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When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve. Peop

• antisoeu 6y ago
  Here in Germany unions (in tech) will for example make sure that older employees can't be fired, so the younger employees will be fired instead. So I don't think you can simply claim they are beneficial for everybody.
  • throwaway2245 6y ago
    Boomers often have a major advantage in democratised situations, simply because there are more of them. As such, it's still in your own interest to join a union and be represented. And, with Boomers retiring, this power imbalance in unions can be lessened or reversed.
    • missedthecue 6y ago
      There are not more boomers than other demographics. Why would you say this?
      • thatfunkymunki 6y ago
        There are more boomers in power than other demographics
      • throwaway2245 6y ago
        Why do you think they are called "boomers"? There was a population boom.
        • missedthecue 6y ago
          That's great, but the millennial generation had more births, and given all the deaths that the boomer gen has had since 1946, millennials are a much larger block at this point.
    • PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      In tech, there are more people with degrees than old people. It’s basic math of an expanding industry. It’s definitely not the case that there are more “boomer” software engineers than younger engineers. One look at charts of CS degrees issued by year will clearly show why.
  • PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    This is the detail that most people miss: Unions don’t protect the general public against a company. They protect the ranking members of a company. That means the union also protects members of the company from the general public who might be looking to take their job by offering to work harder or better or cheaper. If you’re a young person getting started in this industry it might be fun to imagine working in a unionized environment, but remember that the union would be working to protect its members from you breaking into the company and entering the senior ranks.
    • whimsicalism 6y ago
      Is that why in Ford's recent deal struck with UAW, one of the sticking points for UAW was that there be a "Guaranteed path to permanent full-time employment for temporary employees"? That would seem to be entirely contrary to the idea that union's goal is to make it harder for people to join these companies.
    • kanbara 6y ago
      Um... in germany works councils don't get rid of young people because they want to protect their senior ranks. First: it's really hard to get fired in germany, almost impossible. Second: they help formulate who gets laid off when, when there are layoffs, and prioritise people who can and will find a job more easily. So young people and people without families. This is because older people are more vulnerable to discrimination. This is what a society does to protect each other and to use power against a company because the employer-employee relationship is adversarial. Unions don't exist to protect the brass, i don't even know what you're on about
      • tempuser189 6y ago
        First: that's awful because it means business don't have any flexibility to change. you're forced to work with people who don't work, because they can't get fired. The lower productivity of those workers becomes a drag on everyone else. Second: this is the worst. Instead of shedding the dead weight it insists on protecting the people who've been paying dues the longest, at the expense of young people. No this is not what I call a just society. A just society is one where people doing more work get more pay. This exists fine right now. Workers have tons of companies to choose from. Companies have lots of workers to choose from. There's a vibrant market and most people end up getting paid what they're worth.
  • pydry 6y ago
    Divide and conquer - pitting one group against another - is a pretty standard union busting tactic. Since unionization is essentially a fight for power with management and fights are, well, confrontational, its kind of a given that there will be casualties and fallout. Whether that's worse than yielding all collective power to management depends on many variables, including how confrontational and revenge oriented management tends to be.
  • anoncake 6y ago
    > Here in Germany unions (in tech) will for example make sure that older employees can't be fired, so the younger employees will be fired instead. That's the law actually, IIRC. It also protects people with children.
  • 8note 6y ago
    Do younger employees pay less in Union dues as a result?
    • adtac 6y ago
      it's usually a percentage of your income, so indirectly yes
  • Udo_Schmitz 6y ago
    You are misinformed, in Germany/EU there is legal protection against age discrimination.[1] You don’t need to be a member of a union or even have any union representation at the company. [1]https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kündigungsschutz#Kündigungsschutz_und_AGG https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kündigungsschutz#Kündigungssch...
• fovc 6y ago
  One positive byproduct is that union membership is a quality signal for both employers and employees. I.e., as a producer, I know non-union candidates will be less experienced; as an employee I know a movie using non union labor is not going to run as smoothly. Could be good for the startup market if this additional data point becomes reliable
  • bitcharmer 6y ago
    Genuine question as I don't know that industry at all. How does being a member of a union imply more experience?
    • kenhwang 6y ago
      The unions (edit: film industry) require a certain amount of work experience to join and some have different levels of membership depending on how much work you do after joining. Because everyone prefers union workers, it creates a situation where the non-union worker has to get noticed somehow (nepotism or exceptional work) to convince someone to take a risk and hire them to earn enough work to gain union membership.
      • throwaway316943 6y ago
        I look forward to a future where bright young engineers spend their twenties bussing tables while trying to get into the software guild.
      • humanrebar 6y ago
        It's worth pointing out that in those situations unions aren't better for all workers. Also notice there's a strong gig economy component to establishing professional credentials.
        • kenhwang 6y ago
          Of course. Which can be evidenced by the working conditions in the film industry for the typical staff and the lack of diversity at the top.
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• spodek 6y ago
  Hollywood makes a valid comparison for being nearby, but the more meaningful comparisons are to more unionized countries like in Europe or America in the past, where unions increased productivity, safety, and living standards.
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  • sethammons 6y ago
    I feel like that all happened a hundred years ago and many of the protections they offered are now backed by law.
• ericol 6y ago
  I find really, really baffling the general position in the US regarding unions. It is like there's a general discourse that they are a bad thing, just like with "that other" thing (cough socialism cough). This is even more strange when you find out about police unions - that are widespread -, and what their power is. From my point of view actions of police union are usually borderline "mob-like" (as in, I mostly hear about them when they save the necks of abusing and / or corrupted officers). It's like people think unions are generally bad, but then they have police unions everywhere and nobody bats an eye... even when their actions are on the shadowy side of things. I didn't know about the film industry, thought (Even thought I remember about the writer's guild strike of a few years back). Just like democracy, unions might be the worst solution, except for all the others.
  • jcims 6y ago
    Just a few opinions here, focusing on the negatives to try to explain the 'general discourse that they are a bad thing'. It's in part because the US has a storied history of corrupt unions and their affiliation with the mafia and organized crime. There's a related facet in that, to an outside observer, the UAW chased American automakers out of the country through unsustainable demands for wages and benefits. Another part comes from the direct experience of many Americans as members of unions and some portion (we can argue percentages) of those people arrive at the conclusion that the union at best isn't worth the dues and at worse is pathological, in some cases by protecting underperformers and in others by lacking a spine when it is needed. This is where my personal experience the Teamsters and vicarious experience via my wife's membership in the NEA landed me. It's also in part because many Americans have direct experience working alongside unions and some (again we can argue percentages) become frustrated with the rules and the pace. I've had some experience with this in the HVAC industry and in home building. I was already tainted a bit by my experience as a member above so I'm sure there was some confirmation bias here. Lastly America has a pretty strong ethos, or myth if you prefer, of individualism and some unions and union members lay on a very thick collectivist twang in their communication that can be off-putting. I'm not ideologically opposed to unions in any way, I just haven't seen one do a great job in the US. I hope Kickstarter is able to pull off a good example and am all for workers shooting their shot if they feel it is a good idea. I'm just not particularly optimistic.
