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I would love to understand the dynamic better, so please correct me here or chime in. Tech is has one of the best combinations of (lucrative + meritocratic) I'

I would love to understand the dynamic better, so please correct me here or chime in. Tech is has one of the best combinations of (lucrative + meritocratic) I've seen. Fields that pay similarly or better (law, medicine, investment banking) require either significant time-consuming credentials or significant time investment as an underlying (like IB analyst). The interview process does require intensive preparation to land a top spot. However, your compensation package increases proportionately to the preparatory time. From the mind of a top performer, wouldn't you want to seek out the best of the best, rather than settling for median wage? It seems like unionizing will encourage the top workers to leave while the below-average to stay, dragging down the overall talent pool.

EliRivers 7y ago
If your workplace is shit enough that even in the Ayn Rand masturbation fantasy land of the valley, your employees want to unionise, your top talent already left or is charging you triple. Or, in horrible cases, they're part of the reason why others want protection.
jbob2000 7y ago
Just to add to this comment; It's one thing for software developers in the government or a large "essential" corporation like a bank or telecom company to unionize. Those places get toxic because the work has to be done and gets very political because of the sheer number of people's lives they affect. I understand the labour issues around working for those organizations. But kickstarter? You mean the funding apparatus for indie games and gimmicky consumer products? That's where you want to unionize?
- boomlinde 7y ago
  Workers' unions represent workers, not consumers or society as a whole, so why should they care about whether the workers they represent work at "essential" corporations?
  - jbob2000 7y ago
    Because some stress is more justified than others. If somebody was stressed out as a travel blogger, would you favour their unionization over a stressed out retail worker? That's essentially what I'm getting at, the stress at kickstarter isn't worth their mission. But at other companies, the stress is worth it, so therefore the unionization is worth it.
    - chillacy 7y ago
      It's not like unionization is a zero sum game, why would a travel blogger's choices affect the retail worker's?
      - jbob2000 7y ago
        Unionization takes public support, it's not something done in isolation (hence why there's all sorts of articles about Kickstarter's attempt and unionizing - they need support). Public support is a zero-sum game, therefore unionization is a zero-sum game. If I give my limited attention to this unionization effort, then I may not give it to someone else. And maybe there is a workforce who doesn't have the eye of the internet who are trying to unionize, but now kickstarter has taken all the space for that news category.
        boomlinde 7y ago
        > Unionization takes public support [...] Public support is a zero-sum game, therefore unionization is a zero-sum game. Chocolate cookies take sugar. Sugar is white, therefore chocolate cookies are white.
    - boomlinde 7y ago
      If they feel that unionization can improve the conditions of their employment, regardless of stress, I don't see the difference. Their employer is optimizing towards less expenses per unit of work, and it's only fair that an equally resourceful organization can counter balance that goal with the workers in mind.
lyrr 7y ago
I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. Pitting 'top performers' against the rest, scaremongering about 'lazy workers' etc. just divides the workforce and allows management/owners to exploit/underpay workers as a whole. The company would not be able to function/make as good a profit as it does without ALL workers contributing. If a worker truly is lazy/not pulling their weight, they get fired. A union doesn't stop that. A union is a unified voice for workers that can demand rightfully, better working conditions, better pay, better benefits. This fiction that somehow tech workers should avoid unions because their pay is so well is utter corporate propaganda. The money won't always be this good people, especially as more and more are told to enter the industry. I know HackerNews is an entrepreneurial haven but it's funny to me how people here, with all their technical wisdom, are so blind to any benefits to workers and aversion to anything seen as 'socialist'.
- castlecrasher2 7y ago
  >I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. I don't know why you assume that unions = organized and unified workforce. It's like claiming that HOAs = organized and unified neighborhood.
- pathseeker 7y ago
  >I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. Because historically it hasn't in the US. Unions end up implementing a seniority-based compensation/benefits scheme and there is nothing given to employees who outperform everyone else. This even fosters an environment where top performers are discouraged by their peers for "making everyone else look bad".
  - majormajor 7y ago
    > This even fosters an environment where top performers are discouraged by their peers for "making everyone else look bad". You don't need a union for this. Most large companies that do software (not the FAANGs, but the non-tech-first ones) generally don't know what to do with top performers, because consistency and predictability is more valuable to them. Especially a top performer who's bad at politics so they come off as attacking whole other departments or teams. A union won't fix it, but probably won't make it worse, in those places.
bsder 7y ago
> From the mind of a top performer Unfortunately, we also know that tech has a big age discrimination problem, for example. Unions are one of the tools to combat that.
helen___keller 7y ago
Perhaps to look at it the other way, those with the tools/mindset to haggle and negotiate and prepare for a top career will end up at a place that offers top benefits and top salaries. Which means the places that don't offer top benefits, top salaries, or places that otherwise mistreat their workers, will, almost by definition, retain mostly a workforce of employees who are either not top talent or are bad at negotiation (or some variation of this - e.g. the video game industry has some great programmers who work with awful treatment & pay for one reason or another). If you're in this poorly treated group, unionization looks great. If most of your workforce is in this group, then most of your workforce will be eyeballing unionization.
CJefferson 7y ago
So, first of all, most people aren't "top performers", so it would make sense for 75% of developers to want a Union under your reasoning. Secondly, in my experience it isn't the "top performers" who end up with the highest pay, it's the people best at spouting bullshit and sounding convincing.
- balls187 7y ago
  > who end up with the highest pay, it's the people best at spouting bullshit and sounding convincing. Putting it more objectively--it's the people who often are able to provide their first line manager with opportunities for better pay.
ryanmcbride 7y ago
seems "lucrative + meritocratic" if you aren't in a marginalized group. Age/gender/pay discrimination is a serious problem in tech that unionization can help solve (it's not a magic bullet, but it's a step in the right direction)
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  You don’t even have to be in a marginalized group (although that does entreat all kinds of bias). In my experience tech companies largely make decisions based on clique behavior, not “merit”. Management identifies individuals they like personally, those people are given juicy projects and veto power in meetings. The game is not “who is driving business metrics?” it’s “how can I package my ideas in a way that makes management feel comfortable?” Maybe you can argue that’s a form of meritocracy (“excel at making management feel comfortable!”), but I don’t think that’s what most people think of when they think of merit. I have sort of come around to it. Part of my job is to be kind and helpful to the people around me, including the bosses. So that’s how I judge myself. Hitting business goals is good in the long term, but on every timescale I am expected to engage on, nurturing relationships seems to matter more.
_lacroix 7y ago
> Tech is has one of the best combinations of (lucrative + meritocratic) I've seen. Fields that pay similarly or better (law, medicine, investment banking) require either significant time-consuming credentials or significant time investment as an underlying (like IB analyst). You mean ENGINEERING, not tech. The people who need these unions are not the engineers, they're the "disposable" soft skills jobs like community and customer support. These are the tech jobs that pay poorly and are mistreated while engineers are fought for with absurd compensation packages (see: Away).

