4 ms·
Collective bargaining relies on negotiating blanket policies for all the workers. In some industries, that is fine. If all your brick layers get paid the same a
by mrfredward 8y ago
Collective bargaining relies on negotiating blanket policies for all the workers. In some industries, that is fine. If all your brick layers get paid the same and given the same breaks, and all your brick-laying supervisors get their standard supervisor pay, that might be for the better.
It doesn't work that way for knowledge workers and creative types. Some people are rare talents, some people are just okay. Some people fill wear 5 different hats and cover responsibilities outside their title. One artist may be the visionary behind your greatest success, another just follows orders, but both are on the same team and at the same level of the hierarchy.
If you force a system where everyone makes the same salary based on how long they've worked there, the best people will leave. But if people negotiate for themselves, it isn't collective bargaining anymore, and you don't have a union.
Want to prevent burnout? The union negotiates for rigid 9 to 5 hours. Many creative people will hate it. Or you let people come in when the want, but they have to fill out a timesheet, can't work overtime without the approval of both a manager and a union rep, and have to adhere to rigid guidelines.
Unions can't work without bureaucracy, but creative people and creative organizations don't work well with bureaucracy.
- georgeecollins 8y ago>> It doesn't work that way for knowledge workers and creative types. SAG WGA DGA Last I checked all the best people in those fields were members.
- mrfredward 8y agoYou make a good point with screen writers. Admittedly I don't know much about that industry. Do you have a good example of engineering unions? The only one I know of is the SPEEA, and I know of it because one of my friends quit a job to escape the union defined hierarchy and the associated culture.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoThe reason that Unions work for Hollywood is that the final product is dependent on a small number of specific people (mainly actors, but also writers and directors). If those people refuse to work, there is no product. Because actors are unified and honor the other less powerful unions they imbue them with power. Teamsters can strike and gain concessions from studios because actors won't cross the picket line. Knowledge workers are largely cogs. No game project can be held hostage by one or a several critical employees. A majority of game jobs have already left California, with drop in replacements in Shanghai or Montreal or Austin.
- Apocryphon 8y agoSounds like this article illustrates the vital importance in writers to adventure games. Telltale Games’ post Walking Dead Season 1 efforts specifically failed because the writing was not as strong and just attempted to replicate the success of the first.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoThey are vitally important, but they aren't perceived by the public as vitally important, so their negotiating power is limited.
- michaelmrose 8y agoA union isn't a bureaucracy it's a collection of people with aligned goals. If an entire industry is entirely full of shit I don't understand why they couldn't collectively bargain for whatever within reason is required to improve the situation. I can only suppose that people with perspectives like yours have convinced themselves and others the possible is in fact impossible for no discernible reason.
- Apocryphon 8y agoIt's bizarre that people working in an industry that claims to be all about innovation and disruption immediately assume that unions cannot innovate from their Industrial Era forebears.
- mrfredward 8y agoIt's a lot easier to create innovative technologies than innovative social and political structures.
- Apocryphon 8y agoThe two can go together. The gig economy, social media, crowdsourcing, open source are just some examples of social and technological innovation happening together. No one’s just bothered to apply it to unionization, yet.
- stale2002 8y agoPersonally, I judge things based on results. And the actual, real life results for most unions today... is not great. I am not even talking about industrial era stuff. I am talking about existing examples of unions. If this innovation and disruption of the union industry was so easy, then someone would be doing it. But they aren't. And I have no reason to believe that techies would be any better at solving the inherent problems of unions, better than all the other people who have tried. IMO, it would inevitable run into exact the same problems as the ones you see today in existing unions. How else should we judge things, than based on their results?
- Frondo 8y agoEvery union is a democratic organization that is free to define its own rules about pay, time spent on the job, etc. There is no reason, philosophical or technical, why a software dev union would need to have rigid 9 to 5 hours or wages based on length of time on the job. Unions lets workers assert some meaningful control over the operation of the company, instead of simply relying on management to give them conditions they like. A union of creative folks could absolutely reflect the working conditions creative folks like.
- gamblor956 8y agoIt doesn't work that way for knowledge workers and creative types. It actually works quite well for Hollywood, and for scientists and researchers...even though these industries are heavily talent-based. Unions negotiate based on the needs of their members. Some unions, like the Hollywood unions, negotiate job protections, benefits, and salary minimums. Members are free to negotiate better deals.
- stephengillie 8y ago> Some people wear 5 different hats and cover responsibilities outside their title. ... Want to prevent burnout? The union would prevent burnout by making a company hire 5 people to do those 5 jobs, instead of overworking 1 person. Maybe this would cause the company to fail - but needing employees to work so much unpaid overtime is just another unrealized failure mode.