• ignoramous 6y ago
  > For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster. Yeah, a bizarre line of reasoning. Footballers first unionized in 1907 and haven't looked back since. Today, your average footballer (plying their trade in the upper tiers of English football) makes more in a month than most tech engineers make in a year (granted careers are short and there are many more elite engineers than there are elite football players, but still, I don't think unionization had any effect on their salaries). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Footballers%27_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Footballers%27_As... See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Tennis_Professionals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Tennis_Professi...
  • MagnumOpus 6y ago
    > Footballers first unionized in 1907 and haven't looked back since Incorrect, the first footballer's union was from 1898 [1]. > I don't think unionization had any effect on their salaries Despite the existence of the union, clubs could impose a salary cap on players well into the 1960s, and could trade them like slaves under the "retain-and-transfer" system [2] until the EU forbade that practice in the 1990s [3]. All in all, football is a very bad example for the success of unions. Unions helped jack shit to get players out of an exploitative situation - every improvement was hard-won in courts by individual footballers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_Footballers%27_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_Footballers%27_Uni... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retain_and_transfer_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retain_and_transfer_system [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling
    • CydeWeys 6y ago
      > and could trade them like slaves under the "retain-and-transfer" Don't you see a little bit of an issue with this wording? Namely that said players were paid for their labor and could quit playing football at any time?
    • Mauricebranagh 6y ago
• giantg2 6y ago
  I wouldn't look to SAG as a good example. The format of that industry is very different from most "typical" jobs, specifically tech work. I would also suggest looking at the the recent SAG healthcare fiasco.
  • SiempreViernes 6y ago
    So it's not a good example for benefits, but a good example for problems?
    • giantg2 6y ago
      It's an example that is fundamentally different from tech work, specifically google. It's a gig based industry with massively high income inequality. Not to mention it's an industry level/dominate union vs a company level union. Yes, the idea for health benefits was great. But now we see that the SAG is just like corporation - cutting benefits because the highly paid big wigs don't want to pay for them.
    • kenhwang 6y ago
      I think it's the exact opposite problem the tech industry has. The film industry has way more talent supply than the employment demands, which naturally suppresses pay. The guilds/unions are a way to increase scarcity to maintain pay and ease hiring. The tech industry has much less talent supply and much much much more employment demand. Tech might be better modeled after high skilled trade unions (which have a labor shortage) than the comparatively lower skilled film/auto/factory unions (which have a labor surplus).
      • SamoyedFurFluff 6y ago
        I disagree with this point to some extent. Look at video game devs, who have similar problems where there’s a lot of labor supply enabling abuses. Also look at the abuse capable of h1b visa holders.
        • muzaffarpur 6y ago
• pacificat0r 6y ago
  So these are really good examples, but I still don't understand what unions can do for 1% of someone's pay. They kind of look like subscription services, or worse places you have to join or else there are unintended consequences from other examples where they mention looking at union membership as an indicator of some experience (so kind of like a tax). The screen actors guild and all the movie-related guilds seem interesting, but aren't those kind of like freelancers more than closer to fully employed people? I guess it would be beneficial for salary negotiation for non-software engineers and maybe contractos, but I don't really see the incentive to join one as a fulltime software engineer. Maybe I have a bad opinion on unions due to how they operated in my country that's not US :D.
  • avianlyric 6y ago
    In theory the unions should be a place to organise employees, to help improve working conditions. But I suspect for most people the real benefit will be protection from miscarriages of justice. I've personally seen people put through the wringer by HR teams, and even when the HR team acknowledges they've fucked up, there's no apologies or an attempt to make things right. Unions can provide protection in these case, whether that's access to legal help, or just having a 3rd party on your side sitting in on employee dispute meetings. I think a lot of people don't appreciate how badly they can be screwed over by a HR team, accidentally or maliciously, until they find themselves in a meeting with three members of the HR team, with no one telling them what's going on. At which point, it's already too late to save yourself. A union gives you recourse and support, something invaluable when it you're up against the entire HR team.
    • datavirtue 6y ago
      This is how it works with the nurses unions. My mom got accused by another nurse of intentionally hurting a patient. Without the union she would have been on her own to deal with HR and management who would have just gotten rid of her as a matter of their convenience. Nothing of substance was found out of the investigations. The union worked. It will also protect her against any future political repercussions arising from the accusations and investigation. The police were involved and everything, no way in hell an employee would survive that without union representation.
• Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's also funny because blue collar work is / can be ridiculously well-paid, in part thanks to the union's efforts.
  • damagednoob 6y ago
    That's what happens when you control supply. Your politics determines whether it's to maintain standards or the wages of its members.
    • jswizzy 6y ago
      you don't control the supply though. Google will just offshore these jobs to India.
      • missedthecue 6y ago
        Unions control supply. It takes over 10 years to get into the longshoremans union, but once you do, you'll make $220k a year. It's because the union puts most of the work on the people trying to get into the union earning $14/hr so they can pay huge sums to the unionized worker. It's a cartel, like OPEC.
  • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    All the "ridiculously well paid" unionized blue collar workers I know are the people who work a ton of hours of overtime in an environment where their seniority permits them to get first dibs. They are outnumbers ~2:1 by the blue collar workers I know who make that kind of money by working for themselves or by making themselves so indispensable to some employer that the employer pays them well above market to retain their experience in a non-union environment (e.g. the maintenance guy at a factory who's been there forever and a half and knows exactly why everything is the way it is, this maps pretty well to a lot of the highly paid "architect" positions that a lot of tech BigCos have). I'm not sure how these situations map to a salaried workplace. Yes I know this is just an anecdote.
• chrisseaton 6y ago
  > None of these unions are limiting the work their members are carrying out. I don't believe that this is a truthful statement. Does Global Rule One in the SAG not limit the work that members can carry out? If they union doesn't want you to work on a production then you are not allowed to work on that production.
  • rafram 6y ago
    No, you’re completely misunderstanding the rule. Because the film industry works on a freelance basis, the union only has bargaining power if it doesn’t exist alongside a non-unionized body of workers who are willing to work for cheaper. By requiring that union members only work unionized jobs, they ensure that no non-union production can ever benefit from any non-union labor. This pushes productions to negotiate terms with the union in order to get talent, and that in turn helps union members get jobs. It’s not about whether the union likes you or thinks you deserve to work. It’s about whether the production is willing to play by union rules.
    • chrisseaton 6y ago
      I don't get it - isn't 'requiring that union members only work unionized jobs' an example of 'limiting the work their members are carrying out'? If you're a member of the union, you can't work on productions without certain agreements, yes? Your ability to work on productions you want to work on is... limited... isn't it?
