9 ms·

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screen

by ng12 9y ago

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. It's not about being a knowledge worker. Screenwriters are unionized because there are many more people who want to write than there are gigs, therefore there's a high potential for abuse.

lr4444lr 9y ago
For the sake of argument, you could ask for protected work hours, overtime, etc. I don't think we need it for this industry, mind you, but more so because there's no monopsony on the labor market from a select few large employers, not because of the supply and demand.
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  Also don't forget it would make it much easier for individual engineers to argue back at Management about employing dark patterns, or directives to make apps/websites addictive and generally harmful. For as much as people like to gripe about LinkedIn and their variously deceptive practices, marketing heads and executives don't write code. There are engineers in there making that stuff happen.
  - ng12 9y ago
    Do you think that's because the developers lack power or it's because they don't really care?
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      Some of both. I'd imagine those that cared enough, and felt confident enough in finding another job left, whereas those who weren't in such a position shut up about it.
  - paxy 9y ago
    What makes you think engineers are against these practices?
- hueving 9y ago
  >not because of the supply and demand. It's still supply and demand. When you have a monopoly on the demand side, you can significantly put downward pressure on the price. Supply and demand doesn't cease to exist even when the market is screwed up. It just puts constraints on the curves. Google "supply and demand graph in a monopoly" to see more.
debt 9y ago
I'm sure there's an argument lying around somewhere that would tell that the best time to start a union is in a seller's market.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Even in a seller's market unions will still provide you with leverage you couldn't get otherwise. Unions aren't only so the dispossessed can bargain for more, they're so any group can bargain for more. The one example I always give is of my mom starting out working in the 70's. Her employer was not unionized but had several unionized competitors in the city. Because her employer didn't want to bother with union negotiations all the time they paid a quarter more an hour than their competitors and so no union ever started up. My mom was benefitting from a union she wasn't even a member of. You could be in that same position if a programmer union ever started up.
- SEJeff 9y ago
  I find there are more than enough people that want me (as a software engineer with 10+ years of low level linux / unix experience) and wish me to be very happy. If I ever was forced to join a union, I'd quit on the spot and go find somewhere else to work. I worked for Comair (small airline owned by Delta) during a stewardess strike, which ultimately caused the company to sell planes and eventually go out of business. Big unions like the teamsters don't give a crap about their members, only their power and greed. It was said a year or so later that the teamsters were talking to other airlines saying, "Don't give us what we want and we'll pull a Comair on you". All of the Stewardess union members, airplane mechanics union members, and pilots union members were furloughed aka given indefinite non-paid leave due to the profit imbalance that the highest paid stewardesses in the industry caused on a sub-par airline. No thanks unions. There is enough free market for what we do that they aren't necessary.
  - Retric 9y ago
    You are likely confusing cause and effect. Comair was having issues before the union got involved. The union simply made the companies failure more obvious.
    - SEJeff 9y ago
      They were doing alright, they just had the highest paid stewardesses in the industry (by a large amount actually) for a solid mid-range airline when it comes to KPIs. If they'd have agreed to be paid more in line with what the industry was paying stewardesses there is a great chance the airline would still be open. Also, no matter how you look at it. The result of the failed negotiations was them selling 90 planes to pay for the stewardesses. This resulted in the furloughing of 90 planes worth of employees, and ultimately in the company not being competitive enough to survive. I saw this front and center as someone with no real view for or against unions sans the union dues were forcibly deducted from my salary whether I wanted to be in one or not. I came out seeing the teamsters for what they truly are. The teamsters unions are the thugs they were formed to prevent. They need to be broken up.
drb91 9y ago
Why pick up gold on the ground when you have bronze in your hand?
davidw 9y ago
> a seller's market Is it as much as we think? It seems that big companies in Silicon Valley had no qualms about talking among one another about not "poaching" developers (what a lame term poaching is). I'm not terribly keen on the idea of unions either (or immigration restrictions for that matter), but we should damn well be sure that companies are not colluding.
- Avshalom 9y ago
  If it was a seller's market we also wouldn't have threads about month long interviewing processes.
  - booleandilemma 9y ago
    I’ve been asked by more than one recruiter to take a pre-test online before the company even interviewed me.
    - iamdave 9y ago
      Same, and I very politely told them to kick rocks.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  Well... That sounds like you want to restrict speech on people! That doesn't sound like it's going to fly. (I wish the fact that corporations are people was a satire...)
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
Maybe you feel confident about your ability to get a job in a week, but there is a cost to your resume, cost to your work relationships, a risk of not being as successful in your search as you expect, and a limited number of buyers in your location. There are a lot of barriers that prevent the seller's market from working efficiently.
debt 9y ago
