5 ms·

> "well, but what would we need to fight for as a union?" Improved compensation, benefits, bonuses, stock options, paid conferences, training, etc...

logfromblammo 9y ago
Bottom-up control of the development process. Our own apprenticeship pipeline. Our own certifications. Genuine influence over interviewing and hiring practices. Minimum contract terms. Our own lobbyists. Promoting business for members outside of Silicon Valley. Our own jobs board. A general strike fund. Our own retirement planning and pensions system. A backup health insurance option. The lobbyists can start by bringing down the exemptions on overtime pay for tech workers, and by trying to loosen immigration restrictions on the people of our industry.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  > "loosen immigration restrictions on the people of our industry" I don't think a U.S. union would try to loosen immigration restrictions...they'd care about protecting the rights of U.S. workers...also, why would a union representing U.S. workers want to increase the labor supply?
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    Naturally, it would be to ensure that all the best people in the world are members of the union, and employing filthy non-union scabs would therefore mean lower quality product. The companies are multinational, so the unions have to be multinational, too. If the company tries to skirt around the union by doing the work in India instead of the US, the union should anticipate the move and surprise the company by already being there, still demanding a better deal for our people. I anticipate the demand for people with technical skills will continue to rise in the future. There is no need to artificially limit the labor supply anywhere, even worldwide, because the world's universities already can't crank out enough people with official credentials. (And when they do, the new graduates still can't get jobs, because that degree apparently still isn't good enough to meet business expectations.) The union could still eat up much of the bootcamp and intern business with its own apprenticeships. That's when it might try throttling the supply, after gaining some control over it, by operating at the optimal point for monopolistic competition. Restrict it just enough to squeeze more money out of the market, but not enough to allow a new competitor to enter. And it benefits all of us to be able to shop around to different jurisdictions as easily as those who employ us. The countries and companies that provide the most attractive environments will get more of us, and therefore prosper, while those who are hostile will get less of us, and therefore rapidly descend into a new dark age of wretchedness and despair, where nothing works properly and half the kiosks and infoscreens either show BSoD or a console screen with no attached keyboard. Then they will rue the day they snubbed the nerds, and weep into their low-tech cloth pillows. (WARNING: This post may contain hyperbole.~)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- madamelic 9y ago
  God no. I don't want to be mandated to strike and pout over not getting enough money. As long as I am treated fairly (I am) and paid fairly (I am), I am not paying any percentage to some company to tell me to screw over my employer. If some company wants to unionize, have fun but I am not joining that party.
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    Have you ever been in a union? > "...pout over not getting enough money" You're trying to make striking sound childish but there are plenty of legitimate reasons why unions go on strike.
    - madamelic 9y ago
      >Have you ever been in a union? No. There is a reason I went into software development and not blue-collar work. ;) (Nothing wrong with it, just not the stuff I want to deal with. Unions included. I lose enough money already to the gov't.)
      - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
        I went the trades route because I didn't have any concrete plan for college when I finished high school and I wanted to get some form of gainful employment so an electrical apprenticeship seemed like a good idea until I figured out something else. I have been in a union before (nearly a decade of industrial electrician/power plant operator work before I obtained my CS degree). You bet there is corruption in some unions, but perhaps it is different in the "skilled trades" though, at least it seems that way from my personal experience. Avoiding blue collar work is a primary motivation for my transition to full time software dev...we'll see how it turns out though because the office culture/work environment is very foreign to me in many ways.
        logfromblammo 9y ago
        I'd like to think that a tech worker's union composed of people already aware of white hat, grey hat, and black hat distinctions would be set up with some structural impediments to corruption. In my head, it would have similar structure to working groups, where stuff gets done by consensus, without anyone having so much authority that they can do an obviously wrong thing and still preserve their influence. I'm not sure how it would work to have a union that can essentially fork itself whenever the leadership goes bad, or even one that has no leadership to begin with, and manages everything with a consensus/compromise algorithm.

logfromblammo 9y ago

Bottom-up control of the development process. Our own apprenticeship pipeline. Our own certifications. Genuine influence over interviewing and hiring practices. Minimum contract terms. Our own lobbyists. Promoting business for members outside of Silicon Valley. Our own jobs board. A general strike fund. Our own retirement planning and pensions system. A backup health insurance option. The lobbyists can start by bringing down the exemptions on overtime pay for tech workers, and by trying to loosen immigration restrictions on the people of our industry.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
> "loosen immigration restrictions on the people of our industry" I don't think a U.S. union would try to loosen immigration restrictions...they'd care about protecting the rights of U.S. workers...also, why would a union representing U.S. workers want to increase the labor supply?
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  Naturally, it would be to ensure that all the best people in the world are members of the union, and employing filthy non-union scabs would therefore mean lower quality product. The companies are multinational, so the unions have to be multinational, too. If the company tries to skirt around the union by doing the work in India instead of the US, the union should anticipate the move and surprise the company by already being there, still demanding a better deal for our people. I anticipate the demand for people with technical skills will continue to rise in the future. There is no need to artificially limit the labor supply anywhere, even worldwide, because the world's universities already can't crank out enough people with official credentials. (And when they do, the new graduates still can't get jobs, because that degree apparently still isn't good enough to meet business expectations.) The union could still eat up much of the bootcamp and intern business with its own apprenticeships. That's when it might try throttling the supply, after gaining some control over it, by operating at the optimal point for monopolistic competition. Restrict it just enough to squeeze more money out of the market, but not enough to allow a new competitor to enter. And it benefits all of us to be able to shop around to different jurisdictions as easily as those who employ us. The countries and companies that provide the most attractive environments will get more of us, and therefore prosper, while those who are hostile will get less of us, and therefore rapidly descend into a new dark age of wretchedness and despair, where nothing works properly and half the kiosks and infoscreens either show BSoD or a console screen with no attached keyboard. Then they will rue the day they snubbed the nerds, and weep into their low-tech cloth pillows. (WARNING: This post may contain hyperbole.~)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
madamelic 9y ago
God no. I don't want to be mandated to strike and pout over not getting enough money. As long as I am treated fairly (I am) and paid fairly (I am), I am not paying any percentage to some company to tell me to screw over my employer. If some company wants to unionize, have fun but I am not joining that party.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  Have you ever been in a union? > "...pout over not getting enough money" You're trying to make striking sound childish but there are plenty of legitimate reasons why unions go on strike.
  - madamelic 9y ago
    >Have you ever been in a union? No. There is a reason I went into software development and not blue-collar work. ;) (Nothing wrong with it, just not the stuff I want to deal with. Unions included. I lose enough money already to the gov't.)
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      I went the trades route because I didn't have any concrete plan for college when I finished high school and I wanted to get some form of gainful employment so an electrical apprenticeship seemed like a good idea until I figured out something else. I have been in a union before (nearly a decade of industrial electrician/power plant operator work before I obtained my CS degree). You bet there is corruption in some unions, but perhaps it is different in the "skilled trades" though, at least it seems that way from my personal experience. Avoiding blue collar work is a primary motivation for my transition to full time software dev...we'll see how it turns out though because the office culture/work environment is very foreign to me in many ways.
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        I'd like to think that a tech worker's union composed of people already aware of white hat, grey hat, and black hat distinctions would be set up with some structural impediments to corruption. In my head, it would have similar structure to working groups, where stuff gets done by consensus, without anyone having so much authority that they can do an obviously wrong thing and still preserve their influence. I'm not sure how it would work to have a union that can essentially fork itself whenever the leadership goes bad, or even one that has no leadership to begin with, and manages everything with a consensus/compromise algorithm.