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Then companies should have no problems whatsoever with Unions? I mean, if a group of employees want to get together to amplify their negotiating power, then th

• helen___keller 6y ago
  > then they should not stop that? The whole point of having negotiating power is they can't just "stop" it. Because you, as a union, collectively have enough power to force them to the table to negotiate. Whether or not the company has a problem with unions is basically irrelevant.
  • plutonorm 6y ago
    It is irrelevant. But somehow companies have convinced most that unions are a bad thing. They have leveraged their greater influence to further their power. They are now in an essentially unassailable position. For the great majority of the workforce they have no bargaining power. This toxic modern world should pop like the noxious little bubble it is. We need a new 60s only this time we need to win.
    • yeetman21 6y ago
      I am only qualified to speak about the tech sector in which I work. All of my coworkers make above six figures. We have every sort of benefit that we could want. Why would we want a union? Our company has convinced us that unions are a bad thing by giving us basically anything that a union could have, and more. Why would we want to agitate for more when we already have so much, and risk what we currently have (which is more than adequate)
      • bumby 6y ago
        Unions are meant to bring some balance to a very imbalanced power structure when that power structure lends itself to taking advantage of the employees. The fact that you and your fellow employees have it so well may indicate that isn't your case. Unions aren't necessary but can help. I've worked in positions where the courts provided the same benefit via a different mechanism. Edit: I accidently had "are" for "aren't"
      • KittenInABox 6y ago
        I'm also a tech worker and I know plenty of things we can agitate for: * Better treatment against the rampant ageism in our industry (eg. access to lawyers when IBM decides to do mass layoffs of people above a certain age...) * Guaranteeing reimbursement for self-education materials, time off for self-education purposes like conventions and hacker spaces * Better treatment for H1B visa holders, a political push to stop the abuse of workers who cannot leave employers or risk losing immigration status * Support for and communal funding for OSS * A group pushback against flagrantly unethical, insecure, or straight up illegal behavior on the part of companies (eg. that non-poaching agreement back in the day that kept people's wages from being as high as they should've been) * Standard establishment of making sure remote workers are paid for the value they bring to the company and aren't stiffed purely because of where they are geographically located at the time.
        • yeetman21 6y ago
          To reply to your point about H1B: Unions are normally very nativist and would be the last group pushing for better/ more H1B visas. The Union reaction to the TPP should have indicated something. I feel as if the ageism is more on the worker's shoulders. Many of us are young, and the field is on the younger side on average
          • KittenInABox 6y ago
            Unions can be nativist but a tech union shouldn't have to be just because another labor union might've been. Ageism is on the worker's shoulders, but those workers are also managers who choose to do bullshit like lay off workers above a certain age across a company. We need ways to protect ourselves from that.
            • yeetman21 6y ago
              Unions are meant to increase wages for the workers. How will added X thousands of new workers (willing or forced to work for less) increase wages for the workers. It is by its design that unions are nativist. Agree with the second point on ageism
      • Dirlewanger 6y ago
        I'm in the same boat as you, but think about this: these cushy developer jobs in the Western world are on borrowed time. FAANG companies are investing billions to teach people how to code and brand it as if it's some noble humanitarian effort when it's really just to further lower wages. When the time of FAANG companies actually offshoring key development teams comes (and it is coming), I have 0 faith the federal government will give a shit to protect US workers. So maybe a union is the best way to stop this.
        • Nasrudith 6y ago
          Wait how could Unions help against outsourcing? What do Unions do? Use strikes (withholding labor) to get concessions. What does outsourcing involve? Finding cheaper labor out of the country and laying off or firing existing workforce. If outsourcing is the threat isn't the potentially outsourced threatening a strike kind of like responding to a mugger by putting a knife to your own throat? Except I think that might be more effective as a threat as it makes the mugger think of you as unstable and irrational.
          • bee_rider 6y ago
            A union can't help workers whose company is currently in the process of outsourcing them. However, it is often the case that a company isn't ready to completely shut down local operations.
        • asciident 6y ago
          I heard this same narrative in 2000, and it didn't happen, in fact the opposite. If you want people to believe that more people coding leads to offshoring and thus universally low wages, you'll have to make a more convincing argument to convince us that history is wrong (and not just wrong, went the complete opposite direction).
