5 ms·
Why would a group of employees want to have any collective say in what their company does or how it treats them?
by lsiebert 6y ago
Why would a group of employees want to have any collective say in what their company does or how it treats them?
- ralusek 6y agoLots of reasons to avoid unions. For one, unions often diminish individual accomplishments and liberties in favor of what begins as collective interest, and eventually becomes union leadership interest. Unions become an entity themselves, and always trend towards bureaucracy, self-justification, and corruption. I would never, ever join a union. I like having my role and compensation being things that I am free to negotiate based off of my own leverage. The only situation in which unions would serve me are situations in which the power imbalance is so great between the available market employers vs. the employees, that the employees possess little to no leverage in any negotiation. Literally 0 software engineers in America are in such a situation.
- whimsicalism 6y ago> unions often diminish individual accomplishments and liberties in favor of what begins as collective interest Is that why NFL players have no individuality and are basically just substitutes of each other? I doubt anyone even knows any individual football player's name, since the union has so diminished their individual accomplishments.
- ralusek 6y ago> often
- whimsicalism 6y agoAh, that one must be the exception that proves the rule - i always forget about that.
- heavyset_go 6y agoWho even knows the names of movie stars anymore? They just go by their SAG-AFTRA member IDs since the union has made them all practically interchangeable.
- whimsicalism 6y agoThey are pretty interchangeable, but I have to say I am a bit partial to actor 958309 from SAG-AFTRA 5757, his performance in Inception was pretty great.
- heavyset_go 6y agoI heard 958309 got a flogging for that performance because it violated union bylaws that forbid one member from making other members look like slackers. That'll show him for being a prima donna and giving it his all!
- PhasmaFelis 6y agoI think you misread the question you are replying to.
- Frondo 6y agoScreen Actors Guild member Tom Cruise would like to chat with you about negotiating based on leverage, since you seem to have some misconceptions about what a collective bargaining agreement does what to the workplace.
- shadowgovt 6y agoThe first obstacle to general software engineering unionization is getting software engineers convinced that their problems stem from shitty management, and not incompetent peers.
- ralusek 6y agoWhich problems? Being paid well? Having a fun and interesting job? Have you ever worked a union job, did the union make shitty management suddenly disappear? Shitty management is often just swallowed up by the union itself. And I don't think I have incompetent peers, I think my peers are perfectly competent precisely BECAUSE the profession is not unionized. The fastest way to a pool of incompetent peers is by assuring the continued employment of incompetent people under the umbrella of collective protection.
- shadowgovt 6y agoI believe you just made my point for me.
- ralusek 6y agoYou said that I believe my problems come from incompetent peers, and not shitty management. I said that not only do I not believe my problems come from incompetent peers, but that I don't actually have any problems. And to the extent that I've worked under shitty management, I've had sufficient leverage to alter my situation accordingly. When I feel as though software engineers are systemically incapable of possessing the degree of leverage so as to alter their situations to a more optimal one, within reason, then I would be willing to consider bringing forth the myriad of problems that come with collectivization in order to attempt to access additional leverage. The landscape at the present could not be described as I have. So no, I haven't proved any of your points. Nothing that you said applies to what I said.