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You really don't need to bring in politics to justify a programmer's union, but if that's the trigger that causes workers to organize, so be it. Just off the t

You really don't need to bring in politics to justify a programmer's union, but if that's the trigger that causes workers to organize, so be it. Just off the top of my head, I can think of a number of entirely non-political ways a union could benefit tech workers: 1) Personalized ergonomic workspaces 2) Legal counsel on basic tech-related issues (patent law, non-compete clauses, sexual harassment, discrimination, etc.) 3) Training and career development 4) Representation to recruiters 5) Group health insurance, tax advice, equipment rentals for freelancers

ralusek 8y ago
What exactly do you mean by unions without politics? Unions are inherently political. The things you've listed here are literally just employment perks, they can exist independently of unions as reasons that someone might want to work at a given company. They also all have a cost to the employer and employee, either of which might prefer to have those resources allocated elsewhere. Companies naturally offer differing employment perks to try to entice people to work for them. Google famously has bowling alleys, dance classes, laundry, massages, food, etc, which all form a part of the package of what might make somebody want to take a job as a developer at Google. Facebook followed suit with many similar perks. As an SF/SV contractor for the last 5 years, it has been my experience that all different companies offer completely different costs and benefits to working for them, and I'm perfectly happy to let the companies compete among themselves for talent. If I have to join some software engineering union whose demands are going to be some bastardization of collective goals, which inevitably will deteriorate into a wasteful bureaucratic entity (as unions tend to do), I lose my ability to freely choose what exactly I'm looking for in a workplace. For example, I don't care about personalized ergonomic workspaces, I don't care about legal counsel, I don't care about training, I don't care about representation to recruiters, I have my own health insurance, I get my own tax advice, and I don't need equipment rentals. Every thing that you've outlined as an objective for a union to accomplish are things that I would rather have the employer spend on salary. Your objectives do not align with mine, I don't want to pay you to accomplish them, and I don't want you to have my employer spend money accomplishing them. I have completely ignored companies with things like swimming pools, ping pong, seminars, etc, and have instead chosen places based off of how much they pay, or how interesting the project is to work on. Everyone's objectives are different, and so long as there is not a massive imbalance of power against the workforce wherein we lose the ability to choose freely, which in the case of a SV developer is absolutely not the case, then I see many more problems than solutions from an attempt to collectivize them.
- tboyd47 8y ago
  I guess I meant more of a labor collective than what's normally considered a "union." I'm not interested in paying for pensions or protecting jobs of old farts who feel threatened by young people. But I am interested in collectivizing with workers to get access to the sort of "perks" that most people rely on their company for, because that's going to increase my ability to freely choose who I do and don't work for. You mentioned you have your own health insurance and that's great. As an independent consultant, I do too, but I don't get the same kind of rates and coverage as I would as part of a company. It's just not offered to people like me. The "free market" response to that would be, "Well, then get a FTE job then, there's plenty out there." But what if I'd rather not depend on my employer for that? We can collectivize; we choose to let our employers do it for us. I don't understand the stark anti-union sentiment. You must realize that sometimes, your interests will diverge from your employers, and that the optimal result for both sides may not always be for you to give up or risk your employment being terminated over it, but it might actually be for the company to change their policies. That outcome is much harder to imagine without some sort of collective bargaining.
  - masonic 8y ago
    You must realize that sometimes, your interests will diverge from your employers But Unions span multiple employers and have the last word over any grievance you might have. You lose standing as an individual to negotiate with or complain to management. And when union leadership and management collaborate against the best interests of employees, you're really screwed. I've been there.
    - tboyd47 8y ago
      Interesting story, do you mind giving more detail?
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  > so long as there is not a massive imbalance of power against the workforce wherein we lose the ability to choose freely, which in the case of a SV developer is absolutely not the case You're right, there isn't a massive imbalance of power- relative to other industries. Yet we get these endless stories of developer misery- toxic workplaces where people are cuffed by golden handcuffs to prevent speaking up or walking, harassment that goes uninvestigated, abuse of contractors, the endless crunch cycle of the video game industry, management that refuses to listen to engineering concerns and decisions, and the dev complaint of the month- open offices, whiteboarding interviews, rejection of remote work, outsourcing, bad equity deals, or whatever else the industry bosses holds sacrosanct. Software engineers are paid more than well- though don't forget that it's partly because that other careers have not seen salaries rise as they should, not that engineers in general are doing much better [0], but there is still a lot more to improve in this industry. Some sort of workers' association can be the solution for these problems, and at least provide some oversight. Why assume that it'd be inevitably doomed to fail as American labor unions in the past. (I assume you're not familiar with the benefits of the German system [1]). Shouldn't an industry whose foundation is on optimization, improvement, and experimentation at least try to build a better union? Why follow tedious axioms like "unions don't work?" [0] https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much-With-so-many-students-pursuing-careers-in-software-engineering-today-do-you-see-salaries-going-down-significantly-in-the-future-If-so-by-how-much/answer/Michael-O-Church https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889
pascalxus 8y ago
I think you DO need to bring some kind of politics into it to justify a programmer's union. Just think what would have happened if those google engineers simply created a union without some "higher moral cause". They would have been fired and replaced instantly. But, Google certainly can't do that if they're gathering together to fight some uniequivocal evil (at least how society sees it) such as "Automated Military drones". Google and facebook can't take any chances on appearing to have unethical behavior - they have far too much at stake.

