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> I saw unions as a balancing act to corporate interests, offering protections to lower-skilled workers who, without collective action, didn’t have much power o

> I saw unions as a balancing act to corporate interests, offering protections to lower-skilled workers who, without collective action, didn’t have much power over their bosses. [...] But not high-skilled industries like digital media, where workers could, on their own, use their skill sets as leverage over their bosses. This is every dismissive comment about unions on HN ever, right here.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
And is it not true?
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  And is it not true? Consider that Hollywood is unionised even though the pay differential between an extra and a star is far greater than in tech. They can make it work, why can’t we?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    We surely can. Many European countries have unions for the whole company, and there are several factors as part of the wage. Collective agreement is just one of the pieces. Nothing prevents the existence of bonus tied to performance.
- bonaldi 7y ago
  No. There is nothing about “higher-skill” workers that means management interests or values automatically align with theirs, or that collective power isn’t greater than individual at higher levels of compensation. The results we’ve seen when such workers realise this (see Googlers more-or-less ept attempts to change management policy) is the test for this. A strong union would stand them in much better stead.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Skill levels are widely varied at the higher levels. Collective bargaining means, valuing them about the same (a common agreement means the same outcome for all?) So there's a downside. As a highly-skilled contracting worker, I care nothing about changing my client companies policies. Their values are a curiosity to me. I negotiate my rate, do the job, submit my invoice and move on. So maybe I'm not the person who can appreciate the advantages in a full-employee situation.
    - dllthomas 7y ago
      > Skill levels are widely varied at the higher levels. Collective bargaining means, valuing them about the same (a common agreement means the same outcome for all?) Isn't SAG an existence proof that this isn't necessarily the case? (This shouldn't be read as an endorsement of all things union, or of SAG in particular, just that it doesn't seem to fit the claim.)
      - moate 7y ago
        Yes, it is. There's so many different rights that a union could argue for. SAG or professional athletes unions are some great examples. There's still large ranges of contract options available, tailored to an individual. But there's also a ton of hard fought guaranteed working conditions that might not exist otherwise. It's weird that people have this idea that all unions always look/work a certain way when they're so varied from field to field (never mind country to country). Off the top of my head, you could very easily have a union that says "These are the specific job requirements and expectations for this job. Here are the tiers of skill in this job type. Here are the floors for compensation at each tier. Here are the guaranteed rights and working conditions that the owners must maintain (PTO, Health coverage, overtime, etc). Any grievances will first go through mediation with a Union Rep/Lawyer available." and call it a day. That covers about 90% of what most pro-union supporters actually want to happen.
    - ahoy 7y ago
      >Collective bargaining means, valuing them about the same (a common agreement means the same outcome for all?) This is a misconception spread by capital to make you think unions are going to hurt you. The media company I work for recently unionized. I assure you the junior staff still makes less money than the senior staff. What the union bargaining got wasn't flat wages. What it got was a higher wage floor for new hires, better PTO, more flexible working hours, and a consistent yearly raise/compensation schedule, things like that. No senior employee's work is devalued. The tradeoff isn't between senior and junior workers. It's between workers and owners.
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    Anybody interested in a practical example of this should watch this[1] outstanding report about the problems in the video game industry and how the "higher-skill" workers are starting to unionize. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSB5YQqDiY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSB5YQqDiY
- devoply 7y ago
  No... it's not true. In the end I have heard employees be terminated for all sorts of frivolous reasons. Unless you are a very senior developer, the chances of you being replaceable especially at a well funded company are very high... In fact all businesses are set up to make all their employees replaceable. > Isn’t that just smart? Why would I, the hypothetical investor risking my money on a venture, tie that money to a specific employee? That’s putting all of your eggs in one basket. Similarly, why would as a hypothetical employee work without the protection of a union? > 1) Payscale -- a professional is in a better position to have a substantial emergency fund, to get through a sudden layoff. It would be higher yet with unions. > 2) Demand -- Some professional skills are also in high demand, which makes changing employers easier. Easier, yes, but not easy. > 3) Upward and lateral mobility -- In a union shop, mobility is often rigidly defined by seniority, whereas in many professional services, the employee can be more in control of their career. Contrast this to something like the airline pilots union, where a pilot has to start over as a rookey if they change airlines. When I started my last job, I was able to negotiate more weeks PTO because of my years of experience in the field. Yes except in tech you are an old man by 40, so yes enjoy your 5-year senior developer status... And enjoy your retirement at 40. It's a mythology that you are better off in tech because of the lack of unions because of the super high salaries, etc., which are only to be found in a small segment of the industry.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    But then you get a better job somewhere else. Highly skilled, remember?
