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> I don't feel like my employer is a rival or an enemy; I feel like they are a partner in our mutual goal to make a lot of money [...] it's not hard to understa

> I don't feel like my employer is a rival or an enemy; I feel like they are a partner in our mutual goal to make a lot of money [...] it's not hard to understand why many of us feel no draw to unions. It's hard for me to understand when you look at other similar industries. We're not talking about blue collar unions here: we're talking about white collar unions. They're very different. Take Hollywood as an example. You have incredibly wealthy individuals who are all members of unions. Kevin Feige makes Disney billions of dollars, but he still pays his PGA dues. The purpose of unions like the WGA, PGA, DGA, SAG, and Equity aren't to "make it harder to fire poor employees" - they're to provide equal protection to all members regardless of whether they're making millions upon millions of dollars or just getting started in the industry. Sometimes I feel people in tech forget there is a highly skilled, highly unionized industry just a few hundred miles south of Silicon Valley that seems to be doing OK. Is it perfect? No, definitely not. Is the film industry better to work in with the unions than without? Almost certainly yes.

umanwizard 7y ago
Well, let me turn the question around. Imagine I was a generally happy mid-level software engineer, making $400k/yr at Google. How would a union help me?
- claudeganon 7y ago
  By giving you greater control and direction over the nature of the company, the kind of work they do, and who they work with, to check executive power from engaging in short-sighted or immoral behavior, to provide you with an alternate route for addressing workplace discrimination or harassment, just to begin.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    A union doesn't give me, personally, any control or direction or checks on executive power. Union leaders have those powers. And it's not obvious to me why the union leaders would be any more aligned with my interests than management is.
    - yorwba 7y ago
      Those union leaders are hopefully elected by employees (otherwise, how do they get to be leaders?) so you can align the union leadership with your interests by voting for someone whom you trust to represent you. Of course you don't need that if management is also elected, but I don't know of any company that does that.
      - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        It's not about whether I trust the leaders. Even if they're trustworthy, their job is to work for what's best for the union as a whole, and that's often going to be different than what's best for me. As anyone who's worked in big companies can attest, there are all sorts of ways that facially universal policies can have disproportionate impact on specific people or teams.
- bakuninsbart 7y ago
  If you are not interested in anything but your personal success and wealth, than it probably wouldn't give you much. Then again, that would also make you a pretty poor excuse of a human being.
zasz 7y ago
I'm very pro-labor union, but life as an actor or screenwriter is considerably more precarious. Each job you get lasts only as long as the movie you're currently working on does. Once the movie's done, you're out of a job again. A SWE doesn't experience the same level of chaos, unless they're freelancing.
- bb88 7y ago
  Maybe not much more. The era of spending your life at a company is long gone, and the role of a distinguished senior engineer over 50 is evaporating. And the number of people who have been screwed out of their options on HN have been too numerous to count. Yet demand for software engineers are higher than ever. It seems like market forces should counteract these issues, however SV is impervious to these issues.
mrep 7y ago
Aren't those industry wide unions whose main purpose is to set wage floors because there are so many people desperately trying to get into the industry that without them, employee conditions would be terrible for those just starting out? I don't think that is a problem for programmers and it is way different than a company specific union. If you want to start an industry wide programmer union, by all means, start one and then try and get people to join it. I'd love to hear what benefits you think I would get by joining an industry wide programmer union.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  They specifically made that illegal with Taft-Hartley because of the political power available to workers by allowing it. Most labor parties in Europe actually arose out of these unions, for example. The WGA was grandfathered in with the law, but you’re not allowed in the US to create sector wide programmers union. It is cool to imagine what you could accomplish with sector-wide software strikes though.
michaelt 7y ago
Hollywood might not be the best example of unions' effectiveness, given the revelations of the Me Too movement. Have you considered using the AMA or similar in your examples instead?
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  What, the fact that Hollywood highlighted a society wide problem should be counted against it? Or do you honestly think that sexual harassment by exploiting power imbalance only happens in Los Angeles?
  - michaelt 7y ago
    I'm saying protection against having to have sex with your boss to get work is MVP worker protection. And so if someone wants to convince people how effective unions are at worker protection, Hollywood's unions aren't the most convincing example.
saiya-jin 7y ago
Well those industries are not comparable. One random example - our flexibility to change jobs in IT is almost unheard-of. We can literally spin the globe and go work almost anywhere. The only hurdles are immigration rules and possible language barrier. Most of Hollywood jobs would struggle in most places. Another personal view - as somebody from Europe, I really don't feel any need for any unions. I am not trembling from fear that I will get fired. If I will, there will be good reasons (my poor performance or employer getting into financial troubles). For me, that's a good trade-off for extra pay and interesting work. When I was consulting, I had nano-fraction of current job security, but again it was offset by salary. Again, fair deal for me and for employer too. Another reason - anytime I even remotely interfered with Union people in my previous jobs, they literally reeked of internal politic games, keeping their comfy jobs as safe as possible. You get this kind of folks in any company, even in my current one, although we don't have unions. They try different ways (ie managing pension fund or other 'political' positions that require little work but add friction to firing process). Needless to say they are never stellar performance workers. This all obviously doesn't say anything about Google or generally SV culture, my experience is local to 3 European states only, and cca 6 companies. We in IT are vastly overpaid compared to any other engineering degree holders. Not complaining, but its a fact. Just talk to other engineering folks. High salaries and positions can be achieved quickly, not over 30 years of gradual rise of staying within same company. If/once market saturates and salaries go down significantly, there might be more need for unions. But most folks are not there I think.