EliRivers 7y ago

If your workplace is shit enough that even in the Ayn Rand masturbation fantasy land of the valley, your employees want to unionise, your top talent already left or is charging you triple. Or, in horrible cases, they're part of the reason why others want protection.

jbob2000 7y ago

Just to add to this comment; It's one thing for software developers in the government or a large "essential" corporation like a bank or telecom company to unionize. Those places get toxic because the work has to be done and gets very political because of the sheer number of people's lives they affect. I understand the labour issues around working for those organizations. But kickstarter? You mean the funding apparatus for indie games and gimmicky consumer products? That's where you want to unionize?

boomlinde 7y ago
Workers' unions represent workers, not consumers or society as a whole, so why should they care about whether the workers they represent work at "essential" corporations?
- jbob2000 7y ago
  Because some stress is more justified than others. If somebody was stressed out as a travel blogger, would you favour their unionization over a stressed out retail worker? That's essentially what I'm getting at, the stress at kickstarter isn't worth their mission. But at other companies, the stress is worth it, so therefore the unionization is worth it.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    It's not like unionization is a zero sum game, why would a travel blogger's choices affect the retail worker's?
    - jbob2000 7y ago
      Unionization takes public support, it's not something done in isolation (hence why there's all sorts of articles about Kickstarter's attempt and unionizing - they need support). Public support is a zero-sum game, therefore unionization is a zero-sum game. If I give my limited attention to this unionization effort, then I may not give it to someone else. And maybe there is a workforce who doesn't have the eye of the internet who are trying to unionize, but now kickstarter has taken all the space for that news category.
      - boomlinde 7y ago
        > Unionization takes public support [...] Public support is a zero-sum game, therefore unionization is a zero-sum game. Chocolate cookies take sugar. Sugar is white, therefore chocolate cookies are white.
  - boomlinde 7y ago
    If they feel that unionization can improve the conditions of their employment, regardless of stress, I don't see the difference. Their employer is optimizing towards less expenses per unit of work, and it's only fair that an equally resourceful organization can counter balance that goal with the workers in mind.

