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This is honestly naive, if I dump poison in the river your village is drinking from you should move the village. If a company is abusing the employees what is t

This is honestly naive, if I dump poison in the river your village is drinking from you should move the village. If a company is abusing the employees what is the danger in organizing and negotiating better conditions as a group and not as individuals . The only excuse I read here on HN is that "I am a 10X dev and I don;t want the union to pay me the same as my colleague that is a lesser developer then me."

FussyZeus 7y ago
> The only excuse I read here on HN is that "I am a 10X dev and I don;t want the union to pay me the same as my colleague that is a lesser developer then me." And one could easily say this is a ploy by management-level people to show the other serfs that "You can make it too!" because paying one dev who's a little better than his peers costs a fraction of paying them all what they should be paid.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  > "I am a 10X dev and I don;t want the union to pay me the same as my colleague that is a lesser developer then me." This is a valid concern for highly-paid/specialized individuals, IMO. Price's Law (https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/ https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/): 50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work.
  - simion314 7y ago
    Probably true but how many devs that think they are 10X are just regular devs with 10X ego that compare themselves with the lowest possible dev to feel superior. I could see a union that won't put upper limit but would fight for fairness, extra hours paid double, no more then X hours a month etc.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    Except that the very concept of a 10X developer, no matter what they themselves may say about it, is disgusting; it's a person who has, even if willingly, distorted their work/life balance to a point where they "go the extra mile" as management would put it; usually involving working off hours, working extra hours, working from home on weekends and evenings, or eschewing general life activities in favor of doing more work. I know this is sacrilege to say this in our system and even moreso in our profession, but this is not good for you. I don't care how much you like it, I don't care how much money you're gaining from it, I don't care if you're the most willing of willing to have ever willed. You're abusing yourself in exchange for money, and that's the end of it and it shouldn't be allowed. You should have a salary commensurate with your skill set, and you should not have to eschew anything resembling a proper work/life balance to do it.
    - throwawaysea 7y ago
      You are assuming that greater value generation is only a function of greater effort in the form of more hours. It is also a function of other things like higher talent, smarter decisions, and past investment in one’s skills.
throwawaysea 7y ago
I think you are glossing over the reality of how unions work. If someone is dumping poisons in the river, you have the chance to get laws passed against it. Others can organize to prevent those laws from being passed as well. Everyone is not compelled to take a single position on the issue or obligated to join a single party, and there is no mandatory fee either. It is a very different situation from being in a union (in the US, anyways).
- simion314 7y ago
  Can't you have multiple unions in US? like teachers,medics have more then 1 union here in Romania and you are not forced to join, I do not understand the rest of your comment, what I was trying to argue against is the idea of "leave if you don't like it" so it appears to me that some people are trying to suppress employees that complain, organize and demand improvements. Are you suggesting that the only way for say game developers to get better condition is to lobby some politicians to pass a national law for the sector ?
  - throwawaysea 7y ago
    The way the union regulations work out here, you may only work at a certain company if you belong to a certain union (a single organization). You can’t for example, choose between multiple competing unions or work without representation. I’ve heard this is different in other locations like Germany. As a result, having a job at that company means you automatically adopt paying their fees, their organizational structure, the pay scale they’ve negotiated (often can turn into tenure-based, which is basically age-based), etc. This means you sort of have two management structures in a sense. Since unions participate politically and fund campaigns and such, you are automatically paying your salary to support political candidates you may disagree with, because union leadership makes the choice on how to spend the money it collects. It can also lead to workplace inefficiency and frustrations that customers end up paying for. As an example, if you work at Boeing you may have some task you can finish immediately yourself (like screwing something in) but the union protects the job security of some people by saying that only those people may do certain tasks. As a result you might need to wait to coordinate with the screw guy to do something you could finish in 5 seconds. Corruption is also common, although I cannot say how much exactly. One of the largest unions in the US is currently going through an embarrassing corruption scandal right now (https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-prosecutors-ask-uaw-members-for-tips-in-corruption-probe-11576332002 https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-prosecutors-ask-uaw-mem...). There’s also a history of unions and the mafia working together (https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/ https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/), although it might be unfair to blame unions for this pattern as much as blaming the mob.

