5 ms·

The idea that a bunch of highly paid conservative software developers would unionize and get the NLRB involved is rich.

by euroclydon 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rjett 8y ago
Collective bargaining can be used to leverage other assets, besides money.
tptacek 8y ago
Why? We're all generally well-paid (even with respect to the value we create). But this whole message board is practically dedicated to the ways in which our industry pisses us off, from confiscatory IP clauses to open offices to death march projects. Who's to say labor can't organize simply for a better shop to work in? That's not unprecedented.
- crazygringo 8y ago
  Because conservatives are anti-union and anti-NLRB. Edit: why the heck am I being downvoted? I'm literally just explaining what I assumed the GP was referring to.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    Only Nixon could go to China. Sometimes in America you see the strangest political bedfellows.
    - telotortium 8y ago
      Nixon.
    - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
      Yes. Another example is Clinton and welfare reform. Politics is weird that way.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Same thing with Reagan and Russia. But I think it's perfectly understandable. If Team Red is for X and Team Blue is against X, then it takes someone with street cred on Team Blue to make X happen, because they're the only one who can get Team Blue to stop the kamikaze opposition to X.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    I agree about the irony. I think it's pretty sad that in the last 12 months, the two major tech/labor stories have been about conservative employees pushing back against supposedly-liberal corporations. But, whatever. A wakeup call is a wakeup call. I think these FB people can succeed, and should succeed.
    - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
      The key word being supposedly. None of these "liberal" corporations have been left-liberal in terms of workers' rights or well-being. They want a rainbow of representation among the top-10% stratum of elite professionals to whom they pay enough to not need food stamps.
  - will4274 8y ago
    The party platform isn't the beliefs of every member of the party. Indeed, it's be absurd if every member of either party agreed with every line from a multi hundred page platform.
- throwaway_45 8y ago
  FB is monopoly at this point. Very few people there are irreplaceable. If this was was a startup you might have more leverage. Mr. Amerige probably doesn't have much here. Mr. Amerige is probably making good money. If he gets fired good luck trying to get another job. Companies hate controversy. Trump won because of Facebook. I don't know why these guys are complaining.
  - rmc 8y ago
    > Very few people there are irreplaceable Ah, but they're not replaceble fast enough. It's hard to get a scab up to speed quick enough. It could take weeks before someone's able to come in at short notice and replace a sysadmin. Hence the employees could take the website down for an hour or so...
  - loco5niner 8y ago
    > If he gets fired good luck trying to get another job. Companies hate controversy. But they love skills.
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    > Trump won because of Facebook. I don't know why these guys are complaining. You tar with rather a broad brush. Is it really so inconceivable that there are conservatives who disapprove of Trump and the far-right? Is it really so inconceivable that there are long-time liberals who don't agree with significant aspects of current liberalism? Modern liberals should be wary of a hardline "us-vs-them" mindset lest they come to discover that there are more of "them" than there are of "us".
- gmadsen 8y ago
  for one, American right wing conservatism is strongly anti-union and anything that diminishes the employers agility to conduct business as they see fit, so the idea of a bunch of well paid conservatives banding together to collectively argue against their employers is very ironic.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    But is conservatism against regulating monopolies? Facebook seems to be a natural monopoly. People only want one social network, and they want everyone they know to be on it. If it's a natural monopoly it should be regulated and, like other utilities, required to provide service to everyone.
- euroclydon 8y ago
  I associate unions with homogenized labor, stratus of equivalent positions, but we’re all too unique 10x butterflies for that. I mean, what part of your career arc would have been better served in a unionized environment?