        • JAlexoid 6y ago
          Wealth isn't a single pie. When new engineers are trained - we bake a new cake, instead of slicing a thinner slice for your privileged position.
    • ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      > "companies have convinced most that unions are a bad thing" I don't know why people keep saying this. Unions themselves convinced most that unions are a bad thing, through their behavior. In my case, it was watching the UAW and Teamsters for a couple of decades.
    • bumby 6y ago
      Unfortunately, I think unions are culpable as well. When they protect bad employees, act to extend their power for it's own sake, refuse to concede despite potentially ruining the company etc. Ironically, they can end up displaying the same qualities they originated to prevent.
      • KittenInABox 6y ago
        They can but they don't always. Ascribing all unions to the flaws of the most culpable ones is something we don't do for corporations or even governments, and if we did do this we wouldn't get anywhere as a society. People used to beat each other physically over their votes in the village square, but this doesn't mean democracy is culpable for violence.
        • bumby 6y ago
          You're right that it's a broad generalization, but I would disagree that a lot of the same rhetoric isn't applied to corporations or governments. I should have been more specific to say 'unions with bad reputations are often culpable for those stereotypes'
          • KittenInABox 6y ago
            I will be honest I've never seen an across the board "but that's a corporation, we don't want anything to do with that" to corporations the way that's done with unions at least on HN. No one's languishing a "<startup> is a corporation? I don't know, look at nestle and its human rights abuses. I don't think we should support <startup>". FWIW I don't think unions are a silver bullet. I'm just pointing out that if you look at it from a neutral/uninvested party the bias is weird.
            • bumby 6y ago
              In the U.S. at least, there are quite a few pockets who think corporate structures are bad in general. I know HN tends to skew towards the entrepreneurial-minded, so it's quite a bit less here. To be clear, I deliberately use the word "can" in my previous statement i.e., they may abuse their power, but also may not
    • kolbe 6y ago
      It all depends on what your goal is. Unions take money from R&D and shareholders, and put it in their own pockets. That's totally fine, but it is a tradeoff. The negative side is it creates opportunities for other companies that aren't unionized to innovate with that capital. Or sometimes it just results in returning capital to shareholders. Tesla is a good example of where paying union members instead of investing in R&D offered Musk an amazing opportunity to outcompete some of the most entrenched and subsidized companies in the US. We are actually quite fortunate that this even happened in the US, because the opportunity was there for any company in any country to seize. As an aside, I don't get why deng tolerates comments like yours, but will mod an equivalent comment that even moderately right wing. If we want real discussion here, it doesn't start with a reshashed Eugene Debs speech.
      • bumby 6y ago
        I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard that R&D angle before. But I wonder is HN would be so positive on TSLA if it were instead “Musk decided to pay his engineers less so he could innovate instead!”
        • kolbe 6y ago
          Engineers are R&D
          • bumby 6y ago
            Not necessarily and it often depends where you work. Many (most even) are in support roles like maintenance, etc. E.g., I’ve previously worked for an automotive manufacturer on controls software. I was attached to the maintenance team. The design engineers were a subset of the entire engineers population. In other places I’ve worked, R&D was mainly done by scientists and physicists, not by engineers who served to support the R&D effort
• deleted 6y ago
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• echelon 6y ago
  I'm certainly not pro-union in tech, but this is something that could hasten its arrival. Just because I'm in Atlanta doesn't make me inherently worth less than my peers in SF.
  • ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    > "Just because I'm in Atlanta doesn't make me inherently worth less than my peers in SF." Should a person be charged SF prices for groceries when they're living in Atlanta because they're getting SF pay? Clearly not. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
    • phamilton 6y ago
      > You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can if you have sufficient negotiating power.
    • echelon 6y ago
      > Should a person be charged SF prices for groceries when they're living in Atlanta because they're getting SF pay? Your reasoning makes no sense. It's a choice to live in a city that lets landlords dictate which buildings can be built. Atlanta and other cities are unconstrained for new housing development. SF policies are a tax on its non-homeowner residents. You shouldn't be entitled to a differential just because your city doesn't build new housing fast enough. That has no bearing on the work your employees perform.