• finnthehuman 6y ago
  >When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions Because everyone talking about unionization refuses to get into the nitty gritty of what I might gain, what I might lose, and the structural changes to the workplaces that are inherent with unionization. And if/when I/others start spitballing about what those might be we're treated like dolts uneducated on organized labor, and should just shut my mouth and get on board. >they don't always get it right This is the closest anyone every gets to saying something, but it doesn't mean anything. Where the fuck is the actual case study about the structure of the system, constraints, influences, incentives? How does it evolve and how does the contract change and evolve that system? >I don't pretend that Hollywood is a perfect utopia of worker relations, but I think it's pretty undeniable that the industry is a much better place with the unions around. SHOW don't TELL. tl;dr: Don't tell me I want a union contract, tell me what the terms of the contract will be and I'll decide for myself. I'm probably on board, but every time someone glosses over the details you push me further and further away.
  • cool_dude85 6y ago
    So you want someone who can tell you what the yet-to-be-negotiated contract with your employer will look like? Maybe you should be looking to join up with the Mage's Guild, I understand that their magic can see the future very clearly.
    • finnthehuman 6y ago
      >So you want someone who can tell you what the yet-to-be-negotiated contract with your employer will look like? In broad strokes, yes. Here's an analogy: I know it's not implemented yet, but I want the design doc and market research, not just the elevator pitch.
      • whimsicalism 6y ago
        This is usually communicated in the course of organizing - you don't win union elections by not communicating what you stand for/what would be pushed for in a new contract.
• microtherion 6y ago
  Apple used to have easter eggs in its software, crediting individual engineers. Steve Jobs banned them, saying it would be unfair to give credit to individuals instead of the whole company, would make it easier for competitors to poach key engineers, etc. At the time, Jobs was also running Pixar, which never seemed to have problems in its movies to credit everybody down to the hairstylist of the second unit's caterer by name. Hmm… could it be that… they were unionized and we were not?
  • kenhwang 6y ago
    Credit everyone by name or credit no one by name. It is inherently unfair to only credit key talent.
    • pulse7 6y ago
      Isn't the moral right of every (software) author that his name is mentioned next to the authored intellectual property (software)? This is even written in copyright laws of some countries...
      • microtherion 6y ago
        That's an excellent question. I believe non-visual moral rights are not recognized in the US, and I'm not sure they've ever been tested for software in any other Berne Convention signatories.
      • colejohnson66 6y ago
        Unless as part of your employment, you agreed to an implicit copyright reassignment to the organization. In that instance, a “(c) Alphabet ####” is allowed.
        • microtherion 6y ago
          In countries that know true "Moral Rights", those rights are unassignable, so any such agreement is void. Your employer still gets all the money, but you get the "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" clout if you want it.
• OJFord 6y ago
  > You have vocally supportive multi-millionaire card-carrying members of the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, and the Directors Guild to name a few. I'm not familiar with that industry (nor the US) but those sound more like professional bodies than unions? I am a Member of the IET; I wouldn't join a union.
• Consultant32452 6y ago
  Unions create artificial scarcity. This is good for themselves but bad for everyone else. If I'm not a member of SAG then I cannot offer my services at competing rates because SAG has cut me out, regardless of my skill level. This creates a moat between the poor and working class. They contractually protect themselves from being undercut by the lower classes, perpetuating wealth inequality.
• Spooky23 6y ago
  For some reason, the most vocal aspect of tech workers tends to be this libertarianish pure merit based persona that is insulted by any type of collective bargaining. I think that attitude rules the day because tech related industries are in an extended growth period, and the more “legacy” aspects of the industry use offshoring and guest workers to maintain total control. (The armies of programmers churning out Java at banks, etc.) While rockstar engineers exist, and everyone on the internet is a genius, the reality is that almost nobody has meaningful negotiation power over a big tech company. I’ve seen more than my share of top talent at big tech companies get dumped in hardship roles or be mistreated because their big boss/sponsor retired or moved on, and they were held hostage by vesting periods, etc. Growing up, I had family who were steamfitters, firemen and operating engineers. All of them were treated better as skilled labor or with clear work rules than the bullshit that I’ve been forced to deal with in my career. Not complaining -- I've lived a charmed work life in many ways!
  • rzz3 6y ago
    I personally am very happy with my job, and when I raise any kind of grievance it is listened to. If I were unhappy, I’d go to another company. So I just don’t see what I’d get out of it personally.
    • cultus 6y ago
      It's neat that you are in such a position, but many aren't.
  • deleted 6y ago
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• lr4444lr 6y ago
  There is plenty of evidence that I've seen firsthand in municipal government of unions protecting and promoting incompetent IT talent. It doesn't all fall to @#$& solely because government tech is often very slow to change, so mediocre workers can train on very specific applications and not need much continuing ed. I scarcely ever met one that would get hired at either a FAANG or a tech startup. I will qualify this by saying it's U.S. only. Maybe other countries handle this all much better, but we're dealing with Google U.S. in this story.
  • flr03 6y ago
    Where is the evidence?
  • pydry 6y ago
    Given the amount of incompetent talent I've seen promoted without a union because they cozy up to management I have a really hard time believing the picture would be any worse with them. Meritocracy is orthogonal to unionization, I think, though I doubt there's an employer in the world that doesn't believe that their decisions are entirely meritocratic. The argument "[institution]* tends to towards corruption therefore we shouldn't have [institution]" is a logical fallacy in all cases, since all human institutions tend towards corruption but we still need them. * replace [institution] with government, government department, police, corporations, unions, etc. and the fallacy remains the same.
    • tempuser189 6y ago
      Oh trust me, it gets much much worse after unionization, since businesses have little ability to let go of unproductive workers.
      • pydry 6y ago
        Well, sure. Nothing says trustworthy like a brand new anonymous user saying "trust me".
    • deleted 6y ago
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• whoisthemachine 6y ago
  > This is because those unions are serving a very different purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear. SAG, the DGA, and the WGA aren't guaranteeing hours or limiting pay: they're simply trying to curb abuse in what it a very abusive industry, and putting in place procedures to protect members and resolve grievances. This is an important point, and one I haven't thought of before - I think Americans often think of Unions as organizations that prevent layoffs and gain ever higher benefits, to the detriment of the company. Indeed, this announcement confirms their goals are slightly different from a typical union's goals: > Its goal will be to tackle ongoing issues like pay disparity, retaliation, and controversial government contracts.
  • umvi 6y ago
    > and controversial government contracts. So basically this is a political union forcing the company to adopt certain political stances (i.e. to force the company to refuse DoD or ICE contracts)
• greggman3 6y ago
  Here's a movie about some of the issues with Hollywood unions https://youtu.be/j5a_00YVVkQ?t=1018 https://youtu.be/j5a_00YVVkQ?t=1018 https://youtu.be/j5a_00YVVkQ?t=935 https://youtu.be/j5a_00YVVkQ?t=935
• mytailorisrich 6y ago
  The point of unions is obviously for employees to unite in order to strengthen their bargaining power. Engineers at Google are very well paid and have very nice perks (at least that the general perception), so I think what many people might wonder is what better deal do they feel they need strongly enough to unite in order to get it?