Unions do other things like maybe even require certain working conditions; standing desk or that they provide computers to you of sufficient power, licenses they'd have to buy etc, maybe they absolutely will not implement certain complex things like a new type of orbital interceptor idk. Unions create a legal framework around repetitive work.
ryandrake 9y ago
Congratulations if you honestly can "quit and get a new job in a week". This is not true for the vast majority of tech professionals. Even if it were currently true in general, it will not be true during the next inevitable tech downturn (I've survived two of them in 20 years so far, knock on wood). Also, organizing is not just about protecting one's job. It's about collectively negotiating for stuff like pay, benefits, working conditions, etc. that are extremely difficult to negotiate as a single employee due to the vast power imbalance in the employee/employer relationship. I don't know about you, but my last few jobs offered almost zero room to negotiate anything--like most jobs, when you work in tech you work entirely on your employer's terms.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  Indeed, and interviews are now a circus of multi-hour sudden death trivia sessions. I honestly don’t know how folks get hired quickly these days unless they have a big network that will let them bypass the bullshit.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    Maybe I have such a niche skillset, but the last few offers I've received (and turned down) were straight from inbound LinkedIn messages. It appears that times are changing.
  - girvo 9y ago
    > big network to bypass the bullshit That’s about the sum of it, yeah. At least for myself, every job I’ve had in the past 6 years has been through my network, and the interviews have been short and sweet formalities.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  If there's a tech downturn are you suggesting that we should still get privileges even when there aren't the jobs or demand to support it? I believe that we are well paid because of the demand and the amount of money a good developer can make a company. If that equation changes, then why shouldn't developers get laid off or lose their jobs? Currently, supply and demand is working very well for most of us, especially in SV. I would never trade my freedom for a union that, in all instances, become friction and the bureaucracy of the union benefits from my hard work.
thrillgore 9y ago
Because you're looking at this like a "grr i'm angery because i'm underpaid," which couldn't be further from the truth. I'm becoming frustrated in this position not over pay, but the complete tone-deafness from management over planning, estimation, and overtime. This has been consistent everywhere i've worked -- pay has never been a factor. If programmers need a union, its not for pay. It's to get management and executive expectations back in line with reality. I'm tired of 60 hour work weeks, and poorly managed pet projects. And I damn well don't want to risk a career change.
throwwwwaway9 9y ago
>>Why do we need a union in a seller's market? Take a look at big tech earnings http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-revenue-employee-2017-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-revenue-employ... . It may look like you're getting a lot, but there's a lot of room left for even greater salaries and (still) insane profits. Maybe even double them.
- nawitus 9y ago
  Unions don't really increase salaries at countries where unions are popular with software engineers (e.g. Finland).
Apocryphon 9y ago
"Everyone has a job there; every week there's a new article about how tech interviews suck or how difficult it is to hire good engineers."
maxxxxx 9y ago
I think especially in a seller's market a union would have a strong negotiation position to raise salaries and improve conditions. I don't think a union can help much in a declining industry.
- pasquinelli 9y ago
  a buyer's market for labor doesn't mean a declining industry, just that strong demand had made an excess supply, as happens from time to time.
tptacek 9y ago
If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work under onerous IP contracts that grant their employers rights to what they build in their spare time? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen environments where they have to blast music into their ears with headphones to focus their attention on what they're building? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers have stories about working late at night and on weekends to ship features on bogus accelerated schedules they had little hand in setting? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers accept payment in the form of equity that has to be executed at great expense immediately after leaving the company, and offers no actual guarantee of return after making that investment? If it's a "seller's market", why are developers forced to move to the most expensive real estate markets in the country to work every day from a particular office when their work can be done more productively from their own home offices? If it's a "seller's market", why are so many developers compensated with equity whose terms they're not even allowed to fully understand? And why is it that their common shares are last in line after liquidation preferences and VCs take their rake? I don't understand how you can spend more than a few months on Hacker News without seeing the litany of complaints developers have about their working conditions. Not simply how much they're paid --- and make no mistake, plenty of developers have those complaints, and feel victimized by the way compensation is negotiated for in this market --- but also simply for how inefficiently and inhumanely their jobs are structured compared to what they so obviously could be. Tech workers should organize. United they bargain, divided they write anonymous complaints on HN.
- odiroot 9y ago
  > If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen environments where they have to blast music into their ears with headphones to focus their attention on what they're building? I'm curious, how does your office look like?
  - tptacek 9y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/lziE8QA.jpg https://i.imgur.com/lziE8QA.jpg It's open, but we got it because we loved the building, and we have two conference rooms with doors for calls. (My "desk" is a big couch with a monitor arm mounted to the wall.)
