3 ms·

> You DO know that you have virtually no say in what is in that contract, "accept it or leave," is not having a say in that contract. Not only is "accept it o

> You DO know that you have virtually no say in what is in that contract, "accept it or leave," is not having a say in that contract. Not only is "accept it or leave it" very much a form of "having a say" in your work parameters, it's a much more powerful way of exerting your preferences than voting. If 100,000 people are voting on a contract your 1/100,000th share of the influence functionally rounds to zero. The contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate preferences, which will in general be completely orthogonal to your own preferences. On the other hand, when you shop around for a job you have unbounded freedom to decide where you want to apply to and what working conditions are you willing to accept. If you want more job stability and better working hours in exchange for lower pay, someone will be willing to offer it to you. If you want "fuck you, pay me", someone else will offer that too.

sidlls 6y ago
"Accept it or leave it" is a post-facto event: one accepts or rejects the contents of the contract. What the OP is referring to is participation ("having a say") in the drafting of the contract itself. By definition "accept it or leave it" is not having a say in it.
- esoterica 6y ago
  Having a say in the contract you end up signing (which may be at a variety of different companies) is more personally useful to the individual than having a say in the specific contract of a specific company. So the claim that unions give you more say in the employment conditions of a specific company is irrelevant because it's an optimization towards the wrong objective.
bumby 6y ago
>The contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate preferences, which will in general be completely orthogonal to your own preferences. Can you elaborate on your thoughts here or cite evidence to support it? On first thought, it doesn’t ring true to me. E.g., most of the union contract conditions seem to benefit most individuals with the exception of some edge cases
- esoterica 6y ago
  Plenty of union contracts emphasize seniority when it comes to pay/benefits/promotions etc, which makes it harder both for younger employees to get pay increases and promotions out of turn and for people to job hop for career progression.
  - bumby 6y ago
    That’s a real concern in terms of meritocracy, but I don’t see how it makes your goals orthogonal to everyone else’s, unless you are always a young out-performer. Almost by default, if you’re not job hopping (presumably to get a raise) you won’t always be one of the younger employees. The out-performance piece is by definition an edge case. The original comment seemed to lay claim that each individual will sacrifice for the collective to become a net negative. I think there’s a good case to be against seniority rules, but it’s almost impossible to claim they are against every individual self interest.
carbonguy 6y ago
> If 100,000 people are voting on a contract your 1/100,000th share of the influence functionally rounds to zero. Assuming that you make no effort to influence any of the hypothetical 100,000 people voting on the contract in any way. > The contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate preferences, which will in general be completely orthogonal to your own preferences. This is a fairly surprising assertion for me - I can't recall a time I've personally found this to be the case professionally. May I ask how you encountered this in your own professional experience?
- esoterica 6y ago
  > Assuming that you make no effort to influence any of the hypothetical 100,000 people voting on the contract in any way. And if all 100k people all try to influence each other to different ends that ends up a wash. > This is a fairly surprising assertion for me Some people prefer better work life balance, other people prefer higher compensation. Some people want job security, others want higher risk and higher upside. Labour market mobility allows people to sort into the jobs that match their preferences, which is impossible to achieve through collective bargaining because the parts of the collective want different things.
AshWolfy 6y ago
Most of these problems are industry wide, poor work life balance is the rule in tech jobs, and jobs that are better have such high competition almost nobody will actually be able to shop around. Flexibility can be built into union contacts, and its unlikely each of the 100,000 people will have entirely different and opposed interested to you
- esoterica 6y ago
  Tech jobs have by far the best work life balance among any job where you can make well into six figures right out of college. How many hours do you think investment bankers, biglaw attorneys, management consultants, medical residents etc. work?

sidlls 6y ago

"Accept it or leave it" is a post-facto event: one accepts or rejects the contents of the contract. What the OP is referring to is participation ("having a say") in the drafting of the contract itself. By definition "accept it or leave it" is not having a say in it.

esoterica 6y ago
Having a say in the contract you end up signing (which may be at a variety of different companies) is more personally useful to the individual than having a say in the specific contract of a specific company. So the claim that unions give you more say in the employment conditions of a specific company is irrelevant because it's an optimization towards the wrong objective.

bumby 6y ago

>The contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate preferences, which will in general be completely orthogonal to your own preferences. Can you elaborate on your thoughts here or cite evidence to support it? On first thought, it doesn’t ring true to me. E.g., most of the union contract conditions seem to benefit most individuals with the exception of some edge cases

esoterica 6y ago
Plenty of union contracts emphasize seniority when it comes to pay/benefits/promotions etc, which makes it harder both for younger employees to get pay increases and promotions out of turn and for people to job hop for career progression.
- bumby 6y ago
  That’s a real concern in terms of meritocracy, but I don’t see how it makes your goals orthogonal to everyone else’s, unless you are always a young out-performer. Almost by default, if you’re not job hopping (presumably to get a raise) you won’t always be one of the younger employees. The out-performance piece is by definition an edge case. The original comment seemed to lay claim that each individual will sacrifice for the collective to become a net negative. I think there’s a good case to be against seniority rules, but it’s almost impossible to claim they are against every individual self interest.

carbonguy 6y ago

> If 100,000 people are voting on a contract your 1/100,000th share of the influence functionally rounds to zero. Assuming that you make no effort to influence any of the hypothetical 100,000 people voting on the contract in any way. > The contract will reflect your coworkers aggregate preferences, which will in general be completely orthogonal to your own preferences. This is a fairly surprising assertion for me - I can't recall a time I've personally found this to be the case professionally. May I ask how you encountered this in your own professional experience?

esoterica 6y ago
> Assuming that you make no effort to influence any of the hypothetical 100,000 people voting on the contract in any way. And if all 100k people all try to influence each other to different ends that ends up a wash. > This is a fairly surprising assertion for me Some people prefer better work life balance, other people prefer higher compensation. Some people want job security, others want higher risk and higher upside. Labour market mobility allows people to sort into the jobs that match their preferences, which is impossible to achieve through collective bargaining because the parts of the collective want different things.

AshWolfy 6y ago

Most of these problems are industry wide, poor work life balance is the rule in tech jobs, and jobs that are better have such high competition almost nobody will actually be able to shop around. Flexibility can be built into union contacts, and its unlikely each of the 100,000 people will have entirely different and opposed interested to you

esoterica 6y ago
Tech jobs have by far the best work life balance among any job where you can make well into six figures right out of college. How many hours do you think investment bankers, biglaw attorneys, management consultants, medical residents etc. work?