  • madamelic 6y ago
    >Engineers at Google are very well paid and have very nice perks (at least that the general perception), so I think what many people might wonder is what better deal do they feel they need strongly enough to unite in order to get it? Also hope to gosh that there is a membership rate cap. 1% of every Google engineer's salary every year is an absurd amount of money. I don't understand why Sally Joe making $200k needs to pay more for her protection than Billy Bob making $150k.
    • refurb 6y ago
      How else do you pay dozens of union leaders $500k salaries? Someone has to cough up the dough.
  • trentnix 6y ago
    Power. It's the hunger that is never satiated.
  • adwww 6y ago
    Presumably in their case a union offers a better way to voice their concerns over eg. objectionable business practices, or just affecting the role out of more routine policies - eg. around time tracking, remote working, childcare, etc.
  • thu2111 6y ago
    The article is quite clear: they don't intend to unite to strengthen their bargaining power. "Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won’t seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract with the company" It's not really a union. It's a political faction that calls itself a union to benefit from laws protecting union members from being fired for "organising". The assumption was that unions would "organise" to benefit their workers via better pay or conditions, but that isn't the case here.
• conanbatt 6y ago
  Just look at the unions california has and see how well the work. Teachers, Bart and Police. Great examples of the success of unionization?
• Karunamon 6y ago
  >because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster. The first thing is strictly true. Every union takes dues. It is not strictly true that pay/compensation will increase in all cases. The second thing is true a lot of the time. Unions tend to wind up using seniority as the primary metric for positions and compensations. Why ignore those things?
• jollofricepeas 6y ago
  Great point. The funny thing about unions is that the HN community believes that every other organization and industry can be disrupted...EXCEPT unions. It’s hilarious. The comments are usually all anecdotal with some story about an uncle or father who was “screwed over” by his union back in the 80s or 90s. We are capable of creating a new type of union and making collective bargaining better than what previous generations had in this current era of the greatest wealth inequality since Rockefeller and Carnegie. What do the tech elite and robber barons have in common? - They are all anti-union and collective bargaining.
  • PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    What can be done and what will be done are two entirely different concepts, though. What makes you confident that this time it will be different or that this union would be immune from the same issues that occur in other unions? If we’ve reached the point where the strongest arguments for unionizing is that maybe this time it will somehow be different than other unions, that’s not encouraging.
    • whimsicalism 6y ago
      > the strongest arguments for unionizing is that maybe this time it will somehow be different than other unions I think the strongest argument for unionizing is that we know that this time is different from other times - wealth inequality is staggeringly high.
      • dleslie 6y ago
        And so why would tech workers, who presently are generally in the upper decile of compensation, want to join an organization that may seek to diminish income disparity? Seems like a leopards ate my face moment.
        • Apocryphon 6y ago
          Because income disparity has larger effects that will in the long-term screw over tech workers as they have the rest of society. In the Bay Area alone, income disparity coupled with housing shortage has contributed to mass homelessness; cue highly-paid tech workers Tweeting about having to step over human waste on the way to work. On a national and indeed international level, income disparity leads to political upheaval as populist movements capture discontent from slipping standards of living in diminishing middle classes.
• mattzito 6y ago
  I'm as pro-union as they come, but let's not pretend that the film and theater unions are an unalloyed good. It's true that the top is not limited for people who make millions of dollars, but the bottom is fairly restrictive, and that has a negative impact on many many actors/performers. For example, once you are an Actors Equity member, you can not do non-Equity work, except with special exemptions. You are also required to join equity once you do a certain number of Equity weeks - this means that I know people who luck into one Equity show early in their career, have to join Equity, and then are locked out of swaths of theatrical work because they're Equity. At the same time, though, they don't have enough of a resume to keep getting Equity work. SAG and AFTRA have similar policies. I agree they've done a good job at curbing abuses, and again, I'm pro-union overall, but the film/tv/theater unions definitely force some tough decisions for the lower end of the worker spectrum
• PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve. This statement holds true regardless of which side of the argument you’re on. The modern discourse around unions seems to revolve around a lot of stereotypes that aren’t entirely accurate. Yes, unions can be effective for changing working conditions. However, it’s important to remember who those unions serve. The most common misconception is that unions serve the general public in pushing back against the corporation. Not true. The unions serve existing employees of those companies, usually as prioritized by seniority. This is a great situation if you are already a senior member of that company, but it’s not as beneficial if you’re a young person trying to break into that industry or move up within a company. The screen actors guild is a flawed analogy because film productions are very time limited operations. This would be like Google creating a new company for every project and picking which workers to “hire” into the new company. This conveniently skirts all of the issues around seniority that unions tend to bring to a company, because people are only involved in productions at whatever level they’ve been hired into. It’s also not as easy to break into the SAG as you might think. Ask young actors about the hoops they have to jump through and fees they have to pay to get into the SAG at the beginning of their careers. For examples of how unions don’t always benefit employees, especially younger employees, listen to This American Life’s podcast about how bad teachers can’t be fired due to union rules in some districts, so they’re kept on the payroll and placed into an empty room to avoid running afoul of the union. Now imagine how much better off we’d all be (kids, aspiring teachers who could take those jobs, taxpayers) if the unions allowed the school district to simply fire the bad teachers and hire good teachers without fighting the union.
• ransom1538 6y ago
  unintended consequences 1. Fat cats. What are the due fees? %1 now?, later then? %5 of gross annually? 200 people * 300k year * %5 of salary = 3 million. They will use this on fancy dinners with Google execs? Or spend it in "wrongful terminations" law suites with google for years? What happens when 50x more join. 2. Who runs it? Will it be a 10 year long president? What is her union salary? A non-google person? Will it be full time? A slack group? They dish out favors to win elections? 3. Who gets into the union? Base is on the newest woke culture? Base it on need? Salary? Scan their social media? Popularity contests? Seems like a great way to start discrimination. 4. Will being in this union freak out future employers? If your union spends most of it's time suing - will they want you around? EG. I don't see Tesla wanting a high ranking union person from google. 5. My wife worked at a union. Unions tend to not fire - so (non blue collar) you end up with hundreds of drained, demotivated, incompetent - due payers. This is the direction people at google want to go? Who will actually do the work? Non-union Sub-contractors? 6. Will they become political? Will you have to join this political party? What if you disagree on a few things? You still pay dues right - to the Fat Cat? 7. Will they corner off work? EG. You can't be a designer level III without being in the union. One thing that wont happen: better working conditions.
  • whimsicalism 6y ago
    1. They'll probably spend it on lawyers & negotiation teams. 2. How are those consequences? 3. > Base is on the newest woke culture? ... Scan their social media? What? If they are voted in, Google will be required to provide the employee manifest. 5. First, there are unions in numerous industries with lots of firings/seasonal firings. Second, firing is also not as common in big tech anyways. 6. You have a vote? On what to negotiate on?