booleandilemma 9y ago
Why do we need a union in a seller's market? I think this is going to change soon (~10 years). I have seen people with computer science masters degrees working in support positions. I’m not talking about maintenance development, I’m talking about tech support. When I graduated there were maybe 5 people in my class, but now the market is starting to get flooded with CS people. Everyone is hopping on the CS train like there is no tomorrow.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Having a CS degree (at whatever level) does not even remotely guarantee success as a software developer.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    It does drive down the cost of a business employing developers who don’t have to be rockstars, merely good enough.
- ng12 9y ago
  As somebody who does a lot of interviews: I don't care about a master's degree. Anectodally it has a very low correlation with programming ability. The market being flooded with CS degrees doesn't scare me, I'll start getting scared when it takes less than 6 months to hire for an entry-level role.
  - pasquinelli 9y ago
    the pickiness of employers isn't itself a sign you should start getting scared?
    - ng12 9y ago
      That's not pickiness of employers it's a lack of qualified candidates.
paul7986 9y ago
I had this same stupid attitude... 6 months later and after 30 phone & or in person interviews I am still unemployed. I left my last job due to harassment thinking screw this I dont need it and can get a job wherever. Ooops there goes my $110k job/lifestyle!
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  /r/cscareerquestions You can get your resume evaluated and you can ask questions about your performance, maybe there's something you can do to make yourself more attractive to employers.
dtornabene 9y ago
Its amazing that none of the replies (so far) have pointed out something in the very article that spawned this thread, the status of women and minorities. Literally in the title its noted that the publisher is being put on leave, if you read the article it goes on to note that was because of sexual harrassment and his attitude toward gay men. These are bread and butter union issues.
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  Indeed, one of the reasons for why tech unionization became a discussed topic was the Susan Fowler revelations about Uber.
  - dtornabene 9y ago
    I was unaware of this, thanks for that.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > Its amazing that none of the replies (so far) have pointed out something in the very article that spawned this thread, the status of women and minorities. It's not that surprising; Hacker News comments tend not to sympathize with victims of harassment, sexism, or racism when stories about those topics come up. So it's not surprising that it doesn't become the focus of the thread here, since it's not the lede in the story. > f you read the article it goes on to note that was because of sexual harrassment and his attitude toward gay men. These are bread and butter union issues. In theory, yes. In practice, it depends on the workplace. If the workplace is mostly men who don't really have a problem with harassment of women, the union won't either, and women aren't going to have a great time there. That's sadly pretty common in blue-collar unions[0]. [0] eg: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/19/us/ford-chicago-sexual-harassment.html?_r=0&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/19/us/ford-chica...
  - dtornabene 9y ago
    Fair enough to your second point, though I honestly doubt its more or less common in working class unions vs white collars. Sexual harassment doesn't seem to be something that respects class lines as much as people would like it to. I'm still waiting on a "This is what a Trump Voter looks like" profile pieces that covers, say, an intellectual living and working in Cambridge MA, or an upper middle class manager from Sugarland in Houston.
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Used to be true; not this year. Harder to find gigs, hiring takes longer. Used to turn down contracts regularly; haven't for a while now.
zzzcpan 9y ago
Job markets can be seller's markets only temporary, until large employers and investors realize this. At which point they can take away any power people had via secret anti-competitive agreements, artificial barriers for changing jobs, lobbying and investing into more supply, etc. For software developers seller's market is long gone.
TaylorAlexander 9y ago
Many have already replied here but I will respond in my own words. Not everyone can do what you can do and those people in particular benefit from a union. Others have also listed why you may benefit but I wanted to make clear that you assuming everyone is like you is silly.
bsder 9y ago
> Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. Because you will one day be 45 years old ...
pasquinelli 9y ago
"Why do we need a union in a seller's market?" that's a silly question, isn't it? "for when it becomes a buyer's market", seems like an obvious answer. and when that happens, it'll probably be harder to unionize.
jimmaswell 9y ago
I did everything "right." I had a lot of side projects, I collaborated on big projects online with others, I knew a lot of languages, I got a 4 year CS degree and I had an internship. I applied to hundreds of places and heard back from maybe 3 places after months of trying. The best I could get before my current offer was one for 35k from a place that wasted two days of my time going half a state away to interview with them, and a return offer at the internship for $15/hr. I was "lucky" enough to eventually land this current job where I ended up being on more of a "support" team than being put on any real development, which is apparently all generally done offshore, so it's going to be more difficult down the road due to that, I'm sure. I don't recommend getting into tech to people anymore. The bubble is over.
- twblalock 9y ago
  If that's all you can get in this labor market, the problem is probably your resume, the way you apply to jobs, and the way you interview. You should not conclude from your experience that tech is a bad career choice.

