most developers so they don't see the need to unionize. Unions are also only effective because they are generally location-based. If you want to build a building in New York, you have to get a construction crew that can work in New York. That makes it very easy for a group to unionize New York workers - because their tools for bargaining (e.g. strikes) are easy to carry out when centralized. But on the web, this is much more difficult. If you unionized all U.S. developers, companies would simply outsource to other countries where the union doesn't exist. And while there are a few international unions, AFAIK none of them are very effective at organizing. In short, digital work is very easy to outsource and makes unions completely ineffectual.
• slantaclaus 10y ago
  "Advocate for those affected by automation" -- sounds like a conflict of interest to me.
• gremlinsinc 10y ago
  One thing I would like is a specifically 'contractor' umbrella corp/union hybrid--you work for the corporation... but you VOTE on how much the CEO/Board can take home - and you pay dues/etc.. to be officially an employee on paper only -- so that the umbrella corp can collectively bargain for decent healthcare/dental/etc --and other benefits AND -- say you just started contracting 6 months ago...well you have to wait 2 years to get a mortgage.. if you're an employee that wait time is only 6 months.. and probably other benefits of being an 'employee'... You could sync it up w/ your bank account so it'll have a paystub record that takes your contractor earnings and puts all that as payments..or something not sure on legalities or specifics but having just started working from as a self-employed contractor and my wife just getting laid off finding getting mortgages and healthcare is a PAIN IN THE ASS!
• jones1618 10y ago
  Developers like to think they are above blue collar concerns but I've witnessed or heard first-person accounts of workplace abuses for otherwise "privileged" developers. Although we have marketable skills and relative "career security", that doesn't make switching jobs any less disruptive for our career path, our families, health plans, stress levels, etc. So, I like your idea of a developer's union with emphasis on professional standards, EFF principles, etc. It would also be a powerful ally for responding to workplace abuses I've seen such as: 1) excessive, mandatory work hours. I know game developers that are required to work 60-80 hour work weeks and sleep at their desks. 2) outsourcing abuse: Having to manage and train offshore "resources" who become your replacement. 3) Keep-a-good-engineer down syndrome. Organizationally suppressing engineers from advancing so they stay in essential, non-executive roles. And, if you think that your cushy job is immune to these problems, consider that I've seen nearly every one of these conditions arise (usually after a management change) in otherwise humane companies with positive corporate cultures. While a union might not prevent every individual abuse, it might provide a check on companies who essentially hold your "cushy job" for ransom while they take advantage of the fact that you are salaried (not paid hourly) and can work from home any day or night.
• goelevator 10y ago
  Unionization doesn't provide freedom, it provides more structure. Sure it can benefit you as times are hard, but unlike physical labor or hazardous work conditions, the need that you seem to be wanting is not a union. You are looking for ways for the status quo of employees to change from their employers. The ownership and lack of respect many companies have on their employees can create issues. What if instead you fought for a different system that would put more control in the hands of groups of developers without unions? What if you solidified what it meant to create teams that can stand up for what they believe inside the organizations? I think teams will end up running most organizations, if many are not already. I read everyday about some team leaving and forming an entire product for another company. Why is this so hard on a massive scale? Why not create a movement for teams inside companies to change the relation vs external structures like unions. Forget unions. Build your teams and stand up for what the team believes in, regardless of what company you work for.
• itbeho 10y ago
  "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization." http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
  • dsacco 10y ago
    Do you have some more commentary to add about this to make it relevant to the discussion? You just threw out a sort of related quote without any connecting context to the question at hand.
• flyby 10y ago
  Ignoring administrative details, a union is simply enough usually self-interested people becoming sufficiently one in purpose for long enough for it to be in an industry's best interests to cooperate with that union of people - instead of self-interested individuals - in order to enlist the labor that industry needs to achieve its goals. The reason it hasn't happened is there isn't sufficient denial of self-interest for unionized interest to achieve critical mass to become a singular force to be reckoned with.
• w_t_payne 10y ago
  Unions may be the wrong model. I'd prefer to see developers organise along the same lines as the legal profession. I.e. instead of encouraging more people to enter the profession we start to lobby for legislation that erects barriers, requires professional qualifications etc... We should restrict the supply of developers and start to perpetuate memes that normalise a significant increase in societal and economic status.
• kahnpro 10y ago
  Unfortunately so many developers are making enough money that it goes to their heads. The demand for our skills gives us a very rare luxury that we can actually negotiate employment contracts somewhat fairly, and so many developers just cannot conceive of other professions where it's the company's way or the highway. We don't face enough hardships to see the value in unions. Unfortunately it won't last forever.
• herbst 10y ago
  This is all happening on multiple levels. EFF beeing a big one, CCC also well known, next to their many small local branches.
• owebmaster 10y ago
  Digital nomad communities are a new type of union. I'm starting to develop the network around me with this mindset (as I'm a digital nomad myself).
• rtfm666 10y ago
  quinequine: Would you please drop me a line via my mail (lukewm AT riseup DOT net). I'd love to start up a dialogue about this. It's been something that is interesting me a lot lately.
• robin-berjon 10y ago
  It's only a small subset of what you describe, and I wouldn't call it a union as such, but the WICG (https://wicg.io/ https://wicg.io/) was created as a means to help developers organise and produce the Web standards they need, to somewhat counterbalance some of the influence of browser vendors.
• shaftway 10y ago
  Honestly, I don't understand the role of unions in modern society. At least not in major metropolitan areas. The original goal of a union was to protect people who had no other realistic employment oppotunities. If you lived in rural Pennsylvania digging in a coal mine, I totally get unionization. More power to you (/me beats his chest in solidarity). But you're talking about the modern age for a group that has arguably more career mobility than any other career in the history of the world. If I don't like the conditions at a job, I'll pick up and leave. There are hundreds of jobs I can select from; the tech world is literally my oyster. If enough people leave, conditions will change, but frankly I won't care because I won't be there. Protection against mass layoffs? That sounds like you want to drag the company down. I'd rather see 50% of the people continue on with a job indefinitely than see 95% with a job for a few months until the company shuts its doors. These factors makes unions uninteresting for me. But there are other factors that make me openly hostile to unions. I think that collective bargaining in pay brings the average salary up, but I'm not an average engineer. I like to think I'm in at least the top 25% (I'd like to say I'm in the 5%, but I don't know if I am), and so my assumption is that unions will bring my salary down. Frankly I don't care about bringing low-end engineers' salaries up at the cost of mine. I assume that the company isn't totally irrational, and it is capable of deciding for itself how important employees are and compensate them accordingly. Also, my experience with unions in the past had to do with my spouse working in education. The union there was not acting in teachers' best interest. They routinely brought in retirement savings pitches that advocated terrible choices for the teachers, any proposed change was immediately mired in committees where it would languish and die, and when you did have an issue the union was outright hostile (spouse was laid off over summer break for the crime of being pregnant, union abruptly stopped discussing the issue with us after a cutoff date until we'd paid the next year's dues, when we paid union said "thank you, we're not going to pursue this, the school's decision stands").
• AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Why don't developers unionize? Because they don't want, to, and nobody can make them. Next question: Why don't they want to? Because they detest bureaucracy, and they see unions as another bureaucracy that they would have to put up with, and they don't want the headaches. They get enough of pointy-haired bosses; they don't want another one, even if the new one is supposed to be on their side.