  • rafram 6y ago
    1. Members have agreed to contribute 1%, as stated in the article that you may not have read. 2. Elections 3. The article also answers this question. It’s open to anyone working for Alphabet (besides, if it works like a typical union, management). 4. Not hiring you for your union affiliation would be highly illegal. 5. She worked AT a union? Unions don’t fire people? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you mean she was a member, and that unions prevent companies from firing their members? Even that’s largely not true. 6. Yes, you’ll have to join the Communist Party of America and pledge allegiance to AOC in order to even join the zoom call, of course. Because that’s how unions work 7. No, because it’s voluntary, as you could’ve read in the article that you didn’t read.
• pentagrama 6y ago
  Unions are "Red scare" for many. I thinks it comes down to ideology. Pro capitalists view unions with skepticism or hostility because challenges the system, pro socialists view as a way to fight the power structures and injustice. Other people just don't want to be involved in unions because is a sensitive topic and are afraid to lost their jobs.
  • thu2111 6y ago
    Nobody in this union is going to fight against "injustice". Look at their list of demands. It's indeed a red scare because they are really, really red. For example, refusing to work with the defence industry - which country in the world would benefit most from a damaged US/European military? China! We can see what kind of union this is by the fact that: 1. They aren't going to try and bargain collectively 2. Their announcement claims Timnit Gebru was fired and that was terrible, instead of the obvious truth that she said made obnoxious requests and said she'd resign unless she got them, then was told "OK, we accept your resignation". They're a brand new organisation and they're already misrepresenting reality. In other words it's going to be nothing like the IBEW or whatever. It's yet another left-wing campaigning organisation, pretending to be a union to try and make the members un-fireable no matter how nasty they become.
    • RichardCA 6y ago
      The whole point of unions is that no one is subject to the vagaries of summary termination. But don't worry, I'm not holding my breath on this. But the left/right pendulum swings both ways. It would also protect people from the next kerfuffle over Cancel Culture. People should have the right to not be threatened with the removal of their livelihood for arbitrary reasons. I mean, there's nothing unreasonable in that position, and its merits can be examined outside of the left/right lens.
      • thu2111 6y ago
        The justification for its existence is to propagate cancel culture - read what they've written about their goals! A part of their mission is to cancel whole customers and let's face it, if they think Gebru was "fired" they aren't going to stick up for James Damore are they?
• SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  My most recent direct exposure to film unions was the 2007 WGA strike, which was the initial source of many of my fears about unions. The WGA didn't just say "our members aren't interested in working under these conditions"; they issued angry denouncements of anyone who did work, sabotaged production company efforts to find temporary replacements for guild writers, and recruited friends in adjacent jobs to strike with them. For over four months, the industry was just on pause, and there was nothing anyone could do about it until the union monopoly and producer monopoly reached an agreement. I have nothing but respect for the many workers who have to unionize, because they won't receive acceptable pay and working conditions unless they do. If the WGA feels that writers are in that position, I'm not going to tell them they're wrong. But I don't think software engineers are, and I have no interest in working in an environment where my coworkers might disappear for four months and demand nobody else step in to do their jobs.
• eternalban 6y ago
  Hollywood is in the content business. As an informative precedent in context of a professional union’s unintended consequences (or misused powers), we should look at what role (if any) has the AGU played in censorship, uniformity of views propagated, negative ethnic stereotypes that persist in Hollywood product content, etc.
• mmaunder 6y ago
  SAG covers things like pension and healthcare which Google employees already have. It’s necessary because of the piecemeal nature of work in film. Not every actor is wealthy - that’s an edge case.
• ineedasername 6y ago
  I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve Unfortunately, through my own experience being in one & observing other unions, they often end up serving the organization of the union itself. They may still work for the workers, but also end up making decisions that are better for the union than for the workers. Right now, my kids are learning remotely. However, the school district has encouraged teachers themselves to still report to their classroom to teach from there because seeing that environment lends at least a little bit more normalcy to the experience. You might agree or disagree, but the teachers have the choice. However, teachers are being told & subtly bullied by the union into not doing this for some vague justification that it weakens the union. At least one member I know of has said they're teaching like this, but they hope the union doesn't find out because they would "get in trouble". I think unions can be a good & important tool in equalizing the power imbalance between an individual worker and their larger employers. Unfortunately, those who seek & rise to position of authority within the union structure are often those who end up seeing the union are a "good" unto itself rather than serving the members & their wishes.
  • racl101 6y ago
    worker to the union: "it was said you would destroy the oppressors, not join them!"
  • JediWing 6y ago
    This isn't a power trip by union leadership/ "the organization of the union itself" though? It's a real concern about the safety and working conditions, and how a lack of a unified front can lead to fissures when negotiating that could actually hurt a majority of union members. The unions members probably mostly prefer work from home due to safety concerns. Should the school district wish to demand all teachers report to the building, the negotiation position of the union is significantly weakened if the administration can say "well 25% of your membership is already in the building" as a justification for denying hazard pay, further health and safety precautions, etc.
    • ineedasername 6y ago
• da_big_ghey 6y ago
  > I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster. I am such a person. For most workers, you're right that a union will probably increase wages. But for me, it will do the opposite. In most jobs I have worked, I ended up paid significantly more than counterparts in the same job. I usually was better at my job and put in more hours, so this was warranted. And for promotions, I don't see how this is wrong: most every union of which I'm aware ends using seniority as a factor in promotions, which I generally resent. I never liked the mandatory nature of unions, either. If they're that good for workers, quit trying to force the whole company to join. I also hate the idea of being forced to strike. As far as my interests are concerned, a union would end up taking money and promotions from me and giving it to others. So, I will always vote against them. If one shows up at my workplace, I will probably move because someone else offers better terms of employment.
  • commandlinefan 6y ago
    > put in more hours I'm skeptical of unionization in tech, but the one thing I can imagine unions would fix is the constant unpaid overtime that's associate with tech jobs. In a union situation, you'd be paid more if you were working more hours period, rather than hoping somebody would notice and give you a pay raise at some indeterminate time in the future.
    • Sodman 6y ago
      It's not a huge stretch to imagine the following scenario play out though: 1. Tech workers unionize, negotiate with employer that any work > 40 hours / week get paid overtime. 2. The company now has two choices: A) Pay their employees more than their competitors for the same work. Or B) Don't authorize any overtime. 3. In scenario A, they're either running at (much) higher cost than their competitors, and thus a disadvantage. In Scenario B, they're either slower to ship products, or there's a bunch of "off the books" work done by engineers trying to ship things anyways (which is basically the status quo today, except now it would cost you 1% of your salary). I could see the first scenario potentially attracting better talent for the significantly higher pay in the short term. But it's also a perverse incentive structure where if my 8 hours of work suddenly takes 9 hours, I get paid more, so why would I finish it early? Oh and because I'm in a union, it's now much harder to get rid of me, even if I'm half-assing it.