lyrr 7y ago

I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. Pitting 'top performers' against the rest, scaremongering about 'lazy workers' etc. just divides the workforce and allows management/owners to exploit/underpay workers as a whole. The company would not be able to function/make as good a profit as it does without ALL workers contributing. If a worker truly is lazy/not pulling their weight, they get fired. A union doesn't stop that. A union is a unified voice for workers that can demand rightfully, better working conditions, better pay, better benefits. This fiction that somehow tech workers should avoid unions because their pay is so well is utter corporate propaganda. The money won't always be this good people, especially as more and more are told to enter the industry. I know HackerNews is an entrepreneurial haven but it's funny to me how people here, with all their technical wisdom, are so blind to any benefits to workers and aversion to anything seen as 'socialist'.

castlecrasher2 7y ago
>I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. I don't know why you assume that unions = organized and unified workforce. It's like claiming that HOAs = organized and unified neighborhood.
pathseeker 7y ago
>I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. Because historically it hasn't in the US. Unions end up implementing a seniority-based compensation/benefits scheme and there is nothing given to employees who outperform everyone else. This even fosters an environment where top performers are discouraged by their peers for "making everyone else look bad".
- majormajor 7y ago
  > This even fosters an environment where top performers are discouraged by their peers for "making everyone else look bad". You don't need a union for this. Most large companies that do software (not the FAANGs, but the non-tech-first ones) generally don't know what to do with top performers, because consistency and predictability is more valuable to them. Especially a top performer who's bad at politics so they come off as attacking whole other departments or teams. A union won't fix it, but probably won't make it worse, in those places.

bsder 7y ago

> From the mind of a top performer Unfortunately, we also know that tech has a big age discrimination problem, for example. Unions are one of the tools to combat that.

helen___keller 7y ago

Perhaps to look at it the other way, those with the tools/mindset to haggle and negotiate and prepare for a top career will end up at a place that offers top benefits and top salaries. Which means the places that don't offer top benefits, top salaries, or places that otherwise mistreat their workers, will, almost by definition, retain mostly a workforce of employees who are either not top talent or are bad at negotiation (or some variation of this - e.g. the video game industry has some great programmers who work with awful treatment & pay for one reason or another). If you're in this poorly treated group, unionization looks great. If most of your workforce is in this group, then most of your workforce will be eyeballing unionization.

CJefferson 7y ago

So, first of all, most people aren't "top performers", so it would make sense for 75% of developers to want a Union under your reasoning. Secondly, in my experience it isn't the "top performers" who end up with the highest pay, it's the people best at spouting bullshit and sounding convincing.

balls187 7y ago
> who end up with the highest pay, it's the people best at spouting bullshit and sounding convincing. Putting it more objectively--it's the people who often are able to provide their first line manager with opportunities for better pay.

ryanmcbride 7y ago

seems "lucrative + meritocratic" if you aren't in a marginalized group. Age/gender/pay discrimination is a serious problem in tech that unionization can help solve (it's not a magic bullet, but it's a step in the right direction)

erikpukinskis 7y ago
You don’t even have to be in a marginalized group (although that does entreat all kinds of bias). In my experience tech companies largely make decisions based on clique behavior, not “merit”. Management identifies individuals they like personally, those people are given juicy projects and veto power in meetings. The game is not “who is driving business metrics?” it’s “how can I package my ideas in a way that makes management feel comfortable?” Maybe you can argue that’s a form of meritocracy (“excel at making management feel comfortable!”), but I don’t think that’s what most people think of when they think of merit. I have sort of come around to it. Part of my job is to be kind and helpful to the people around me, including the bosses. So that’s how I judge myself. Hitting business goals is good in the long term, but on every timescale I am expected to engage on, nurturing relationships seems to matter more.

_lacroix 7y ago

> Tech is has one of the best combinations of (lucrative + meritocratic) I've seen. Fields that pay similarly or better (law, medicine, investment banking) require either significant time-consuming credentials or significant time investment as an underlying (like IB analyst). You mean ENGINEERING, not tech. The people who need these unions are not the engineers, they're the "disposable" soft skills jobs like community and customer support. These are the tech jobs that pay poorly and are mistreated while engineers are fought for with absurd compensation packages (see: Away).