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Union shops are lowest common denominator places. High performers tend to leave because seniority and politics dominates promotion and wages. Apart from this,
by TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
Union shops are lowest common denominator places. High performers tend to leave because seniority and politics dominates promotion and wages.
Apart from this, senior union reps and management tend to get cosy and form coalitions against workers and shareholders.
The people that win are the people that are good at politics, workers that are mediocre, and people that are uncomfortable with fast-paced change. Unions are great at slowing things down and keeping things in slow comfort zone so people don't have to learn new things.
Imagine the mediocre 50% of your company gets to determine the processes and procedures used in your team. That's a union shop.
Imagine that manager who isn't very good at his job but is good at politics and that union rep getting drinks after work, and making a coalition against the fast rising manager with aggresive new initiatives in mind ... that's a union shop.
Long term your company will stagnate and die.
Short term, a bunch of mediocre people will feel comfortable.
Flavor of the day workers will get hired based on checking boxes ... not based on any objective criteria/merit. That's a union.
Ever wonder why 90% of cops are white in the Bay Area, even when the neighborhoods are 90% non-white? That's a union.
Unions are the big lie that political animals tell everyone else ... OH JUST GIVE US THE POWER AND WE WILL EMPOWER YOU!
It's only true if you are incapable of providing for yourself. If you have the skills, fight against the union as long as you can, and then leave.
Best decision my parents ever made was to leave the union-choked midwestern city where I was born, to come west thirty years ago. I probably would have been one of those rust-trapped casualties by now if my parents had stayed.
- djmips 8y agoI feel like most of the bad things you mention happen in places without unions as well.
- RaceWon 8y ago> Union shops are lowest common denominator places. High performers tend to leave because seniority and politics dominates promotion and wages. This is absolutely not true in the trade unions. In an earlier life I was a union plumber (on my way to becoming a master licensed plumber; and to this day I can walk into virtually any commercial or light industrial jobsite, and tell you at a glance, if it is a union or non-union job). I don't just mean the plumbing work either; but also the electrical, and the pipe and/or steam fitting, and I'd be right 90% of the time. Such is the difference between the training and tradition of taking pride in your work. Salaries are also Not carved in stone. I was once paid $300 a week over General Foreman's wage to run a job, and that was in the mid-eighties. They are not perfect, and yes it can be harder to get rid of a real slacker, but nothing is impossible. And FWIW based on what I read on here in terms of the problems a lot of coders have with age, performance reviews and interviewing--you guys should definitely consider forming a union...or for Pete's Code Up App and stick together!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- TheMagicHorsey 8y agoHow much does plumbing need to change with the times? I suspect it changes at a glacial pace compared to high tech. Also, how much does it matter whether your pipes are done by top 1% of plumbers vs just some average plumber? Probably the work is interchangeable as long as the plumber has some experience and has been trained. None of that is true when you are building something cutting edge with competitors lapping at your heels. Maybe web development has become like plumbing now ... but search algorithms, robotics, space travel, etc. are certainly not.
- FranzFerdiNaN 8y agoIt’s awesome that you don’t work for a union, because that means someone as obnoxious as you can be easily fired.
- OnlineCourage 8y agoObnoxiousness is a criteria for firing someone at your workplace?
- OnlineCourage 8y agoKickstarter could probably benefit from more slowness and processes. There have been loads of scams on that platform. Unionized workforces can either help or hinder a particular company's business model for a particular duration, you are making wide sweeping generalizations across all businesses. You are also "West Coastal" signaling as though everything on the West Coast is a Utopia while the Midwest is backward, which...what is the Midwest anyway? Which states constitute the Midwest and why are we to assume that invalidates companies there, are there zero successful companies in the midwest with unions? You also mention police being mostly white attributable to unions only...what is the connection there?