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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. The

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
      - JAlexoid 6y ago
        Tech workers are no more or less nativist, than anyone else.
      - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
        > "Unions can be nativist but a tech union shouldn't have to be just because another labor union might've been." There is no "might have been". It's pretty much a matter of historical record that labor unions were fiercely anti-immigrant. Judging by nativist comments even on a heavily moderated forum like HN whenever the topic of H1-Bs comes up, the many, many immigrants in the tech industry would be have to be bonkers to trust that a tech union wouldn't become nativist.
        teachrdan 6y ago
- 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

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
    - JAlexoid 6y ago
      Tech workers are no more or less nativist, than anyone else.
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      > "Unions can be nativist but a tech union shouldn't have to be just because another labor union might've been." There is no "might have been". It's pretty much a matter of historical record that labor unions were fiercely anti-immigrant. Judging by nativist comments even on a heavily moderated forum like HN whenever the topic of H1-Bs comes up, the many, many immigrants in the tech industry would be have to be bonkers to trust that a tech union wouldn't become nativist.
      - teachrdan 6y ago
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