    • paridhi7 6y ago
      Then, it should be fair for a person with 4 kids living in Atlanta to be paid more than someone without any kids living in SF, right? You clearly missed the entire point of the article.
  • refurb 6y ago
    You’re not paid based on “worth”. You’re paid based on the intersection of how badly the company needs someone (demand) and how many people out there do what they need (supply). If suddenly the supply expands from the Bay Area to all of the US, that changes the equation. Don’t forget that guy in Atlanta who is equally as talented as you, but willing to work for 20% less than you make.
• missedthecue 6y ago
  Yes, generally speaking, buyers of any commodity don't like it when sellers cartelize themselves. Whether it's in oil like OPEC, chicken meat, or labour.
• yeetman21 6y ago
  If a group of employees want to get together to amplify their negotiating power without the threat of the government bludgeon, then they should be all for it.However once the government starts to give unions this and that, then it is no longer just between the employees and the employer
• bumby 6y ago
  > then they should not stop that? I think the opposite is true. The companies try to stop it precisely because it will weaken the company's negotiating position. I personally think unions have their place, but from an employers perspective there is little incentive to be pro-union (unless you are just arguing from a moral -- not pragmatic -- view).
• x87678r 6y ago
  I'd think the opposite. When I'm physically with people I can form groups, picket offices, go on strike. If I'm a remote worker I'm much more easily replaced and there isn't much I can do about it.
  • UnpossibleJim 6y ago
    Hasn't this been one of the major problems with unionization in the tech world, is that so many jobs in the tech sector can, in theory, be off shored if the headache becomes too large (among others - being notoriously difficult to unionize college graduate jobs in general, for some reason). Even for non remote workers, picketing offices and going on strike doesn't seem to be a true option in practice, even if it is an option in theory.
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I wonder if and when we'll see remote unions appearing. Forming a group and going on strike is easy - perhaps easier - in a remote setting. Picketing offices could be done by overloading the company VPN, and DDoSing the company Exchange server would be the equivalent of a harder "picketing inside the plant, preventing work" strike.
    • bumby 6y ago
      >overloading the company VPN, and DDoSing the company This is illegal in most countries, no? I don't believe picketing is illegal as long as certain conditions are met (not blocking egress, etc.)
      • nybble41 6y ago
        Yes, DDoS would be illegal in most countries. Picketing in the sense of peaceably assembling on public property outside the business and not harassing innocent bystanders or blocking egress or ingress of workers, customers, or suppliers would generally be fine. The online equivalent would probably be something like posting your complaints on social media.
    • easterncalculus 6y ago
• satyrnein 6y ago
  Does this include coercing the employer to only employ union members? What does the union say if the company wants to hire someone for cheap in another country, who wants the job?
  • toomuchtodo 6y ago
    I would hope my union would support legislation and lobby to protect wages over employer profits (with employers attempting to optimize for profits by employing cheaper offshore labor). Otherwise, the first world's standard of living is going to quickly race to the median of the world. If, as an employer, you would prefer not to adhere to strong labor protection laws in the market you desire to operate in, you are free to find markets more to your liking.
    • Aunche 6y ago
      Why is it inherently better to protect one middle class job in a first world country rather than lift 2 families out of poverty in the developing world? I'm not pretending that outsourcing is ethical thing to do, but neither is opposing outsourcing.
      • toomuchtodo 6y ago
        I vigorously support those with more wealth than they'll ever spend (billionaires and such, the wealthiest in the world) to take efforts to lift the poorest out of poverty. We're talking about a nation's labor policies to protect it's own citizens. Why would a nation disadvantage it's own citizens for the benefit of another country's citizens? If you're not protecting the income and ability to accumulate wealth of your citizens, this comes out of the pocket of your government's coffers for safety nets. So, at scale, weak labor policies are a wealth transfer from the middle class (that they didn't agree to) to other countries (as well as shareholders of your own country). The richest 1%, with over $1 million in wealth, own 44% of the world's wealth, but we're going to keep chipping away at the middle class?
        • 6y ago
• AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  As long as unions do not create a labor force monopoly - yes, companies should be fine with them.
