7 ms·
The implicit unionization benefits of being too smart to readily fire. Interesting.
by natalyarostova 7y ago
The implicit unionization benefits of being too smart to readily fire. Interesting.
- pm90 7y agoThis is likely the only segment of the labor market outside of executives that are highly valued by Corporations. Naturally, they have to be coddled and not abused like most of the rest of the American workforce.
- tyingq 7y agoThere are other "not quickly replaceable" folks. Pilot and police unions, for example, still seem to have a fair amount of power.
- jkaplowitz 7y agoBut they're generally unionized. Google employees are not.
- tyingq 7y agoAh, okay. Nurses then. Though they haven't chosen to do much en masse yet.
- bobthepanda 7y agoNurses are unionized and politically active: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-pulse/2019/04/30/why-nurses-are-mobilizing-behind-medicare-for-all-601558 https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-pulse/2019/04/... https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/apr/02/washington-nurses-hospitals-at-odds-over-bill-limi/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/apr/02/washington-nur... Pretty much the only high-paying job that isn't unionized are doctors, but they use the American Medical Association to limit supply.
- simple_phrases 7y agoI wouldn't be easily fooled. Companies try as hard as they can to turn engineering talent into a commodity, and they're relatively successful. The High-Tech Employee Antitrust suit is an example of this. If you need to work for a living, employers will commodify your role to the best of their abilities.
- pm90 7y agoSure, but those are the competing forces at work, right? Employees: get the most money for their labor. Employers: get the labor for the least possible money. It may not be ethical in your viewpoint, but those are the natural forces at play. It follows that employers will commodify my role as part of their strategy to pay me less. So I take other actions to make myself more valuable. As long as those actions are strictly technical (learning new technology, rather than management), I am quite happy to play this natural game driven entirely by reason.
- simple_phrases 7y agoCompanies are vehicles for accumulated wealth and power for the ownership class. Labor, on the other hand, has very few vehicles to accumulate their wealth and power. In fact one such vehicle, the union, is often legally neutered such that private contracts made between unions and employers can be nullified in favor of the ownership class (see: right-to-work laws and union security agreements). There's an inherent asymmetry of power between labor and the ownership class enshrined in both law and contemporary markets. We live in a nation started by the wealthy merchant class, for the wealthy merchant class, and it shows in our labor history. So, yes, there are competing forces that are very unequal. You as an individual engineer will have little clout against, say, an industry-wide anti-poaching agreement like we saw in the High-Tech Employee Antitrust case.
- sjg007 7y agoGoogle employees should unionize. They should set the example.
- Frost1x 7y agoThey could just quit then organize together and form a competing company with stronger ethics. Would be good to see this happen to a lot of near monopolies.