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As someone who has pushed back against on-call overreach, all it achieved was a negative remark on my next performance review. The company attempted to make an

As someone who has pushed back against on-call overreach, all it achieved was a negative remark on my next performance review. The company attempted to make an "intermediate-severity" class of incident, where on-call workers were required to respond between the hours of 8 am and midnight (the next-lowest severity required response only during business hours, and the next-highest required 24 hour response - both reasonable if applied reasonably). Of course this new severity class was instantly abused to enact permanent crunch time. Even my humble suggestion of changing it from 9 am to 11 pm so I could have time for 8 hours of sleep with buffer time on each end was shot down. Individual workers are powerless, only able to bring their own labor to the negotiation table. I was lucky to be able to just switch teams to get away from it, but would have much preferred the option of enacting positive change without changing jobs.

soheil 8y ago
> Individual workers are powerless, only able to bring their own labor to the negotiation table. What do you mean they are only able to bring their own labor to the table, what else is there that a laborer can bring to the table other than their own labor? If individual workers feel powerless that is probably not because of them possessing something other than their own labor while not being able to negotiate that something.
- ahelwer 8y ago
  Many workers putting their labor on the table is a much, much stronger negotiating position than a single worker putting their labor on the table. This is the entire thesis of unions.
  - soheil 8y ago
    I am asking whether it is legitimate or not, I can't help but think how incredibly well it also applies to gangs when I hear that argument. If more money is paid to individual employees just because they demanded the added cost to the employer makes them inherently less competitive and therefore able to earn less and therefore pay said employees lower wages over time or go out of business.
    - ahelwer 8y ago
      It would help here if you clarified what you mean by "legitimate"; do you mean morally? The workers are responsible for creating almost all the value, since they do the work. Any money not going to the workers ought to be justified, rather than the negation. So to turn the question around: why are management & shareholders entitled to such a large share of what the workers produce? The answer is because management & shareholders are more powerful than any single worker, and this is abused to take more than their share. No moral justification is given or even considered. To unionize is to relatively equalize this power relation.
      - soheil 8y ago
        > It would help here if you clarified what you mean by "legitimate"; do you mean morally? I mean is it rational. > The workers are responsible for creating almost all the value, since they do the work. Completely disagree. I believe most of the value of a company is created by the vision of its founding team and the execution of its leadership not the numerous workers along the hierarchy. I also think the 80-20 rule maybe a good way to identify how much value creation should be attributed to a group of workers ie on average most likely 80% of the value is created by 20% of workers.
        ahelwer 8y ago
        What you mean by "execution of its leadership" is... telling other people to do the actual work. There's a term for startups where leaders mill around but no actual work is done, it's called playing house: http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html
- jessaustin 8y ago
  ...what else is there that a laborer can bring to the table other than their own labor? It's as if we're rediscovering the stated purpose of unions, right here in this thread! The union can negotiate with everyone's labor, not just that of an individual worker.
  - soheil 8y ago
    I understand the stated purpose. Why should an individual benefit from the abilities of others just because he/she happens to belong to the same community? I think if we can ask the question in its most basic form, which is what I am trying to do, it may be clarifying.

soheil 8y ago

> Individual workers are powerless, only able to bring their own labor to the negotiation table. What do you mean they are only able to bring their own labor to the table, what else is there that a laborer can bring to the table other than their own labor? If individual workers feel powerless that is probably not because of them possessing something other than their own labor while not being able to negotiate that something.

ahelwer 8y ago
Many workers putting their labor on the table is a much, much stronger negotiating position than a single worker putting their labor on the table. This is the entire thesis of unions.
- soheil 8y ago
  I am asking whether it is legitimate or not, I can't help but think how incredibly well it also applies to gangs when I hear that argument. If more money is paid to individual employees just because they demanded the added cost to the employer makes them inherently less competitive and therefore able to earn less and therefore pay said employees lower wages over time or go out of business.
  - ahelwer 8y ago
    It would help here if you clarified what you mean by "legitimate"; do you mean morally? The workers are responsible for creating almost all the value, since they do the work. Any money not going to the workers ought to be justified, rather than the negation. So to turn the question around: why are management & shareholders entitled to such a large share of what the workers produce? The answer is because management & shareholders are more powerful than any single worker, and this is abused to take more than their share. No moral justification is given or even considered. To unionize is to relatively equalize this power relation.
    - soheil 8y ago
      > It would help here if you clarified what you mean by "legitimate"; do you mean morally? I mean is it rational. > The workers are responsible for creating almost all the value, since they do the work. Completely disagree. I believe most of the value of a company is created by the vision of its founding team and the execution of its leadership not the numerous workers along the hierarchy. I also think the 80-20 rule maybe a good way to identify how much value creation should be attributed to a group of workers ie on average most likely 80% of the value is created by 20% of workers.
      - ahelwer 8y ago
        What you mean by "execution of its leadership" is... telling other people to do the actual work. There's a term for startups where leaders mill around but no actual work is done, it's called playing house: http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html
jessaustin 8y ago
...what else is there that a laborer can bring to the table other than their own labor? It's as if we're rediscovering the stated purpose of unions, right here in this thread! The union can negotiate with everyone's labor, not just that of an individual worker.
- soheil 8y ago
  I understand the stated purpose. Why should an individual benefit from the abilities of others just because he/she happens to belong to the same community? I think if we can ask the question in its most basic form, which is what I am trying to do, it may be clarifying.