• raxxorrax 6y ago
  While I would prefer a union in the US, I do believe it will be extremely toxic itself in current SV manner. I am situated in a country where unions are common, but tech doesn't have one because working conditions are good due to it being a sellers market for work. Tech companies behaved in a way that they deserve uncompromising worker representation. But I believe it will currently end in a group of sociopathic individuals that will put a strain on tech. I don't mind to be proved otherwise, but I don't see the wrong people getting elected to represent workers.
• HideousKojima 6y ago
  Of course wealthy Hollywood celebrities support unions: they make it harder for outside talent to compete with them. And they absolutely do limit the work that union members are carrying out. To name a fairly recent example, that's how Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog came into existence, making it a web series allowed Joss Whedon to still make something without running afoul of the Writer's Guild strike rules.
• quotemstr 6y ago
  > Screen Actors Guild, The SAG isn't a typical union. The SAG constitution [1] contains a special provision requiring a supermajority to ask for a pay cap or to call a strike. Acting, like tech, is largely meritocratic with a huge talent dispersion. A prohibition on pay caps is necessary. I somehow doubt the Google tech activists will be copying the SAG's meritocratic philosophy. Every single thing I've seen from Google activists and their ilk is about prioritizing technical excellence way behind having the correct ideology. The people behind the Google unionization effort are not genuinely concerned about working conditions. They really want two things: - to be gatekeepers that keep their ideological opponents out of big tech companies (even moreso than now), and - to gain power to pressure big tech companies into punishing their ideological opponents (for example, banning advertising from certain websites, refusing cloud services to oil and gas industries, censorship intensification, and large donations to their favored organizations). If you'd been at Google and watched all this unfold over the past few years, it'd be obvious to you what these people are really about. [1] https://www.sagaftra.org/files/sa_documents/2019%20Constitution%20-%20Updated%20Rules%202020%201214.pdf https://www.sagaftra.org/files/sa_documents/2019%20Constitut...
• lumost 6y ago
  I think Unions could go a long way to ensuring engineers get a fair (meaning transparent) equity deal. I've certainly been taken for a ride before, with one Series C+ company's board delaying all equity grants for a year because they didn't want to pay for 409A valuation until they raised more money ( they never raised more money, everyone got screwed).
• sircastor 6y ago
  Random anecdote: I remember in his book, Wil Wheaton talks about going to auditions and how the producers are supposed to pay a nominal fee to everyone, but no one ever collects it because it means you’d never get called for further auditions.
• shadowgovt 6y ago
  The misperception that unions are only for blue-collar workers is one of the causes of the decline of quality of life for the average American worker. America made a massive shift from labor-backed economy to service-sector-backed economy, and in doing so, the percentage of workers in unions dropped drastically. Unions aren't for only labor; they're for any situation where there's an asymmetry in negotiating power between the company owners and the employees (which is, basically, every company).
• cactus2093 6y ago
  I don't know much about Hollywood, but clearly the biggest examples of abuse in recent years were all the examples that came out of the #metoo movement. What exactly did SAG do for all of Harvey Weinstein's victims for all those years that it was being swept under the rug? If not sexual abuse, what other kinds of abuse in Hollywood have these unions put a stop to?
• briandear 6y ago
  Except when the unions work to keep non-Union people from working or have ridiculous rules that make producing a film far more time consuming and expensive than it need be. Have you ever worked on a film set? Want to drive film to the airport? Can’t get paid to do it unless you are in the teamsters. Want to sweep a floor? That’s the janitor Union. “Hey light guy, could you bring me that empty film canister?” Nope. The light guy isn’t in the camera Union. Hey camera guys, can you tape down that cord you keep tripping over? Nope. That’s the gaffer’s job. Are you a brand new sound recordist and want to worn on a Union production? Cant do it unless you join the union first. Need one guy to do a job? If the Union requires three, you end up paying three people to do the job of one. Hollywood unions are better than the auto workers or teacher unions, but it’s far from “good.”
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• cactus2093 6y ago
  Here's a bit of an implementation detail question I have wondered about unionizing in tech, within software engineering specifically - how would a union work in a field where the lines between managers and employees are so blurred? Most companies have a parallel IC track where the most senior ICs are paid more and are more senior at the company than many managers. And there are tech leads/team leads that have no reports and aren't managers but are in leadership positions. From what I understand, even middle-managers are usually not allowed to unionize or allowed to talk to other employees about unions. Where would the line be in tech? If you decide to switch from the IC to manager track, do you have to leave the union? Just the mere fact that this seems like such an odd distinction, because IC software engineers are generally treated just as well as if not better than managers, makes me step back and wonder what problem we would actually be trying to solve by unionizing within the engineering track. What would the tangible benefits be? On the other hand I'm already imagining of all sorts of potential downsides. A lot of tech companies tend to be very open about company details with employees. In my experience, most managers tend to work very collaboratively with their employees in terms of helping them set goals and figure out a path to getting a promotion. There often feels like there genuinely is alignment between the company and employees - if the company does well, employees tend to do well. Not just because they already own stock in the company, but also because companies tend to expand when they're doing well and this opens up opportunities to promote from within. I imagine all of these dynamics would completely change in a world with tech unions, where the employees and the company would be pitted against each other.
  • pwned1 6y ago
    That will all be addressed in the take-it-or-leave-it 2,400 page proposed contract.
    • lokar 6y ago
      I don't think they are in fact seeking a contract.
  • IX-103 6y ago
    I don't see why the union would necessarily be pitted against the employer in tech. Yes their goals are not perfectly aligned, but that sort of work environment is something that both benefit from so I don't see that disappearing. With a more centralized organization as a check on management decisions, the employer can find out earlier what the employees will tolerate by asking the union representatives (and not have the employees walk out when an unappetizing project is discovered). I expect the AWU would also fight against the reduction in transparency across the company, as that is a common concern among people I know that work there.
• trianglem 6y ago
  My concerns are that it will have licensing requirements to be a computer programmer. Also I like to work a few years and then take like a year off, I don’t think unions allow for this not working all the time structure.
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• subsubzero 6y ago
  > When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve Agree, things that a union can address: - Pay transparency, Have detailed info about pay bands, and ensure some new hire from a hot company doing the same job as you is not making 2-3x your salary. - Broken promotion process, at my company promotion is completely broken with really talented engineers leaving all the time as they are not getting promoted(alot of politics at play etc), a union can ensure promotions are granted in an even process. - Age discrimination, This one will affect everyone as we all will get older. Alot of companies abuse this one under the guise of "culture fit". A union will ensure that talented older engineers are not discriminated against either while working and being fired for being too old or at the interview process under culture fit nonsense. - Interviews, I think most people can agree that tech interviews are pretty broken. They are designed to be extremely hard to encourage people to stay in their position and it usually takes months of practice to be able to pass one. Unions could fix this broken process. - Working with bad actors, When google started work on a secret search engine with the chinese govt. googlers were outraged, a union could ensure its members do not work in any way with a govt that does not support common human rights.