by ng12 9y ago

lr4444lr 9y ago

For the sake of argument, you could ask for protected work hours, overtime, etc. I don't think we need it for this industry, mind you, but more so because there's no monopsony on the labor market from a select few large employers, not because of the supply and demand.

FussyZeus 9y ago
Also don't forget it would make it much easier for individual engineers to argue back at Management about employing dark patterns, or directives to make apps/websites addictive and generally harmful. For as much as people like to gripe about LinkedIn and their variously deceptive practices, marketing heads and executives don't write code. There are engineers in there making that stuff happen.
- ng12 9y ago
  Do you think that's because the developers lack power or it's because they don't really care?
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    Some of both. I'd imagine those that cared enough, and felt confident enough in finding another job left, whereas those who weren't in such a position shut up about it.
- paxy 9y ago
  What makes you think engineers are against these practices?
hueving 9y ago
>not because of the supply and demand. It's still supply and demand. When you have a monopoly on the demand side, you can significantly put downward pressure on the price. Supply and demand doesn't cease to exist even when the market is screwed up. It just puts constraints on the curves. Google "supply and demand graph in a monopoly" to see more.

debt 9y ago

I'm sure there's an argument lying around somewhere that would tell that the best time to start a union is in a seller's market.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Even in a seller's market unions will still provide you with leverage you couldn't get otherwise. Unions aren't only so the dispossessed can bargain for more, they're so any group can bargain for more. The one example I always give is of my mom starting out working in the 70's. Her employer was not unionized but had several unionized competitors in the city. Because her employer didn't want to bother with union negotiations all the time they paid a quarter more an hour than their competitors and so no union ever started up. My mom was benefitting from a union she wasn't even a member of. You could be in that same position if a programmer union ever started up.