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Who says it has to be an according-to-Hoyle union? The NLRA covers all concerted organized action. Start a professional association. The doctors and lawyers have them. We don't get one? Why?
    - euroclydon 8y ago
      That’s interesting. I figure we’re more like PEs than MDs or JDs.
    - RandomOpinion 8y ago
      There's the ACM and IEEE already though?
      - tptacek 8y ago
        The ACM is an academic association. The IEEE should be more important professionally than it is; one problem with the IEEE is that you have to have a related bachelors degree to join. Developers should start a new organization that represents the interests of employees of the technology industry.
      - pvg 8y ago
        Those things mostly exist to collect membership fees and run conferences.
  - antt 8y ago
    Unions are one way. Guilds are another. For people who are supposedly so highly paid the majority of my peers can't afford children. The rent of a two bedroom flat/house and the price of daycare means the household needs to earn close to $600,000/y for two children. That's maybe the top 10% in most companies. If a class in society can't afford to reproduce itself it is underpaid regardless of how many trinkets it can afford compared to the median.
- euroclydon 8y ago
  I still think the vast majority of software engineers are either 1) Thankful (if they take a few minutes to consider the unique time in history in which they are employed) that given their relatively modest education investment, they are making the salaries they are. And these are probably your non-high-ranking-university CS majors, those without a college degree, L.A. majors, etc or 2) Graduates of top C.S. programs who are making really great salaries. What real incentive do they have to unionize even along a professional path? I just don't see having their political views stifled at work to be a big motivator. It's a cart/horse position problem. If we had to go to school for 7-10 years to be a doctor or lawyer, then of course, we'd want the protection and insurance of a professional licensing organization. But if I can make half the money of a doctor or lawyer without all the hassle, then why bother?
gthtjtkt 8y ago
Who said they're all conservatives? I'm a liberal and I'd join this group in a heartbeat.
- itronitron 8y ago
  I like your thought process... embrace, extend, extinguish.
- PunchTornado 8y ago
  same here. some liberals are so fanatic that they can't hold a dialogue with a person of opposing views. I've got a friend who stopped speaking with their father because of Brexit. I have no issues being friends with right wing people, even if they're more extreme. I just don't very often discuss politics with them, but we hang out a lot.
badrabbit 8y ago
What if they weren't conservative?
prostoalex 8y ago
The history of unions in the US is based around highly paid incumbents forming “good ole boy networks” when people [of color] started migrating from agricultural areas into big cities and accepting lower pay. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1913/06/the-negro-and-the-labor-unions/529524/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1913/06/the-neg...
- tptacek 8y ago
  The history of almost every institution in America is that of non-blacks forming overt and covert alliances to arrest the progress of black people. For over a decade after the civil rights act, mortgage lending was organized to keep black people out of "white" neighborhoods. Shall we do away with the 30 year fixed mortgage?
eli_gottlieb 8y ago
Sure, it's funny, but shush, they're coming around to unions being good!
quanticle 8y ago
Who says that these software engineers have to be necessarily "conservative"? I'll be perfectly frank. I'm a liberal. I've voted Democratic as long as I've had the right to vote. But I look at what's happening to politics the West Coast with a mixture of disgust and horror. People are losing their jobs for saying the wrong things, donating to the wrong causes, or because they've offended the wrong people. And far from being concerned at the excesses of this politics, activists are gleeful, and are saying that these are just desserts for "oppressors". It's possible to be a liberal and be less than 100% on board with defining everything in terms of intersectional oppression. It's possible to be a liberal, and still think the left has gone too far. It's possible to be a liberal and think that people should only be punished for actions, not beliefs. And I believe that the people standing up at Facebook are, by any standard outside of San Francisco, liberals.
- pvg 8y ago
  People are losing their jobs for saying the wrong things, donating to the wrong causes, or because they've offended the wrong people. They aren't. At least, not any more than previously when they mostly also weren't.