  • Shish2k 6y ago
    > Unions could fix [tech interviews] Is the problem really “we know how to fix tech interviews, but the upper management don’t like it”? Going by HN discussion I thought that the problem was “There are tens of totally different interview methods, everybody thinks one method is obviously the best and all the others suck, but nobody can agree on which one method that is”, and I’m not sure how a union would fix that :P
    • Apocryphon 6y ago
      Well, as much as people hate certification and standardization in this industry, even something as simple as "a tech union or the IEEE or Triplebyte produces a standard algorithms /data structures interview exam, candidates take that once and are certified for at least 5-10 years, and technical interviews then become more domain-specific or at least less academic", could be a nice alternative to the status quo. Go through the Leetcode gauntlet once and get credentialed then, instead of every single time you want to change a job, with multiple prospective employers.
• blablabla123 6y ago
  The movie industry unions definitely sounds more appealing than those of the steal industry for instance. But of course it's easier to rally for a cause in an industry that is doing well. I think unions need to be rethought and I'm curious how it will look like if the Google union actually happens. At the same time the Hollywood unions obviously were not there with all these scandals of the last years. Essentially it was both traditional and social media that helped with that.
• yibg 6y ago
  I object to unions because of past experiences in and interacting with unions. For me the 2 major problems with unions are: 1) there is an us vs them mentality. You are in or you are out. If you are out, it’s harder to get in. This also leads to dead weight staying around and people doing the bare minimum. This might be good for those already in the union, but terrible for anyone not. 2) a lot of politics / corruption / nepotism. Hired are made based on relationships, promotions are either tenure based or based on relationships. Not saying these things don’t happen at non unions places, but from what I’ve seen they happen a lot more at unions. Some times the stereotypes are based in reality.
• Aunche 6y ago
  Hollywood unions work because they force an artificial monopoly. SAG requires productions to hire a certain percentage of union actors, which screws over non-union members. Without this market manipulation, unions are largely useless because the market will always have room for non-union members. This doesn't matter too much for Hollywood because plenty of people are willing to write/act for peanuts, but I don't want to see these in-group/out-group in tech.
• labcomputer 6y ago
  > This is because those unions are serving a very different purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear. [...] I think there's another purpose of the film industry unions that doesn't get mentioned much in these (tech industry) discussions. Specifically, that the film unions raise wages by limiting the number of people who enter the industry. It's simple supply and demand. This works via the following mechanisms: First, the film unions provide useful benefits (like reasonably-priced health insurance), so most professional actors want to be part of the union. Second, union members are prohibited from working on non-union productions. Additionally, most well-known actors are union members. This gives a strong incentive for a production to be a union production. Third, union productions are prohibited from hiring more than a token number of non-union actors (unless they pay a fine to the union). This gives a strong incentive for productions to only use union talent (which also gives actors another reason to want to be a union member). So far so good. But how does one join the union? That's the catch-22: You must work for at least n days on a union production (n=1 for speaking roles, n=3 for extra roles) to be eligible to join SAG/AFTRA. But most union productions won't hire you unless you're a union member (see above). I don't know whether something like that would work in the software industry, but it seems at least plausible to me that it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech (at the expense of future potential tech employees).
  • throwaway894345 6y ago
    > I don't know whether something like that would work in the software industry, but it seems at least plausible to me that it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech (at the expense of future potential tech employees). I doubt it, if only because actors are hired in large part due to their celebrity. There are no celebrity SREs (at best they have some cache in the software/SRE community, but not in the general public).
    • minimuffins 6y ago
      Most people in film and TV unions aren't actors.
      • 6y ago
• nitrogen 6y ago
  How long will it be before I have to wait for a union React dev to open a PR on the frontend as a backend dev, and a union DBA to write a new SELECT statement for me, and a union CSS dev to shift a header three pixels to the right, and a union mathematician to approve my simple arithmetic ?
  • ProofByAccident 6y ago
    Why not join now and help steer the union away from that future?
    • umvi 6y ago
      Because I don't want to be politically involved in steering the future of yet anther organization. I want to program. I have enough trouble staying informed enough to steer the futures of my state and federal governments.
      • ProofByAccident 6y ago
        I can basically guarantee that you will have both an easier time and a more rewarding outcome getting involved in a members union of like 250 people than with a state or federal government in the US
        • umvi 6y ago
          Yes but I don't feel a union is necessary in my case. I am happy with my wages, benefits, and working conditions. If not I'll vote with my feet, no union necessary.
          • ProofByAccident 6y ago
            Fair enough, and it's great that you're in a position to walk to if you don't like your employment situation. With that said, workplace bullshit can sneak up on you, and looking for a job can be pretty time-consuming. IMO a good union is a form of insurance. Usually you don't need it, but when you do it's very nice to have
• reaperducer 6y ago
  People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn't true. If you need an example to back this up, the million-dollar television news anchors in the United States are all union.
• StreamBright 6y ago
  > they're simply trying to curb abuse I thought this is why we have laws. What aspect of the industry is abusive that you are referring to?
• ahepp 6y ago
  Boeing has software engineer unions. They start at like, ~$70k and after a few years can get up to ~$90k (someone correct me if I'm off, but I don't think I'm very far off).
  • jjcon 6y ago
    So like half what Google pays? How much does their Union take?
    • Apocryphon 6y ago
      A fairer comparison is probably to other aerospace companies and defense contractors.
      • ahepp 6y ago
        My first job at a defense contractor in the midwest started at $70k. This was an employee owned company, but my understanding is that salaries are fairly similar at other defense contractors. Interestingly, it got to the point where the government employees we worked next to made more than us. Usually the deal is they get great benefits, but lower pay. However, pay seemed to be pretty stagnant at my contractor (nice folks though). Taking the same salary to live near Seattle (Everett, I suppose, but the point stands) is a substantial pay cut. I now work at a different defense contractor, across the street from said Boeing plant and came in with ~3y experience for ~$110k. Certainly much lower than a true "tech company", but it was tens of thousands of dollars higher than where I'd fall on the Boeing pay scales.
      • Rebelgecko 6y ago
        I worked at a different defense contractor/research place with a union and was making a decent chunk of change more than the numbers above without much seniority (not FAANG money, but enough to buy a place in a high COL area). IMO my company's union also did a better job protecting retirement benefits than Boeing's.
    • ahepp 6y ago
      I certainly wouldn't consider it competitive. I don't know how much of it is union dues.
• biffstallion 6y ago
  Google keeps rabble rousing when it comes to certain political issues of nonsense. Here Google, how does it feel to have have it back onto you now.
• jonas21 6y ago
  Are you really holding up the film industry as a model that tech should emulate? Because the median annual wage for SAG-AFTRA members is about $7500 [1]. And that doesn't even include members who failed to find any work during the year. 85% of members don't make enough to get health benefits through the union, which kick in if you make over $18K/year [2]. These are poverty-level wages. [1] https://www.smdp.com/noteworthy-your-union-has-screwed-you/195647 https://www.smdp.com/noteworthy-your-union-has-screwed-you/1... [2] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-actors-insurance-20140523-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-actors-insurance-2014...