SEJeff 9y ago
I find there are more than enough people that want me (as a software engineer with 10+ years of low level linux / unix experience) and wish me to be very happy. If I ever was forced to join a union, I'd quit on the spot and go find somewhere else to work. I worked for Comair (small airline owned by Delta) during a stewardess strike, which ultimately caused the company to sell planes and eventually go out of business. Big unions like the teamsters don't give a crap about their members, only their power and greed. It was said a year or so later that the teamsters were talking to other airlines saying, "Don't give us what we want and we'll pull a Comair on you". All of the Stewardess union members, airplane mechanics union members, and pilots union members were furloughed aka given indefinite non-paid leave due to the profit imbalance that the highest paid stewardesses in the industry caused on a sub-par airline. No thanks unions. There is enough free market for what we do that they aren't necessary.
- Retric 9y ago
  You are likely confusing cause and effect. Comair was having issues before the union got involved. The union simply made the companies failure more obvious.
  - SEJeff 9y ago
    They were doing alright, they just had the highest paid stewardesses in the industry (by a large amount actually) for a solid mid-range airline when it comes to KPIs. If they'd have agreed to be paid more in line with what the industry was paying stewardesses there is a great chance the airline would still be open. Also, no matter how you look at it. The result of the failed negotiations was them selling 90 planes to pay for the stewardesses. This resulted in the furloughing of 90 planes worth of employees, and ultimately in the company not being competitive enough to survive. I saw this front and center as someone with no real view for or against unions sans the union dues were forcibly deducted from my salary whether I wanted to be in one or not. I came out seeing the teamsters for what they truly are. The teamsters unions are the thugs they were formed to prevent. They need to be broken up.

drb91 9y ago

Why pick up gold on the ground when you have bronze in your hand?

davidw 9y ago

> a seller's market Is it as much as we think? It seems that big companies in Silicon Valley had no qualms about talking among one another about not "poaching" developers (what a lame term poaching is). I'm not terribly keen on the idea of unions either (or immigration restrictions for that matter), but we should damn well be sure that companies are not colluding.

Avshalom 9y ago
If it was a seller's market we also wouldn't have threads about month long interviewing processes.
- booleandilemma 9y ago
  I’ve been asked by more than one recruiter to take a pre-test online before the company even interviewed me.
  - iamdave 9y ago
    Same, and I very politely told them to kick rocks.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
Well... That sounds like you want to restrict speech on people! That doesn't sound like it's going to fly. (I wish the fact that corporations are people was a satire...)

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

Maybe you feel confident about your ability to get a job in a week, but there is a cost to your resume, cost to your work relationships, a risk of not being as successful in your search as you expect, and a limited number of buyers in your location. There are a lot of barriers that prevent the seller's market from working efficiently.

debt 9y ago

Unions do other things like maybe even require certain working conditions; standing desk or that they provide computers to you of sufficient power, licenses they'd have to buy etc, maybe they absolutely will not implement certain complex things like a new type of orbital interceptor idk. Unions create a legal framework around repetitive work.

ryandrake 9y ago

Congratulations if you honestly can "quit and get a new job in a week". This is not true for the vast majority of tech professionals. Even if it were currently true in general, it will not be true during the next inevitable tech downturn (I've survived two of them in 20 years so far, knock on wood). Also, organizing is not just about protecting one's job. It's about collectively negotiating for stuff like pay, benefits, working conditions, etc. that are extremely difficult to negotiate as a single employee due to the vast power imbalance in the employee/employer relationship. I don't know about you, but my last few jobs offered almost zero room to negotiate anything--like most jobs, when you work in tech you work entirely on your employer's terms.

mixmastamyk 9y ago
Indeed, and interviews are now a circus of multi-hour sudden death trivia sessions. I honestly don’t know how folks get hired quickly these days unless they have a big network that will let them bypass the bullshit.
- linkregister 9y ago
  Maybe I have such a niche skillset, but the last few offers I've received (and turned down) were straight from inbound LinkedIn messages. It appears that times are changing.
- girvo 9y ago
  > big network to bypass the bullshit That’s about the sum of it, yeah. At least for myself, every job I’ve had in the past 6 years has been through my network, and the interviews have been short and sweet formalities.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
If there's a tech downturn are you suggesting that we should still get privileges even when there aren't the jobs or demand to support it? I believe that we are well paid because of the demand and the amount of money a good developer can make a company. If that equation changes, then why shouldn't developers get laid off or lose their jobs? Currently, supply and demand is working very well for most of us, especially in SV. I would never trade my freedom for a union that, in all instances, become friction and the bureaucracy of the union benefits from my hard work.