FussyZeus 7y ago

> The only excuse I read here on HN is that "I am a 10X dev and I don;t want the union to pay me the same as my colleague that is a lesser developer then me." And one could easily say this is a ploy by management-level people to show the other serfs that "You can make it too!" because paying one dev who's a little better than his peers costs a fraction of paying them all what they should be paid.

throwawaysea 7y ago
> "I am a 10X dev and I don;t want the union to pay me the same as my colleague that is a lesser developer then me." This is a valid concern for highly-paid/specialized individuals, IMO. Price's Law (https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/ https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/): 50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work.
- simion314 7y ago
  Probably true but how many devs that think they are 10X are just regular devs with 10X ego that compare themselves with the lowest possible dev to feel superior. I could see a union that won't put upper limit but would fight for fairness, extra hours paid double, no more then X hours a month etc.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  Except that the very concept of a 10X developer, no matter what they themselves may say about it, is disgusting; it's a person who has, even if willingly, distorted their work/life balance to a point where they "go the extra mile" as management would put it; usually involving working off hours, working extra hours, working from home on weekends and evenings, or eschewing general life activities in favor of doing more work. I know this is sacrilege to say this in our system and even moreso in our profession, but this is not good for you. I don't care how much you like it, I don't care how much money you're gaining from it, I don't care if you're the most willing of willing to have ever willed. You're abusing yourself in exchange for money, and that's the end of it and it shouldn't be allowed. You should have a salary commensurate with your skill set, and you should not have to eschew anything resembling a proper work/life balance to do it.
  - throwawaysea 7y ago
    You are assuming that greater value generation is only a function of greater effort in the form of more hours. It is also a function of other things like higher talent, smarter decisions, and past investment in one’s skills.

throwawaysea 7y ago

I think you are glossing over the reality of how unions work. If someone is dumping poisons in the river, you have the chance to get laws passed against it. Others can organize to prevent those laws from being passed as well. Everyone is not compelled to take a single position on the issue or obligated to join a single party, and there is no mandatory fee either. It is a very different situation from being in a union (in the US, anyways).

simion314 7y ago
Can't you have multiple unions in US? like teachers,medics have more then 1 union here in Romania and you are not forced to join, I do not understand the rest of your comment, what I was trying to argue against is the idea of "leave if you don't like it" so it appears to me that some people are trying to suppress employees that complain, organize and demand improvements. Are you suggesting that the only way for say game developers to get better condition is to lobby some politicians to pass a national law for the sector ?
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  The way the union regulations work out here, you may only work at a certain company if you belong to a certain union (a single organization). You can’t for example, choose between multiple competing unions or work without representation. I’ve heard this is different in other locations like Germany. As a result, having a job at that company means you automatically adopt paying their fees, their organizational structure, the pay scale they’ve negotiated (often can turn into tenure-based, which is basically age-based), etc. This means you sort of have two management structures in a sense. Since unions participate politically and fund campaigns and such, you are automatically paying your salary to support political candidates you may disagree with, because union leadership makes the choice on how to spend the money it collects. It can also lead to workplace inefficiency and frustrations that customers end up paying for. As an example, if you work at Boeing you may have some task you can finish immediately yourself (like screwing something in) but the union protects the job security of some people by saying that only those people may do certain tasks. As a result you might need to wait to coordinate with the screw guy to do something you could finish in 5 seconds. Corruption is also common, although I cannot say how much exactly. One of the largest unions in the US is currently going through an embarrassing corruption scandal right now (https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-prosecutors-ask-uaw-members-for-tips-in-corruption-probe-11576332002 https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-prosecutors-ask-uaw-mem...). There’s also a history of unions and the mafia working together (https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/ https://lrionline.com/mafiaunion-ties-still-strong/), although it might be unfair to blame unions for this pattern as much as blaming the mob.