  • MisterBastahrd 6y ago
    Are you really pretending that actors have the same sort of work schedules as developers?
  • astura 6y ago
    Um, that seems like a consequence of the nature of acting, which is short term gigs with lots of competition rather than a consequence of unionization. The only actor I personally know just does it on the side for some extra cash rather than it being her day job.
• jiraticketmach 6y ago
  > For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster. This is something that has always amazed me. Your typical tech worker does a lot of unpaid overtime under the guidance of a manager whose only merit to management is being friends with someone. It also has to retrain him/herself for free on it´s own spare time and by the time it reaches 35/40 it tends to be let go by not raising his/her salary anymore or by putting him/her in lower status position. (Not to mention working as a contractor for years, etc.). These are the kind of problems unions are expected to fight for. But every time someone mentions unions they go after the salary cap, time of service, etc, discourses.
• rhacker 6y ago
  I see that time and again - people lump ALL unions in with the WORST unions for some reason. It's like any union that's had some success isn't really in the news.
• wolfretcrap 6y ago
  Thing is tho leaders of any organization can always be bought even if you can't buy each and ever leader all you need to do is a) put democratic process b) buy majority of the leader or minority is veto is available to influence a particular decision. A large fraction of a group can easily be bought by direct or indirect transfer of common human motivation like wealth, power, social validation, sex (maybe given them access to your currated harem), maybe promise them after retirement job or give referral to one of his kids or pay for his education abroad. The transfer doesn't need to be direct so many times it's hard to trace what got what and why they influenced a particular decision. This is why such organizations where you elect leaders will never give you those who want to do good for the society at large.
• 374733636373384 6y ago
  I'm not sure a lot of this is really relevant in this situation. From the articles I've seen, the employees forming a union are the activist employees. So the fear for a non-union tech worker in this scenario would be if the union behaved like many others and demanded a certain ratio of union to non-union workers since the dynamic in this context would boil down to deprioritizing applicants who don't have the same political views as the union employees which seems wildly toxic for society.
• throw0987654321 6y ago
  This is a fascinating example. Thanks for the additional perspective! My gut instinct was that I've worked in a union and I wasn't a fan of it. I am in Canada, so it's possible that union vs non-union employment doesn't have as large of a gap as it would in America. I'm no expert on unions nor am I an expert on labor economics or game theory, however, I had a few thoughts that I would love references to explore. 1. the union is for employees in Canada and the US. Google employs economists. Is there some game theory solution that would show google should end up transitioning all labor overseas over time? With remote work caused by the pandemic is there really a barrier to eliminating US and Canadian jobs? 2. what's the distribution of google's labor force? As best as I can tell, google has 223,000 total workers. About 45% (102k/223k) are full-time, the rest are temps and contractors. Where are these jobs? What percent are in the US? 3. I have seen employers in the US close up entire businesses and relocate to Canada when the US business unionized. I've seen Canadian businesses close up and move to new provinces when the employees unionized. When the profit loss caused by unions exceeds the transition costs, transitions happen. 4. how many employees are truly irreplaceable? I know a lot of people like to think they can never be replaced, but companies move on. is it like for like? not always. 5. how much of this extra profit employees think they deserve is enabled by google and google scale? i.e., if you're saving google 1 million per year and you think you deserve a large chunk of that, what happens when you try to go to a company that has 1/1000th the scale of google? Note: these union doesn't seem to be aimed at capturing value for them (full-time), but instead seems to seek to distribute the full-time benefits to the part-timers and temps. That's commendable. 6. I'm sure there are more unions than the oversimplification that follows. The google union doesn't seem to be a collective bargaining agreement type union for salaries. Salaries are still up to individuals. Let's roughly define CBA (collective bargaining agreement) unions vs "superstar" unions. Superstar unions: - Hollywood and professional sports have unions where they have minimum salaries and working conditions, but the stars can end up negotiating a huge salary (some sports have salary caps across a team). Will tech workers start taking on agents to negotiate tech contracts on their behalf? - Sports has drafts and minor leagues, will the hoops to get hired at google become even more outrageous? Look at the meat market that is the NFL combine [2]. CBA unions: - contractors and temps still exist in these situations. Now full-time jobs are split into permanent part-time (PPT) and full-time (FT). Permanent part-time meaning you can get 40 hours a week, but you have no benefits. This can take years to move from PPT to FT. - Teaching and nursing unions enforce a minimum level of credentials. Trade unions do too, in the form of apprenticeships, which still require formal education. - in the negative extreme, the Vancouver longshoreman union jobs are nearly impossible to get. you need to have a family member (yes, these are passed from grandpa to father to son) endorse you to join the union. union call for new members happen every 1-3 or more years. if you're endorsed, you end up in a raffle. if you're lucky enough to be drawn, you still have to wait your turn before you can work and then become full-time. it's a many year long process. or, supposedly, you can buy endorsements for tens of thousands of dollars. - jobs get opened up internally before being opened up to external candidates - companies have to provide training to get internal employees who are more or less qualified up to a level suitable to accept the next jobs. 7. There has been mention of other fields such as accounting, law, and medicine. I don't think these are the same types of unions. In Canada anyway, you have to go through certain education, professional exams, and professional development in engineering and accounting. At a first level, you need to get professional licensing. That doesn't seem to be the same type of union presented here. If anything, moving tech towards accounting, engineering, law, medicine, etc. will add more gate keeping, and I've seen lots of arguments against gate keeping on HN. 8. Canadian engineering has three levels. Technician (1-2 years of post-secondary education), technologist (2-3 years of post-secondary education), and engineer (4+ years of post-secondary education). Typically these roles are not interchangeable. It's very difficult to transition from one to the other without going back to school. The education (there may be exceptions) levels are not stepping stones. Technician can ladder into technologist, but technologist to engineer often means 4 more years of school. Maybe this will start to break the different SWE roles up. 9. Anyway, this is probably all for the betterment of employees working in tech, so it's commendable that some in such an envious position are leading the charge. If this is the start of "professionalizing" tech, then it'll be interesting to see how this impacts innovation (no more move fast and break things) and educational / meritocratic diversity in the long-run (professionals require licensing and other credentials). Maybe that would be the big kicker to make an impact in the outrageous costs of US higher education. 10. I hope I'm wrong, but this could be the start of tech salaries in SV (a couple of other American cities and some Canadian cities) regressing to the mean of professional engineers. They are still good salaries, but it's not like you can decide to move to a city and 2-10x your salary / TC like you can with tech and SV. Tech seems to be a good way to have social mobility, but if the salaries regress to the mean, there will be even more inequality and less mobility in America. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/technology/google-temp-workers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/technology/google-temp-wo... "As of March, Google worked with roughly 121,000 temps and contractors around the world, compared with 102,000 full-time employees, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times." [2] https://nflcombineresults.com/nflcombinedata.php https://nflcombineresults.com/nflcombinedata.php