• Aunche 6y ago
  You can't amplify the negotiating power of employees without trying to keep newcomers out who are willing to work for less.
• simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  I didn't say anything about Unions. I am not an expert, but my humble, quick one-liner to describe how I see Unions is the following: Unions are good to protect employees that don't have negotiating power (e.g. factory workers), otherwise companies would take too much advantage of them. I am not sure this necessarily applies to knowledge workers, especially if their work can be done remotely to some extent. And I am not saying that I am against unions; but like with everything else in life, everything comes with pros and cons. I have personally witnessed several examples of unions using their position to drive their political agenda at the expense of well-intentioned companies (most of it in my home country, Italy, in the 1990s and 2000s). So, beware: unions do not solve everything; they bring their own set of problems.
  • toiletfuneral 6y ago
    Wow unions sound horrible, unlike management & capital who would never have an agenda or risk endangering the firm.
  • sbergot 6y ago
    I don't understand why it doesn't apply to knowledge workers. Negotiating power is a variable quantity, not a binary property ("you have it or not"). The writers guild is a good example. Whether they use this better position for the overall good is another question. I am not sure letting all the power to the GM leads to a better result from a moral point of view. In France at the moment unions are negotiating common rules for home office (insurance policies, etc). In this case I think having unions is better for everyone.
  • jasonjayr 6y ago
    No, you didn't mention unions, but my response is specifically to: > company's goal is to "extract" from each employee more value than his/her/their salary. If a company manages to save on a salary because the employee doesn't have much negotiating power, good for the company. If that's a companies goal, then an employee's goal should be to counter that, and Unions are a line of defense against companies treating an employee as a resource to "extract" from. Free markets are good and all, but companies leveraging their outsized power against individual people shouldn't be surprised nor able to prevent individuals from working to put that power in check.
• deleted 6y ago
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• renewiltord 6y ago
  Companies can't stop you from unionizing. They can choose not to accept the collective agreement and they can hire permanent replacement for strikers. As for whether anyone should have a problem, you're welcome to have a problem. It's a free country. Whether that will lead to an outcome you desire is independent, though.
  • jasonjayr 6y ago
    You're right; but all too often companies turn to government to pass laws weakening unions, rather than continue to negotiate in good faith.
    • JAlexoid 6y ago
      That's a great argument for reducing government's power.
  • whoknew1122 6y ago
    > "Companies can't stop you from unionizing." de jure != de facto Companies are legally prohibited from stopping unionization in the US. But that's not how it works in reality. Most people work in an 'at-will' states. This means a company can terminate employees at any time. Want to unionize? Have at it. All an employer needs to do is find is some company policy a person is violating (and trust me, EVERYONE is violates their company's policies from time-to-time, if only because company policies are so verbose and onerous). Your work badge isn't immediately visible? That's a policy violation. Go over your lunch a few minutes? That's a policy violation. The company fires the unionizer. Now the onous is on the fired employee to prove that they were fired for unionizing. As long as the company doesn't say "I fired you because you were unionizing" (which they would never do), you got a lengthy legal battle on your hands. Now where do you take your battle? To the NLRB. Now you have to fight against regulatory capture and political appointees who are hostile to the very idea of organized labor. Even if you do win, it will cost untold sums of time and money. It will be years before everything is adjudicated. At that point, what does it matter? The unionizer has been forced to move onto another job in the interim (and hope that the other company doesn't avoid hiring the person because of the labor complaint. And if the potential employer does? Another legal battle that the unionizer has to enter and prove).
• spurdoman77 6y ago
  All companies I've worked for haven't had problems with unions. Though in the tech sector it feels that the employees dont have much interest towards it. I dunno what would happen if all programmers in a company would say that raise our salaries or we will quit. I guess the company would just hire contractors instead and it could even save the company money.
  • analog31 6y ago
    Salaries are not the only things that unions can negotiate, and a group of employees can engage in collective behavior without formally unionizing. Work rules are another way. My dad told me about the union work rules at the factory where he was a white collar employee (R&D department). I'm reminded of those stories when I've tried to get someone to do some programming for me in a large organization. Granted these rules have their origins in preventing abuse, or replacing skilled labor with unskilled, but they existed nonetheless and were part of running a business.