umanwizard 7y ago

Well, let me turn the question around. Imagine I was a generally happy mid-level software engineer, making $400k/yr at Google. How would a union help me?

claudeganon 7y ago
By giving you greater control and direction over the nature of the company, the kind of work they do, and who they work with, to check executive power from engaging in short-sighted or immoral behavior, to provide you with an alternate route for addressing workplace discrimination or harassment, just to begin.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  A union doesn't give me, personally, any control or direction or checks on executive power. Union leaders have those powers. And it's not obvious to me why the union leaders would be any more aligned with my interests than management is.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Those union leaders are hopefully elected by employees (otherwise, how do they get to be leaders?) so you can align the union leadership with your interests by voting for someone whom you trust to represent you. Of course you don't need that if management is also elected, but I don't know of any company that does that.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      It's not about whether I trust the leaders. Even if they're trustworthy, their job is to work for what's best for the union as a whole, and that's often going to be different than what's best for me. As anyone who's worked in big companies can attest, there are all sorts of ways that facially universal policies can have disproportionate impact on specific people or teams.
bakuninsbart 7y ago
If you are not interested in anything but your personal success and wealth, than it probably wouldn't give you much. Then again, that would also make you a pretty poor excuse of a human being.

zasz 7y ago

I'm very pro-labor union, but life as an actor or screenwriter is considerably more precarious. Each job you get lasts only as long as the movie you're currently working on does. Once the movie's done, you're out of a job again. A SWE doesn't experience the same level of chaos, unless they're freelancing.

bb88 7y ago
Maybe not much more. The era of spending your life at a company is long gone, and the role of a distinguished senior engineer over 50 is evaporating. And the number of people who have been screwed out of their options on HN have been too numerous to count. Yet demand for software engineers are higher than ever. It seems like market forces should counteract these issues, however SV is impervious to these issues.

mrep 7y ago

Aren't those industry wide unions whose main purpose is to set wage floors because there are so many people desperately trying to get into the industry that without them, employee conditions would be terrible for those just starting out? I don't think that is a problem for programmers and it is way different than a company specific union. If you want to start an industry wide programmer union, by all means, start one and then try and get people to join it. I'd love to hear what benefits you think I would get by joining an industry wide programmer union.

claudeganon 7y ago
They specifically made that illegal with Taft-Hartley because of the political power available to workers by allowing it. Most labor parties in Europe actually arose out of these unions, for example. The WGA was grandfathered in with the law, but you’re not allowed in the US to create sector wide programmers union. It is cool to imagine what you could accomplish with sector-wide software strikes though.

michaelt 7y ago

Hollywood might not be the best example of unions' effectiveness, given the revelations of the Me Too movement. Have you considered using the AMA or similar in your examples instead?

SiempreViernes 7y ago
What, the fact that Hollywood highlighted a society wide problem should be counted against it? Or do you honestly think that sexual harassment by exploiting power imbalance only happens in Los Angeles?
- michaelt 7y ago
  I'm saying protection against having to have sex with your boss to get work is MVP worker protection. And so if someone wants to convince people how effective unions are at worker protection, Hollywood's unions aren't the most convincing example.

saiya-jin 7y ago

Well those industries are not comparable. One random example - our flexibility to change jobs in IT is almost unheard-of. We can literally spin the globe and go work almost anywhere. The only hurdles are immigration rules and possible language barrier. Most of Hollywood jobs would struggle in most places. Another personal view - as somebody from Europe, I really don't feel any need for any unions. I am not trembling from fear that I will get fired. If I will, there will be good reasons (my poor performance or employer getting into financial troubles). For me, that's a good trade-off for extra pay and interesting work. When I was consulting, I had nano-fraction of current job security, but again it was offset by salary. Again, fair deal for me and for employer too. Another reason - anytime I even remotely interfered with Union people in my previous jobs, they literally reeked of internal politic games, keeping their comfy jobs as safe as possible. You get this kind of folks in any company, even in my current one, although we don't have unions. They try different ways (ie managing pension fund or other 'political' positions that require little work but add friction to firing process). Needless to say they are never stellar performance workers. This all obviously doesn't say anything about Google or generally SV culture, my experience is local to 3 European states only, and cca 6 companies. We in IT are vastly overpaid compared to any other engineering degree holders. Not complaining, but its a fact. Just talk to other engineering folks. High salaries and positions can be achieved quickly, not over 30 years of gradual rise of staying within same company. If/once market saturates and salaries go down significantly, there might be more need for unions. But most folks are not there I think.