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I would hope not. I see tech-workers as professionals not as laborers. I think the great battle to be fought by tech workers is to stop having them treated as c

I would hope not. I see tech-workers as professionals not as laborers. I think the great battle to be fought by tech workers is to stop having them treated as common laborers that perform some kind of rote process. Some times we call software development engineering, and if thats the case I would press anyone to show me an engineering discipline that parallels software engineering in terms of working conditions and relations.

s73ver_ 9y ago
Do you see Directors and Screenwriters as professionals? They belong to a union (the Director's Guild and the Writer's Guild, respectively).
tptacek 9y ago
Most professionals also belong to labor unions. They're just not called that; they're called professional associations.
- gok 9y ago
  There are pretty huge differences between (say) the IEEE and the UAW. Collective bargaining, for example.
  - _jal 9y ago
    I think the GP was thinking more of the state Bars, the Federation of State Medical Boards, National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, etc. Those are not in the same category as the IEEE.
    - gok 9y ago
      Sure, boards which look after professional certifications do have more power, especially in jurisdictions that give those certifications legal power. But those boards still don’t typically negotiate wages or organize strikes.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        What's your point? The NLRA protects your right to organize over anything, not just wages. I agree completely that industry-wide wage controls are a bad idea.
      - _jal 9y ago
        Right, they manage wages with entry limits and what amount to extended hazing rituals. And the power offered by controlling entry shifts negotiating tactics - strikes would rarely have a point. (Although doctors have gone on strike[1] in the US, it is just rare.) They are still labor unions with government-recognized powers, and they carefully look after their members' interests. [1] Stricken, struck, striked?
        ericd 9y ago
        Those of us with more anti-authoritarian leanings don't relish the idea of having an organization with power over our entire profession... As an alternative, anyone can start a company that puts into practice some of the employee friendly ideas you have, and use that to compete for workers, and try to move the market towards that ideal. I did that, and I really enjoyed the experience. I think my co-workers did too.
        _jal 9y ago
        Totally get that. I wasn't trying to make a normative argument here, just pointing out that the state Bar and the SEIU are in the same business. For the record, I do consider some of the externalities generated by the professional guilds to be among the worst negatives of unions. As far as where I'm coming from, I used to be more libertarian-ish. I guess I've come to a view that as population density and interconnectedness increases, maintaining societal stability requires ideologically impure and economically suboptimal compromises. Call it pragmatic socio-nihilism.
        ericd 9y ago
        Heh fair, and I'm certainly not against the idea of government being necessary to coordinate in such large groups, I just don't envy doctors and lawyers for their professional organizations, and am a bit surprised that so many programmers seem to want more structure and intermediaries involved in their employment.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > Most professionals also belong to labor unions. They're just not called that; they're called professional associations. There's a massive difference between a professional association and an NLRB-governed union.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    What's your point? I agree that developers don't neat an equivalent to the Teamsters. The NLRA protects any concerted effort among employees to improve workplace conditions. You don't have to be an "NLRB-governed union" to organize.
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > The NLRA protects any concerted effort among employees to improve workplace conditions. You don't have to be an "NLRB-governed union" to organize. I understand that the NLRA contains provisions which protect employee activity in a non-unionized workplace, but this entire thread beings with the question "do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize?", not "do you think tech-workers will begin to make an organized effort to improve workplace conditions". In that context, saying "Most professionals also belong to labor unions... called professional associations" implies a conflation of the two. And that's an important distinction, because most professional associations' activities don't even fall under the purview of the NLRA at all.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        The NLRA broadly protects any concerted action involving two or more employees to improve any workplace condition or term of employment. You do not have to be in a "union" with "shop rules" and collective wage bargaining to take advantage of it.
        chimeracoder 9y ago
        > The NLRA broadly protects any concerted action involving two or more employees to improve any workplace condition or term of employment. You do not have to be in a "union" with "shop rules" and collective wage bargaining to take advantage of it. I'm aware - but again, that wasn't the original question of this thread.
crdoconnor 9y ago
Actors and writers are not laborers either and they're also competing against the "crapification" of their industry driven by execs trying to undercut them (e.g. reality TV).
- dkhenry 9y ago
  The Screen Actors Guild is an interesting model for professionals. They go much farther then most professional organizations in terms of protecting workers right, but they also don't have rules like you have to hire the actor with 20 years experience before you can hire one right out of school, or you have to pay everyone on the same scale. Also I don't think they have requirements like you must have attended 10 years of school and done 4 years of internship before your allowed legally to work in the field.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    Which is why I, for one, feel they're a far better model for a tech union than an AFL style one.
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > Which is why I, for one, feel they're a far better model for a tech union than an AFL style one. First, SAG-AFTRA is a part of AFL-CIO. Second, over the years, SAG received a number of special exemptions in law that no other union today has received (and after 2012, that's very unlikely to change). So SAG-AFTRA is not really a realistic model for any hypothetically newly-unionized industry.
- curun1r 9y ago
  Add athletes to the list. The unions in the various professional sports leagues also provide an interesting model that still allows individual negotiation within the scope of the collective bargaining agreements. I could imagine a tech workers union negotiating a collective bargaining agreement covering non-competes, intellectual property concerns, working conditions and other such universal concerns while protecting our ability to differentiate ourselves from our coworkers.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I see tech-workers as professionals not as laborers. Professional labor is a subset of labor, and unions representing (exclusively or alongside other) labor exist. (Of course, tech workers don't have much professional organization outside of the labor union kind, either.) > I think the great battle to be fought by tech workers is to stop having them treated as common laborers that perform some kind of rote process. “rote process” or not has nothing to do with the reasons for or against having a union; it has a lot to do with what you'd want a union to negotiate for in terms of working conditions. > Some times we call software development engineering Only because management discovered that labels are good way to distract from substantive issues, because developers eat up the empty status markers.

