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I don't think it is about technology. In general, unions don't like people to get fired (without proper compensation). If new tech does more work for the compan

I don't think it is about technology. In general, unions don't like people to get fired (without proper compensation). If new tech does more work for the company but no one gets fired I see no reason why unions would have anything against it. However, the whole firing topic is really only filling up a fraction of unions' time. Unions' main tasks are overwatching safety regulations, crunch times, etc... so that the actual time spent at/for the company is better quality whise. This leads to happier, healthier programmers which should be in their employer's interest as well, see e.g. negative press and lack of battle proven personel at telltale.

briandear 9y ago
Ok. We have automated the build process. We don’t need you anymore. Thanks for your service, here’s two weeks’ severance. A union would go nuts in that scenario. Which then supports the theory that unions would oppose technology that improved efficiency since they would care more about the protecting the production input than they care about optimizing the production output.
- ramy_d 9y ago
  Yeah because that's really shitty. If you actually cared about that person you wouldn't throw them out, you'd train and place them elsewhere within your company because they are good employees that contribute positively to your culture.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Unions are just as responsible for being myopic and irresponsible. Shouldn't the teamsters be leading the way in retraining truck drivers given the coming automated truck apocalypse?
    - theyinwhy 9y ago
      There are plenty of trainings offered by unions. However of course, each union offers the courses it has expertise in. Asking a trucker's union to offer courses in Javascript is not feasible. This article is one of many discussing the dawn of truck automation in very much detail: https://teamster.org/news/2018/01/teamsters-union-perspective-automation-featured-rolling-stone https://teamster.org/news/2018/01/teamsters-union-perspectiv... As you can see unions are in fact discussing this very broadly without jumping to easy conclusions. Automation by ML is a complex topic on all levels. We are just at the beginning of what will be very interesting times regarding policing automation, ML, and AI.

briandear 9y ago

Ok. We have automated the build process. We don’t need you anymore. Thanks for your service, here’s two weeks’ severance. A union would go nuts in that scenario. Which then supports the theory that unions would oppose technology that improved efficiency since they would care more about the protecting the production input than they care about optimizing the production output.

ramy_d 9y ago
Yeah because that's really shitty. If you actually cared about that person you wouldn't throw them out, you'd train and place them elsewhere within your company because they are good employees that contribute positively to your culture.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Unions are just as responsible for being myopic and irresponsible. Shouldn't the teamsters be leading the way in retraining truck drivers given the coming automated truck apocalypse?
  - theyinwhy 9y ago
    There are plenty of trainings offered by unions. However of course, each union offers the courses it has expertise in. Asking a trucker's union to offer courses in Javascript is not feasible. This article is one of many discussing the dawn of truck automation in very much detail: https://teamster.org/news/2018/01/teamsters-union-perspective-automation-featured-rolling-stone https://teamster.org/news/2018/01/teamsters-union-perspectiv... As you can see unions are in fact discussing this very broadly without jumping to easy conclusions. Automation by ML is a complex topic on all levels. We are just at the beginning of what will be very interesting times regarding policing automation, ML, and AI.