thrillgore 9y ago

Because you're looking at this like a "grr i'm angery because i'm underpaid," which couldn't be further from the truth. I'm becoming frustrated in this position not over pay, but the complete tone-deafness from management over planning, estimation, and overtime. This has been consistent everywhere i've worked -- pay has never been a factor. If programmers need a union, its not for pay. It's to get management and executive expectations back in line with reality. I'm tired of 60 hour work weeks, and poorly managed pet projects. And I damn well don't want to risk a career change.

throwwwwaway9 9y ago

>>Why do we need a union in a seller's market? Take a look at big tech earnings http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-revenue-employee-2017-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-revenue-employ... . It may look like you're getting a lot, but there's a lot of room left for even greater salaries and (still) insane profits. Maybe even double them.

nawitus 9y ago
Unions don't really increase salaries at countries where unions are popular with software engineers (e.g. Finland).

Apocryphon 9y ago

"Everyone has a job there; every week there's a new article about how tech interviews suck or how difficult it is to hire good engineers."

maxxxxx 9y ago

I think especially in a seller's market a union would have a strong negotiation position to raise salaries and improve conditions. I don't think a union can help much in a declining industry.

pasquinelli 9y ago
a buyer's market for labor doesn't mean a declining industry, just that strong demand had made an excess supply, as happens from time to time.

tptacek 9y ago

If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work under onerous IP contracts that grant their employers rights to what they build in their spare time? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen environments where they have to blast music into their ears with headphones to focus their attention on what they're building? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers have stories about working late at night and on weekends to ship features on bogus accelerated schedules they had little hand in setting? If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers accept payment in the form of equity that has to be executed at great expense immediately after leaving the company, and offers no actual guarantee of return after making that investment? If it's a "seller's market", why are developers forced to move to the most expensive real estate markets in the country to work every day from a particular office when their work can be done more productively from their own home offices? If it's a "seller's market", why are so many developers compensated with equity whose terms they're not even allowed to fully understand? And why is it that their common shares are last in line after liquidation preferences and VCs take their rake? I don't understand how you can spend more than a few months on Hacker News without seeing the litany of complaints developers have about their working conditions. Not simply how much they're paid --- and make no mistake, plenty of developers have those complaints, and feel victimized by the way compensation is negotiated for in this market --- but also simply for how inefficiently and inhumanely their jobs are structured compared to what they so obviously could be. Tech workers should organize. United they bargain, divided they write anonymous complaints on HN.

odiroot 9y ago
> If it's a "seller's market", why do so many developers work in noisy bullpen environments where they have to blast music into their ears with headphones to focus their attention on what they're building? I'm curious, how does your office look like?
- tptacek 9y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/lziE8QA.jpg https://i.imgur.com/lziE8QA.jpg It's open, but we got it because we loved the building, and we have two conference rooms with doors for calls. (My "desk" is a big couch with a monitor arm mounted to the wall.)

booleandilemma 9y ago

Why do we need a union in a seller's market? I think this is going to change soon (~10 years). I have seen people with computer science masters degrees working in support positions. I’m not talking about maintenance development, I’m talking about tech support. When I graduated there were maybe 5 people in my class, but now the market is starting to get flooded with CS people. Everyone is hopping on the CS train like there is no tomorrow.

kelnos 9y ago
Having a CS degree (at whatever level) does not even remotely guarantee success as a software developer.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  It does drive down the cost of a business employing developers who don’t have to be rockstars, merely good enough.
ng12 9y ago
As somebody who does a lot of interviews: I don't care about a master's degree. Anectodally it has a very low correlation with programming ability. The market being flooded with CS degrees doesn't scare me, I'll start getting scared when it takes less than 6 months to hire for an entry-level role.
- pasquinelli 9y ago
  the pickiness of employers isn't itself a sign you should start getting scared?
  - ng12 9y ago
    That's not pickiness of employers it's a lack of qualified candidates.