The idea that a bunch of highly paid conservative software developers would unionize and get the NLRB involved is rich.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rjett 8y ago

Collective bargaining can be used to leverage other assets, besides money.

tptacek 8y ago

Why? We're all generally well-paid (even with respect to the value we create). But this whole message board is practically dedicated to the ways in which our industry pisses us off, from confiscatory IP clauses to open offices to death march projects. Who's to say labor can't organize simply for a better shop to work in? That's not unprecedented.

crazygringo 8y ago
Because conservatives are anti-union and anti-NLRB. Edit: why the heck am I being downvoted? I'm literally just explaining what I assumed the GP was referring to.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  Only Nixon could go to China. Sometimes in America you see the strangest political bedfellows.
  - telotortium 8y ago
    Nixon.
  - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
    Yes. Another example is Clinton and welfare reform. Politics is weird that way.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      Same thing with Reagan and Russia. But I think it's perfectly understandable. If Team Red is for X and Team Blue is against X, then it takes someone with street cred on Team Blue to make X happen, because they're the only one who can get Team Blue to stop the kamikaze opposition to X.
- tptacek 8y ago
  I agree about the irony. I think it's pretty sad that in the last 12 months, the two major tech/labor stories have been about conservative employees pushing back against supposedly-liberal corporations. But, whatever. A wakeup call is a wakeup call. I think these FB people can succeed, and should succeed.
  - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
    The key word being supposedly. None of these "liberal" corporations have been left-liberal in terms of workers' rights or well-being. They want a rainbow of representation among the top-10% stratum of elite professionals to whom they pay enough to not need food stamps.
- will4274 8y ago
  The party platform isn't the beliefs of every member of the party. Indeed, it's be absurd if every member of either party agreed with every line from a multi hundred page platform.
throwaway_45 8y ago
FB is monopoly at this point. Very few people there are irreplaceable. If this was was a startup you might have more leverage. Mr. Amerige probably doesn't have much here. Mr. Amerige is probably making good money. If he gets fired good luck trying to get another job. Companies hate controversy. Trump won because of Facebook. I don't know why these guys are complaining.
- rmc 8y ago
  > Very few people there are irreplaceable Ah, but they're not replaceble fast enough. It's hard to get a scab up to speed quick enough. It could take weeks before someone's able to come in at short notice and replace a sysadmin. Hence the employees could take the website down for an hour or so...
- loco5niner 8y ago
  > If he gets fired good luck trying to get another job. Companies hate controversy. But they love skills.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  > Trump won because of Facebook. I don't know why these guys are complaining. You tar with rather a broad brush. Is it really so inconceivable that there are conservatives who disapprove of Trump and the far-right? Is it really so inconceivable that there are long-time liberals who don't agree with significant aspects of current liberalism? Modern liberals should be wary of a hardline "us-vs-them" mindset lest they come to discover that there are more of "them" than there are of "us".
gmadsen 8y ago
for one, American right wing conservatism is strongly anti-union and anything that diminishes the employers agility to conduct business as they see fit, so the idea of a bunch of well paid conservatives banding together to collectively argue against their employers is very ironic.
- leereeves 8y ago
  But is conservatism against regulating monopolies? Facebook seems to be a natural monopoly. People only want one social network, and they want everyone they know to be on it. If it's a natural monopoly it should be regulated and, like other utilities, required to provide service to everyone.
euroclydon 8y ago
I associate unions with homogenized labor, stratus of equivalent positions, but we’re all too unique 10x butterflies for that. I mean, what part of your career arc would have been better served in a unionized environment?
- tptacek 8y ago
  Who says it has to be an according-to-Hoyle union? The NLRA covers all concerted organized action. Start a professional association. The doctors and lawyers have them. We don't get one? Why?
  - euroclydon 8y ago
    That’s interesting. I figure we’re more like PEs than MDs or JDs.
  - RandomOpinion 8y ago
    There's the ACM and IEEE already though?
    - tptacek 8y ago
      The ACM is an academic association. The IEEE should be more important professionally than it is; one problem with the IEEE is that you have to have a related bachelors degree to join. Developers should start a new organization that represents the interests of employees of the technology industry.
    - pvg 8y ago
      Those things mostly exist to collect membership fees and run conferences.
- antt 8y ago
  Unions are one way. Guilds are another. For people who are supposedly so highly paid the majority of my peers can't afford children. The rent of a two bedroom flat/house and the price of daycare means the household needs to earn close to $600,000/y for two children. That's maybe the top 10% in most companies. If a class in society can't afford to reproduce itself it is underpaid regardless of how many trinkets it can afford compared to the median.
euroclydon 8y ago
I still think the vast majority of software engineers are either 1) Thankful (if they take a few minutes to consider the unique time in history in which they are employed) that given their relatively modest education investment, they are making the salaries they are. And these are probably your non-high-ranking-university CS majors, those without a college degree, L.A. majors, etc or 2) Graduates of top C.S. programs who are making really great salaries. What real incentive do they have to unionize even along a professional path? I just don't see having their political views stifled at work to be a big motivator. It's a cart/horse position problem. If we had to go to school for 7-10 years to be a doctor or lawyer, then of course, we'd want the protection and insurance of a professional licensing organization. But if I can make half the money of a doctor or lawyer without all the hassle, then why bother?

gthtjtkt 8y ago

Who said they're all conservatives? I'm a liberal and I'd join this group in a heartbeat.

itronitron 8y ago
I like your thought process... embrace, extend, extinguish.
PunchTornado 8y ago
same here. some liberals are so fanatic that they can't hold a dialogue with a person of opposing views. I've got a friend who stopped speaking with their father because of Brexit. I have no issues being friends with right wing people, even if they're more extreme. I just don't very often discuss politics with them, but we hang out a lot.

badrabbit 8y ago

What if they weren't conservative?

prostoalex 8y ago

The history of unions in the US is based around highly paid incumbents forming “good ole boy networks” when people [of color] started migrating from agricultural areas into big cities and accepting lower pay. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1913/06/the-negro-and-the-labor-unions/529524/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1913/06/the-neg...

tptacek 8y ago
The history of almost every institution in America is that of non-blacks forming overt and covert alliances to arrest the progress of black people. For over a decade after the civil rights act, mortgage lending was organized to keep black people out of "white" neighborhoods. Shall we do away with the 30 year fixed mortgage?

eli_gottlieb 8y ago

Sure, it's funny, but shush, they're coming around to unions being good!

quanticle 8y ago

Who says that these software engineers have to be necessarily "conservative"? I'll be perfectly frank. I'm a liberal. I've voted Democratic as long as I've had the right to vote. But I look at what's happening to politics the West Coast with a mixture of disgust and horror. People are losing their jobs for saying the wrong things, donating to the wrong causes, or because they've offended the wrong people. And far from being concerned at the excesses of this politics, activists are gleeful, and are saying that these are just desserts for "oppressors". It's possible to be a liberal and be less than 100% on board with defining everything in terms of intersectional oppression. It's possible to be a liberal, and still think the left has gone too far. It's possible to be a liberal and think that people should only be punished for actions, not beliefs. And I believe that the people standing up at Facebook are, by any standard outside of San Francisco, liberals.

pvg 8y ago
People are losing their jobs for saying the wrong things, donating to the wrong causes, or because they've offended the wrong people. They aren't. At least, not any more than previously when they mostly also weren't.