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> Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I think part of the problem is that w
by danans 8y ago
> Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-)
I think part of the problem is that we non-organized workers (i.e. most tech workers and our similar peers) have accepted the unfortunate media-fueled trope that collective worker action equates to organized-crime connected unions like those of the Hoffa-period Teamsters.
Unfortunately, many white collar workers also don't want to be associated with the image of people in hard hats, even though their power relationship with their employers is not that different from those of blue collar workers. Acknowledging this would mean acknowledging the existence structural impediments to their career advancement that make the chances of their entering the C-suite very low, and that's a bitter pill to swallow.
The vast majority of worker unions (nurses, teachers, international brotherhood of X, etc, etc) are completely above-board organizations.
Also, this outcome demonstrates that there are many forms of collective action that are not full unions. The degree of organization needed depends on the circumstances (The early strong manufacturing labor unions emerged partially as a result of violent repression of worker protests by companies).
One could even argue that the anti-poaching class-action lawsuit against large SV companies many years ago was itself a form of collective action.
- 49531 8y ago> The degree of organization needed depends on the circumstances Not as much as you might think. Militant labor unions are still extremely beneficial despite the lack of Pinkerton assassins. The hardest part in organizing is going from 0 to 1. Once you've gotten to the point of collective action, the idea that you don't then go on to form a union is as wild as a startup building an MVP, getting funding, and then just disbanding.
- scarmig 8y agoFun fact: Pinkerton is still around and is "the world's leading provider of corporate risk management solutions" [0]. Companies regularly hire Pinkerton muscle to handle "security threats" related to union organizing. Interestingly, even Google retains Pinkerton to investigate internal leaks [1]. [0] https://www.pinkerton.com/ https://www.pinkerton.com/ [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-never-sleep https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-neve...
- lsiebert 8y agoStill in existence, and willing to litigate about it's historical portrayal. https://thenerdy.com/red-dead-redemption-pinkerton-lawsuit/ https://thenerdy.com/red-dead-redemption-pinkerton-lawsuit/
- sjg007 8y agoYou’d think Pinkerton would have rebranded.
- jeffdavis 8y agoPerhaps it's still an effective brand in their target market?
- FactolSarin 8y agoThis. Their customers are buying into the brand.
- sn41 8y agoAlso, tech workers willingly buy into a very harsh libertarian ideology. It is hard to accept that as an employee in a company, we are more likely the blue-collar Joe Six-Packs, not the John Galts.
- phamilton 8y agoYou ignore the non-union organizations that also protect their own. ABA, AMA, etc. control the supply of doctors/lawyers and accomplish the same end result as unions: higher wages and less competition.
- scarejunba 8y agoThis is the thing. I'm never going to be stopped from working with a guy who wants me to work with him simply because some moron in an ivory tower thinks I don't have the credentials. This is good. I won't accept the alternative.
- kerng 8y agoThe way quality assurance works in software engineering is way below any other industry - so I wouldn't be surprised if at one point some base qualifications are needed, much like a doctor, architect, nurse or teacher...
- scarejunba 8y agoOh I'm of the opinion that it will happen. But I aim to delay it as long as possible until my career ends. After that y'all can turn into a super-IBM. Be my guest.
- ionised 8y agoImagine that sentence coming from a wannabe doctor or civil engineer.
- scarejunba 8y agoI don't build things that will kill people if they're wrong. If I get this slightly wrong, the wrong people will be advertised the wrong car. The world won't end.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
- Bucephalus355 8y agoOne event that really drove a wedge between hard hat ppl and white collar was this riot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Hat_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Hat_Riot A few days after Kent State a group of construction workers head into a protest against Vietnam and pretty viciously attack a crowd of 1000 college students. There is plenty of blame to go around for this event (like any occurrence of mob action) and many sociological trends that led to this, but historians tend to mark this event as the “beginning of the end” for Union influence in the US.
- shawkinaw 8y agoAll you have to do is try to run a conference in Chicago to see how bad unions can make things though. Sorry, you can’t plug that in, only a card-carrying electrician is allowed to do that! And he’s on break. My point here is that unions have done plenty to make a bad name for themselves, blaming everything on the media is simplistic.
- goostavos 8y ago>only a card-carrying electrician is allowed to do that! Had I not experienced it directly (multiple times!), I would 100% think it was hyperbole. My first 'real' job was flying around and recording conferences for a little shop. Chicago and Philly were by far the worst places to work. I was literally not allowed to plug my little hand held recorder into the wall without paying for a qualified union electrician to come in and oversee me. Ignoring the over absurdity of it, on a personal level, how is it not completely embarrassing and demeaning for the electrician that gets called in? Is watching somebody plug in a cell phone charger fulfilling? I mean, I guess getting paid is getting paid, but damn, it just felt Kafkaesque every time. You take someone with talent and an actually useful trade, and then you make them watch other people plug things into wall sockets.
- C1sc0cat 8y ago:-) wonder what would have happened if that happened when I worked at BT "sorry comrade, that is telecommunications equipment can I see your CWA card, oh and did I mention that I am branch secretary (president) of my branch. Its more the rip off prices for lighting and network service that piss me off
- dfxm12 8y agoYou're talking about being "simplistic", yet you want to reduce all unions to one bad example (which seems to protect the members of the union) from a city nicknamed in part due to its overall political corruption[0]? Plus, if you read more than one sentence of the parent post, you'll see it blames than just the media. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City_(nickname)#Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City_(nickname)#Politics
- kcorbitt 8y ago> many white collar workers also don't want to be associated with the image of people in hard hats, even though their power relationship with their employers is not that different from those of blue collar workers I'm not sure that it's reasonable to bucket the bargaining position of all white-collar workers together. The negotiating strength of an employee is strongly tied to the supply and demand of other workers with a similar skillset, which varies widely within "white collar" industries. > Acknowledging this would mean acknowledging the existence structural impediments to their career advancement that make the chances of their entering the C-suite very low, and that's a bitter pill to swallow. No amount of collective action is going to significantly increase an individual worker's chance of making it into the C-suite. It's a simple question of numbers.