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A union also tends to mean that you get paid for the # of years you worked your job, not how good you are. This is a good thing for the bottom 50% of workers,

A union also tends to mean that you get paid for the # of years you worked your job, not how good you are. This is a good thing for the bottom 50% of workers, and a bad thing for the top 50% of workers. Does this union do anything to address that? Is pay still fully merit based?

Apocryphon 7y ago
Why do unions have to have seniority rules? Certainly next-gen unions can pursue a different model.
- deleted 7y ago
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- brianwawok 7y ago
  Unions do not like members being graded. I do not run a union, so I am not sure why that is. May be worth asking some of them.
gamblor956 7y ago
This is completely false. Union wage agreements are based on what union members want. For blue-collar unions, this usually means seniority-based scales. For white-collar unions, this usually means experience-based scales (which differs from seniority because it's not job-specific; any job in the field counts). For talent-based unions like SAG or NFLPA, this means minimum scales with no cap on maximum potential earnings.
- brianwawok 7y ago
  Do you know people in a union like SAG or the other entertainment type unions? It seems super not awesome for a lot of people. I know people working their way through the lower tiers. You often get a choice of <work on non-union production for $15 an hour, or work on union production for minimum union pay (which is < $15 an hour), and earn your hours needed to eventually become part of the union>. If you make it all the way through that dance INTO the union, it can help you coast and get a steady paycheck. And yes, it is a fact that lower tiers of people are abused in the US. But I would rather deal with that with universal healthcare, vs promoting unions to argue for better health benefits. You are technically correct in that unions can be any agreement that the founders. Sure. However I see a union for programmers looking a lot more like a union for autoworkers than a union for actors. What country has a successful union for computer programmers? Are the top 10% of performers better compensated than the top 10% of developers in the US? As far as I can tell, developers in the US have the best compensation of anywhere on earth. I can't imagine why I would ever want to join a programmer union.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    > However I see a union for programmers looking a lot more like a union for autoworkers than a union for actors. Why? That's your opinion, we're talking about a hypothetical organization that hasn't been attempted in the U.S. until the OP. It's all up in the air and speculative right now, there are many ways in which a tech union might shake out. > What country has a successful union for computer programmers? You might as well have asked a decade ago what country has built a successful mainstream electric car, or a program that could replace taxis or hotels, or a reusable space rocket. Like these things before they were invented, a tech union would be a new innovation, a new type of entity, that will need to be evaluated on its own real-world merits in the future. Right now critics prematurely shooting down the idea are constrained by imperfect comparisons to different types of unions created in different industries in different times. > As far as I can tell, developers in the US have the best compensation of anywhere on earth. For the time being. Economic tumult and technological change can easily alter this reality. What goes up must come down. So one should seek to future-proof and at least consider long-term safeguards, instead of assuming the good times will always be present. > I can't imagine why I would ever want to join a programmer union. Have you read this discussion at all? There's been many, many motivations for why a tech union- or a guild or some other professional association that works on behalf of tech workers- should exist, and compensation is only one of them.

Apocryphon 7y ago

Why do unions have to have seniority rules? Certainly next-gen unions can pursue a different model.

deleted 7y ago
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brianwawok 7y ago
Unions do not like members being graded. I do not run a union, so I am not sure why that is. May be worth asking some of them.

gamblor956 7y ago

This is completely false. Union wage agreements are based on what union members want. For blue-collar unions, this usually means seniority-based scales. For white-collar unions, this usually means experience-based scales (which differs from seniority because it's not job-specific; any job in the field counts). For talent-based unions like SAG or NFLPA, this means minimum scales with no cap on maximum potential earnings.

brianwawok 7y ago
Do you know people in a union like SAG or the other entertainment type unions? It seems super not awesome for a lot of people. I know people working their way through the lower tiers. You often get a choice of <work on non-union production for $15 an hour, or work on union production for minimum union pay (which is < $15 an hour), and earn your hours needed to eventually become part of the union>. If you make it all the way through that dance INTO the union, it can help you coast and get a steady paycheck. And yes, it is a fact that lower tiers of people are abused in the US. But I would rather deal with that with universal healthcare, vs promoting unions to argue for better health benefits. You are technically correct in that unions can be any agreement that the founders. Sure. However I see a union for programmers looking a lot more like a union for autoworkers than a union for actors. What country has a successful union for computer programmers? Are the top 10% of performers better compensated than the top 10% of developers in the US? As far as I can tell, developers in the US have the best compensation of anywhere on earth. I can't imagine why I would ever want to join a programmer union.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  > However I see a union for programmers looking a lot more like a union for autoworkers than a union for actors. Why? That's your opinion, we're talking about a hypothetical organization that hasn't been attempted in the U.S. until the OP. It's all up in the air and speculative right now, there are many ways in which a tech union might shake out. > What country has a successful union for computer programmers? You might as well have asked a decade ago what country has built a successful mainstream electric car, or a program that could replace taxis or hotels, or a reusable space rocket. Like these things before they were invented, a tech union would be a new innovation, a new type of entity, that will need to be evaluated on its own real-world merits in the future. Right now critics prematurely shooting down the idea are constrained by imperfect comparisons to different types of unions created in different industries in different times. > As far as I can tell, developers in the US have the best compensation of anywhere on earth. For the time being. Economic tumult and technological change can easily alter this reality. What goes up must come down. So one should seek to future-proof and at least consider long-term safeguards, instead of assuming the good times will always be present. > I can't imagine why I would ever want to join a programmer union. Have you read this discussion at all? There's been many, many motivations for why a tech union- or a guild or some other professional association that works on behalf of tech workers- should exist, and compensation is only one of them.