    - devoply 7y ago
      As everyone here will tell you hiring in tech is broken. It will take you a significant amount of time, months to find another job... after having to practice to get that job with things you don't usually do -- i.e. pass code interviews and other bullshit.
      - derekp7 7y ago
        Is that true everywhere, or is it mostly a West Coast web dev shop cultural item? In systems engineering / operations / devops / architecture roles in the MidWest, I have never experienced any of that BS.
- ahoy 7y ago
  No, it isn't true.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  The next paragraph: > even in a company that genuinely does try to be the best in digital media, things can slip through the cracks, and a bad manager can make a world of difference. I had always gotten along very well with my bosses at Vox, but that could change in one corporate reshuffling. I also started to worry about the future: What if, in a very volatile journalism industry, I’m laid off, or Vox is sold off to another company? Who’s to say the next owners would be as good as the current ones?
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    I didn't consider a journalism employee to be in the highly-technically-skilled category. Sure they have a reason to want some security.
    - moate 7y ago
      Whoa whoa whoa there chief. Don't move the goalposts. The article's author stated "High Skilled" not "highly-technically-skilled". He feels he's part of a highly skilled trade which was his reason for opposing unions. Journalism isn't the same thing as "writing listicles for Buzzfeed", and even that isn't always as easy as it might seem to be to laymen.
    - roywiggins 7y ago
      Well, he did. That's why he didn't think he needed a union.
- mikestew 7y ago
  If it were true, a lot fewer places would have an open office layout, as just one counter example.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

And is it not true?

goatinaboat 7y ago
And is it not true? Consider that Hollywood is unionised even though the pay differential between an extra and a star is far greater than in tech. They can make it work, why can’t we?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  We surely can. Many European countries have unions for the whole company, and there are several factors as part of the wage. Collective agreement is just one of the pieces. Nothing prevents the existence of bonus tied to performance.
bonaldi 7y ago
No. There is nothing about “higher-skill” workers that means management interests or values automatically align with theirs, or that collective power isn’t greater than individual at higher levels of compensation. The results we’ve seen when such workers realise this (see Googlers more-or-less ept attempts to change management policy) is the test for this. A strong union would stand them in much better stead.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Skill levels are widely varied at the higher levels. Collective bargaining means, valuing them about the same (a common agreement means the same outcome for all?) So there's a downside. As a highly-skilled contracting worker, I care nothing about changing my client companies policies. Their values are a curiosity to me. I negotiate my rate, do the job, submit my invoice and move on. So maybe I'm not the person who can appreciate the advantages in a full-employee situation.
  - dllthomas 7y ago
    > Skill levels are widely varied at the higher levels. Collective bargaining means, valuing them about the same (a common agreement means the same outcome for all?) Isn't SAG an existence proof that this isn't necessarily the case? (This shouldn't be read as an endorsement of all things union, or of SAG in particular, just that it doesn't seem to fit the claim.)