s73ver_ 9y ago

Do you see Directors and Screenwriters as professionals? They belong to a union (the Director's Guild and the Writer's Guild, respectively).

tptacek 9y ago

Most professionals also belong to labor unions. They're just not called that; they're called professional associations.

gok 9y ago
There are pretty huge differences between (say) the IEEE and the UAW. Collective bargaining, for example.
- _jal 9y ago
  I think the GP was thinking more of the state Bars, the Federation of State Medical Boards, National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, etc. Those are not in the same category as the IEEE.
  - gok 9y ago
    Sure, boards which look after professional certifications do have more power, especially in jurisdictions that give those certifications legal power. But those boards still don’t typically negotiate wages or organize strikes.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      What's your point? The NLRA protects your right to organize over anything, not just wages. I agree completely that industry-wide wage controls are a bad idea.
    - _jal 9y ago
      Right, they manage wages with entry limits and what amount to extended hazing rituals. And the power offered by controlling entry shifts negotiating tactics - strikes would rarely have a point. (Although doctors have gone on strike[1] in the US, it is just rare.) They are still labor unions with government-recognized powers, and they carefully look after their members' interests. [1] Stricken, struck, striked?
      - ericd 9y ago
        Those of us with more anti-authoritarian leanings don't relish the idea of having an organization with power over our entire profession... As an alternative, anyone can start a company that puts into practice some of the employee friendly ideas you have, and use that to compete for workers, and try to move the market towards that ideal. I did that, and I really enjoyed the experience. I think my co-workers did too.
        _jal 9y ago
        Totally get that. I wasn't trying to make a normative argument here, just pointing out that the state Bar and the SEIU are in the same business. For the record, I do consider some of the externalities generated by the professional guilds to be among the worst negatives of unions. As far as where I'm coming from, I used to be more libertarian-ish. I guess I've come to a view that as population density and interconnectedness increases, maintaining societal stability requires ideologically impure and economically suboptimal compromises. Call it pragmatic socio-nihilism.
        ericd 9y ago
        Heh fair, and I'm certainly not against the idea of government being necessary to coordinate in such large groups, I just don't envy doctors and lawyers for their professional organizations, and am a bit surprised that so many programmers seem to want more structure and intermediaries involved in their employment.
chimeracoder 9y ago
> Most professionals also belong to labor unions. They're just not called that; they're called professional associations. There's a massive difference between a professional association and an NLRB-governed union.
- tptacek 9y ago
  What's your point? I agree that developers don't neat an equivalent to the Teamsters. The NLRA protects any concerted effort among employees to improve workplace conditions. You don't have to be an "NLRB-governed union" to organize.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > The NLRA protects any concerted effort among employees to improve workplace conditions. You don't have to be an "NLRB-governed union" to organize. I understand that the NLRA contains provisions which protect employee activity in a non-unionized workplace, but this entire thread beings with the question "do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize?", not "do you think tech-workers will begin to make an organized effort to improve workplace conditions". In that context, saying "Most professionals also belong to labor unions... called professional associations" implies a conflation of the two. And that's an important distinction, because most professional associations' activities don't even fall under the purview of the NLRA at all.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      The NLRA broadly protects any concerted action involving two or more employees to improve any workplace condition or term of employment. You do not have to be in a "union" with "shop rules" and collective wage bargaining to take advantage of it.
      - chimeracoder 9y ago
        > The NLRA broadly protects any concerted action involving two or more employees to improve any workplace condition or term of employment. You do not have to be in a "union" with "shop rules" and collective wage bargaining to take advantage of it. I'm aware - but again, that wasn't the original question of this thread.

crdoconnor 9y ago

Actors and writers are not laborers either and they're also competing against the "crapification" of their industry driven by execs trying to undercut them (e.g. reality TV).

dkhenry 9y ago
The Screen Actors Guild is an interesting model for professionals. They go much farther then most professional organizations in terms of protecting workers right, but they also don't have rules like you have to hire the actor with 20 years experience before you can hire one right out of school, or you have to pay everyone on the same scale. Also I don't think they have requirements like you must have attended 10 years of school and done 4 years of internship before your allowed legally to work in the field.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Which is why I, for one, feel they're a far better model for a tech union than an AFL style one.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > Which is why I, for one, feel they're a far better model for a tech union than an AFL style one. First, SAG-AFTRA is a part of AFL-CIO. Second, over the years, SAG received a number of special exemptions in law that no other union today has received (and after 2012, that's very unlikely to change). So SAG-AFTRA is not really a realistic model for any hypothetically newly-unionized industry.
curun1r 9y ago
Add athletes to the list. The unions in the various professional sports leagues also provide an interesting model that still allows individual negotiation within the scope of the collective bargaining agreements. I could imagine a tech workers union negotiating a collective bargaining agreement covering non-competes, intellectual property concerns, working conditions and other such universal concerns while protecting our ability to differentiate ourselves from our coworkers.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I see tech-workers as professionals not as laborers. Professional labor is a subset of labor, and unions representing (exclusively or alongside other) labor exist. (Of course, tech workers don't have much professional organization outside of the labor union kind, either.) > I think the great battle to be fought by tech workers is to stop having them treated as common laborers that perform some kind of rote process. “rote process” or not has nothing to do with the reasons for or against having a union; it has a lot to do with what you'd want a union to negotiate for in terms of working conditions. > Some times we call software development engineering Only because management discovered that labels are good way to distract from substantive issues, because developers eat up the empty status markers.