ralusek 8y ago

What exactly do you mean by unions without politics? Unions are inherently political. The things you've listed here are literally just employment perks, they can exist independently of unions as reasons that someone might want to work at a given company. They also all have a cost to the employer and employee, either of which might prefer to have those resources allocated elsewhere. Companies naturally offer differing employment perks to try to entice people to work for them. Google famously has bowling alleys, dance classes, laundry, massages, food, etc, which all form a part of the package of what might make somebody want to take a job as a developer at Google. Facebook followed suit with many similar perks. As an SF/SV contractor for the last 5 years, it has been my experience that all different companies offer completely different costs and benefits to working for them, and I'm perfectly happy to let the companies compete among themselves for talent. If I have to join some software engineering union whose demands are going to be some bastardization of collective goals, which inevitably will deteriorate into a wasteful bureaucratic entity (as unions tend to do), I lose my ability to freely choose what exactly I'm looking for in a workplace. For example, I don't care about personalized ergonomic workspaces, I don't care about legal counsel, I don't care about training, I don't care about representation to recruiters, I have my own health insurance, I get my own tax advice, and I don't need equipment rentals. Every thing that you've outlined as an objective for a union to accomplish are things that I would rather have the employer spend on salary. Your objectives do not align with mine, I don't want to pay you to accomplish them, and I don't want you to have my employer spend money accomplishing them. I have completely ignored companies with things like swimming pools, ping pong, seminars, etc, and have instead chosen places based off of how much they pay, or how interesting the project is to work on. Everyone's objectives are different, and so long as there is not a massive imbalance of power against the workforce wherein we lose the ability to choose freely, which in the case of a SV developer is absolutely not the case, then I see many more problems than solutions from an attempt to collectivize them.

tboyd47 8y ago
I guess I meant more of a labor collective than what's normally considered a "union." I'm not interested in paying for pensions or protecting jobs of old farts who feel threatened by young people. But I am interested in collectivizing with workers to get access to the sort of "perks" that most people rely on their company for, because that's going to increase my ability to freely choose who I do and don't work for. You mentioned you have your own health insurance and that's great. As an independent consultant, I do too, but I don't get the same kind of rates and coverage as I would as part of a company. It's just not offered to people like me. The "free market" response to that would be, "Well, then get a FTE job then, there's plenty out there." But what if I'd rather not depend on my employer for that? We can collectivize; we choose to let our employers do it for us. I don't understand the stark anti-union sentiment. You must realize that sometimes, your interests will diverge from your employers, and that the optimal result for both sides may not always be for you to give up or risk your employment being terminated over it, but it might actually be for the company to change their policies. That outcome is much harder to imagine without some sort of collective bargaining.
- masonic 8y ago
  You must realize that sometimes, your interests will diverge from your employers But Unions span multiple employers and have the last word over any grievance you might have. You lose standing as an individual to negotiate with or complain to management. And when union leadership and management collaborate against the best interests of employees, you're really screwed. I've been there.
  - tboyd47 8y ago
    Interesting story, do you mind giving more detail?
Apocryphon 8y ago
> so long as there is not a massive imbalance of power against the workforce wherein we lose the ability to choose freely, which in the case of a SV developer is absolutely not the case You're right, there isn't a massive imbalance of power- relative to other industries. Yet we get these endless stories of developer misery- toxic workplaces where people are cuffed by golden handcuffs to prevent speaking up or walking, harassment that goes uninvestigated, abuse of contractors, the endless crunch cycle of the video game industry, management that refuses to listen to engineering concerns and decisions, and the dev complaint of the month- open offices, whiteboarding interviews, rejection of remote work, outsourcing, bad equity deals, or whatever else the industry bosses holds sacrosanct. Software engineers are paid more than well- though don't forget that it's partly because that other careers have not seen salaries rise as they should, not that engineers in general are doing much better [0], but there is still a lot more to improve in this industry. Some sort of workers' association can be the solution for these problems, and at least provide some oversight. Why assume that it'd be inevitably doomed to fail as American labor unions in the past. (I assume you're not familiar with the benefits of the German system [1]). Shouldn't an industry whose foundation is on optimization, improvement, and experimentation at least try to build a better union? Why follow tedious axioms like "unions don't work?" [0] https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much-With-so-many-students-pursuing-careers-in-software-engineering-today-do-you-see-salaries-going-down-significantly-in-the-future-If-so-by-how-much/answer/Michael-O-Church https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889

pascalxus 8y ago

I think you DO need to bring some kind of politics into it to justify a programmer's union. Just think what would have happened if those google engineers simply created a union without some "higher moral cause". They would have been fired and replaced instantly. But, Google certainly can't do that if they're gathering together to fight some uniequivocal evil (at least how society sees it) such as "Automated Military drones". Google and facebook can't take any chances on appearing to have unethical behavior - they have far too much at stake.