    - moate 7y ago
      Yes, it is. There's so many different rights that a union could argue for. SAG or professional athletes unions are some great examples. There's still large ranges of contract options available, tailored to an individual. But there's also a ton of hard fought guaranteed working conditions that might not exist otherwise. It's weird that people have this idea that all unions always look/work a certain way when they're so varied from field to field (never mind country to country). Off the top of my head, you could very easily have a union that says "These are the specific job requirements and expectations for this job. Here are the tiers of skill in this job type. Here are the floors for compensation at each tier. Here are the guaranteed rights and working conditions that the owners must maintain (PTO, Health coverage, overtime, etc). Any grievances will first go through mediation with a Union Rep/Lawyer available." and call it a day. That covers about 90% of what most pro-union supporters actually want to happen.
  - ahoy 7y ago
    >Collective bargaining means, valuing them about the same (a common agreement means the same outcome for all?) This is a misconception spread by capital to make you think unions are going to hurt you. The media company I work for recently unionized. I assure you the junior staff still makes less money than the senior staff. What the union bargaining got wasn't flat wages. What it got was a higher wage floor for new hires, better PTO, more flexible working hours, and a consistent yearly raise/compensation schedule, things like that. No senior employee's work is devalued. The tradeoff isn't between senior and junior workers. It's between workers and owners.
- pdkl95 7y ago
  Anybody interested in a practical example of this should watch this[1] outstanding report about the problems in the video game industry and how the "higher-skill" workers are starting to unionize. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSB5YQqDiY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSB5YQqDiY
devoply 7y ago
No... it's not true. In the end I have heard employees be terminated for all sorts of frivolous reasons. Unless you are a very senior developer, the chances of you being replaceable especially at a well funded company are very high... In fact all businesses are set up to make all their employees replaceable. > Isn’t that just smart? Why would I, the hypothetical investor risking my money on a venture, tie that money to a specific employee? That’s putting all of your eggs in one basket. Similarly, why would as a hypothetical employee work without the protection of a union? > 1) Payscale -- a professional is in a better position to have a substantial emergency fund, to get through a sudden layoff. It would be higher yet with unions. > 2) Demand -- Some professional skills are also in high demand, which makes changing employers easier. Easier, yes, but not easy. > 3) Upward and lateral mobility -- In a union shop, mobility is often rigidly defined by seniority, whereas in many professional services, the employee can be more in control of their career. Contrast this to something like the airline pilots union, where a pilot has to start over as a rookey if they change airlines. When I started my last job, I was able to negotiate more weeks PTO because of my years of experience in the field. Yes except in tech you are an old man by 40, so yes enjoy your 5-year senior developer status... And enjoy your retirement at 40. It's a mythology that you are better off in tech because of the lack of unions because of the super high salaries, etc., which are only to be found in a small segment of the industry.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  But then you get a better job somewhere else. Highly skilled, remember?
  - devoply 7y ago
    As everyone here will tell you hiring in tech is broken. It will take you a significant amount of time, months to find another job... after having to practice to get that job with things you don't usually do -- i.e. pass code interviews and other bullshit.
    - derekp7 7y ago
      Is that true everywhere, or is it mostly a West Coast web dev shop cultural item? In systems engineering / operations / devops / architecture roles in the MidWest, I have never experienced any of that BS.
ahoy 7y ago
No, it isn't true.
roywiggins 7y ago
The next paragraph: > even in a company that genuinely does try to be the best in digital media, things can slip through the cracks, and a bad manager can make a world of difference. I had always gotten along very well with my bosses at Vox, but that could change in one corporate reshuffling. I also started to worry about the future: What if, in a very volatile journalism industry, I’m laid off, or Vox is sold off to another company? Who’s to say the next owners would be as good as the current ones?
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  I didn't consider a journalism employee to be in the highly-technically-skilled category. Sure they have a reason to want some security.
  - moate 7y ago
    Whoa whoa whoa there chief. Don't move the goalposts. The article's author stated "High Skilled" not "highly-technically-skilled". He feels he's part of a highly skilled trade which was his reason for opposing unions. Journalism isn't the same thing as "writing listicles for Buzzfeed", and even that isn't always as easy as it might seem to be to laymen.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    Well, he did. That's why he didn't think he needed a union.
mikestew 7y ago
If it were true, a lot fewer places would have an open office layout, as just one counter example.