paul7986 9y ago

I had this same stupid attitude... 6 months later and after 30 phone & or in person interviews I am still unemployed. I left my last job due to harassment thinking screw this I dont need it and can get a job wherever. Ooops there goes my $110k job/lifestyle!

pfarnsworth 9y ago
/r/cscareerquestions You can get your resume evaluated and you can ask questions about your performance, maybe there's something you can do to make yourself more attractive to employers.

dtornabene 9y ago

Its amazing that none of the replies (so far) have pointed out something in the very article that spawned this thread, the status of women and minorities. Literally in the title its noted that the publisher is being put on leave, if you read the article it goes on to note that was because of sexual harrassment and his attitude toward gay men. These are bread and butter union issues.

Apocryphon 9y ago
Indeed, one of the reasons for why tech unionization became a discussed topic was the Susan Fowler revelations about Uber.
- dtornabene 9y ago
  I was unaware of this, thanks for that.
chimeracoder 9y ago
> Its amazing that none of the replies (so far) have pointed out something in the very article that spawned this thread, the status of women and minorities. It's not that surprising; Hacker News comments tend not to sympathize with victims of harassment, sexism, or racism when stories about those topics come up. So it's not surprising that it doesn't become the focus of the thread here, since it's not the lede in the story. > f you read the article it goes on to note that was because of sexual harrassment and his attitude toward gay men. These are bread and butter union issues. In theory, yes. In practice, it depends on the workplace. If the workplace is mostly men who don't really have a problem with harassment of women, the union won't either, and women aren't going to have a great time there. That's sadly pretty common in blue-collar unions[0]. [0] eg: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/19/us/ford-chicago-sexual-harassment.html?_r=0&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/19/us/ford-chica...
- dtornabene 9y ago
  Fair enough to your second point, though I honestly doubt its more or less common in working class unions vs white collars. Sexual harassment doesn't seem to be something that respects class lines as much as people would like it to. I'm still waiting on a "This is what a Trump Voter looks like" profile pieces that covers, say, an intellectual living and working in Cambridge MA, or an upper middle class manager from Sugarland in Houston.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

Used to be true; not this year. Harder to find gigs, hiring takes longer. Used to turn down contracts regularly; haven't for a while now.

zzzcpan 9y ago

Job markets can be seller's markets only temporary, until large employers and investors realize this. At which point they can take away any power people had via secret anti-competitive agreements, artificial barriers for changing jobs, lobbying and investing into more supply, etc. For software developers seller's market is long gone.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago

Many have already replied here but I will respond in my own words. Not everyone can do what you can do and those people in particular benefit from a union. Others have also listed why you may benefit but I wanted to make clear that you assuming everyone is like you is silly.

bsder 9y ago

> Why do we need a union in a seller's market? If I'm unhappy with my job I can quit and get a new one in a week. Because you will one day be 45 years old ...

pasquinelli 9y ago

"Why do we need a union in a seller's market?" that's a silly question, isn't it? "for when it becomes a buyer's market", seems like an obvious answer. and when that happens, it'll probably be harder to unionize.

jimmaswell 9y ago

I did everything "right." I had a lot of side projects, I collaborated on big projects online with others, I knew a lot of languages, I got a 4 year CS degree and I had an internship. I applied to hundreds of places and heard back from maybe 3 places after months of trying. The best I could get before my current offer was one for 35k from a place that wasted two days of my time going half a state away to interview with them, and a return offer at the internship for $15/hr. I was "lucky" enough to eventually land this current job where I ended up being on more of a "support" team than being put on any real development, which is apparently all generally done offshore, so it's going to be more difficult down the road due to that, I'm sure. I don't recommend getting into tech to people anymore. The bubble is over.

twblalock 9y ago
If that's all you can get in this labor market, the problem is probably your resume, the way you apply to jobs, and the way you interview. You should not conclude from your experience that tech is a bad career choice.