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> Right now engineers have incredible leverage. If the engineers’ leverage is so great, why have they been unable to enact policies they support?

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
Is it not possible that you are using your own feelings to assume most people agree with you? What if you are in a bubble? What if engineers as a majority don’t agree or don’t care about your issues? How would you know if you just agreed with a very vocal minority?
renewiltord 6y ago
Have they not? Certainly, life as an engineer is exactly as I desire it to be most places I go.
daenz 6y ago
Why can they make hundreds of thousands in total compensation?
- foolfoolz 6y ago
  this explains everything. you can stage a walk out in a meeting but you’re still on zuckerbergs payroll. and if 50% of the us based engineers quit based on some social principles there’s thousands of engineers ready to fill those spots around the world for a fraction of the price. covid has shown remote work works. unionizing and making the US more costly to work with will only accelerate how “remote” these jobs can be
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    The FAANGM types aren't hiring mediocre programmers out of Uzbekistan, they're looking for MIT/Carnegie Mellon/Stanford types. Plenty of primo talent coming out of Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, etc. as well. Plenty of bodies to replace those who leave, for sure, but they're not about to start hiring random offshore types.
    - klipt 6y ago
      But there are brilliant IIT graduates from India who would much rather work from their home city in India than pay Bay Area landlords just so they can sit on an 80 year waitlist for a green card.
      - Apocryphon 6y ago
        Extreme time zone differences are still a challenging problem that might actually be an insurmountable limit to remote work. (Depends on the level of asynchronicity of the job, of course.) Unless there starts to be a culture of remote shift work, which would just be dystopian.
    - foolfoolz 6y ago
      this description of target candidates does not match what i have seen. i’m not implying random or mediocre. it’s purely bay area hubris to assume no one else in the world except some top university graduates can learn our crud microservice development skills or put together some components
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  Because they're replacing their political leverage for dollars. Which is, of course, their choice.
  - adt2bt 6y ago
    It’s not clear to me that claiming political leverage would cost them dollars. Typically unionized employees make more once it’s said and done. I tend to think that there’s a shortage in engineering skill, which drives their cost up.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Policies that engineers in general truly support are rare. Many engineers - I suspect the majority - just don't feel that strongly about most causes.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  Engineer distaste or at least lack of enthusiasm for open offices is near-universal. It might not be the best reason to create a union, but its prevalence is probably rooted in the lack of something like a union to tell management to back off.
  - Conan_Kudo 6y ago
    Engineer who works in an open office, can confirm. Open offices suck in a large variety of ways, not the least of which my personal health has deteriorated over the years in large part because of it.
    - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
      As in getting colds? I haven’t heard of health as an open office gripe, but I’ve never worked in one.
- sjtindell 6y ago
  And they don’t feel strongly because they don’t have to care. I know I don’t. I could never open a newspaper or go to a protest and live quite blissfully. I’m white, I’m a man, I’m an engineer. So I’m safe. Everything seems to work just fine for me. I have friends struggling to pay rent, my girlfriend has trouble finding peers at school who will treat her like an equal, but I get an inbox full of emails all the time from companies begging to pay me amounts of money that boggle even my mind. I’m 27 and I make more than both my parents combined, of course you don’t see me fighting for a union. I can barely keep up with all the perks I already get! It’s rare to find someone willing to step outside their bubble and do work for someone else when they won’t benefit.
- malandrew 6y ago
0xy 6y ago
What have they been unable to enact? By my measure, Facebook has implemented "fact checking" with a jury stacked full of left-leaning organizations and has leveled bans and other measures against enemies of the genocide-denying ADL, a far-left organization with a long history of disgraceful incorrect accusations (which includes ruining innocent people's lives, later resulting in a court settlement). The only reason FB takes marching orders from such organizations is lobbying by their own employees.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

Is it not possible that you are using your own feelings to assume most people agree with you? What if you are in a bubble? What if engineers as a majority don’t agree or don’t care about your issues? How would you know if you just agreed with a very vocal minority?

renewiltord 6y ago

Have they not? Certainly, life as an engineer is exactly as I desire it to be most places I go.

daenz 6y ago

Why can they make hundreds of thousands in total compensation?

foolfoolz 6y ago
this explains everything. you can stage a walk out in a meeting but you’re still on zuckerbergs payroll. and if 50% of the us based engineers quit based on some social principles there’s thousands of engineers ready to fill those spots around the world for a fraction of the price. covid has shown remote work works. unionizing and making the US more costly to work with will only accelerate how “remote” these jobs can be
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  The FAANGM types aren't hiring mediocre programmers out of Uzbekistan, they're looking for MIT/Carnegie Mellon/Stanford types. Plenty of primo talent coming out of Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, etc. as well. Plenty of bodies to replace those who leave, for sure, but they're not about to start hiring random offshore types.
  - klipt 6y ago
    But there are brilliant IIT graduates from India who would much rather work from their home city in India than pay Bay Area landlords just so they can sit on an 80 year waitlist for a green card.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      Extreme time zone differences are still a challenging problem that might actually be an insurmountable limit to remote work. (Depends on the level of asynchronicity of the job, of course.) Unless there starts to be a culture of remote shift work, which would just be dystopian.
  - foolfoolz 6y ago
    this description of target candidates does not match what i have seen. i’m not implying random or mediocre. it’s purely bay area hubris to assume no one else in the world except some top university graduates can learn our crud microservice development skills or put together some components
BLKNSLVR 6y ago
Because they're replacing their political leverage for dollars. Which is, of course, their choice.
- adt2bt 6y ago
  It’s not clear to me that claiming political leverage would cost them dollars. Typically unionized employees make more once it’s said and done. I tend to think that there’s a shortage in engineering skill, which drives their cost up.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Policies that engineers in general truly support are rare. Many engineers - I suspect the majority - just don't feel that strongly about most causes.

Apocryphon 6y ago
Engineer distaste or at least lack of enthusiasm for open offices is near-universal. It might not be the best reason to create a union, but its prevalence is probably rooted in the lack of something like a union to tell management to back off.
- Conan_Kudo 6y ago
  Engineer who works in an open office, can confirm. Open offices suck in a large variety of ways, not the least of which my personal health has deteriorated over the years in large part because of it.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    As in getting colds? I haven’t heard of health as an open office gripe, but I’ve never worked in one.
sjtindell 6y ago
And they don’t feel strongly because they don’t have to care. I know I don’t. I could never open a newspaper or go to a protest and live quite blissfully. I’m white, I’m a man, I’m an engineer. So I’m safe. Everything seems to work just fine for me. I have friends struggling to pay rent, my girlfriend has trouble finding peers at school who will treat her like an equal, but I get an inbox full of emails all the time from companies begging to pay me amounts of money that boggle even my mind. I’m 27 and I make more than both my parents combined, of course you don’t see me fighting for a union. I can barely keep up with all the perks I already get! It’s rare to find someone willing to step outside their bubble and do work for someone else when they won’t benefit.
malandrew 6y ago

0xy 6y ago

What have they been unable to enact? By my measure, Facebook has implemented "fact checking" with a jury stacked full of left-leaning organizations and has leveled bans and other measures against enemies of the genocide-denying ADL, a far-left organization with a long history of disgraceful incorrect accusations (which includes ruining innocent people's lives, later resulting in a court settlement). The only reason FB takes marching orders from such organizations is lobbying by their own employees.