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And it's really too bad because in a decade or two, the tech industry will really need one. I used to be against unionizing too, but then heard this scenario: t

And it's really too bad because in a decade or two, the tech industry will really need one. I used to be against unionizing too, but then heard this scenario: there will come a time in the near-future when the average software job starts being outsourced en masse (and I'm not talking about rote IT support). When that day comes, how will we be able to fight that?

petra 5y ago
Why will software jobs be outsourced? What will change?
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Big tech companies, especially Google, are spending massive amounts of money to get everyone in the world to code. Don't be fooled by their faux-magnanimous PR bullshit, this is an effort to drive down their largest expense: software developer salaries.
BobbyJo 5y ago
How would unions fight outsourcing? Wouldn't that expedite it if anything?
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  A lot of outsourcing practically relies these days on very codified process maintained by software... And that software is usually developed domestically. It wouldn't take a lot for the domestic software developers to passively sabotage such software via collective action of failure to maintain it and letting the first unexpected heavy dependency crashing bring the whole system down. Even if a lot of company ops are outsourced, having all your site reliability engineers walk off the job sets the company up for any small fire to quickly become a large one.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    I don't see how that answers either of my questions, or continues the thread of discussion I was attempting to pull on. Are you saying that unions would enable sabotage to prevent outsourcing? If so, I disagree. Software used by businesses often has many external vendors (notable ones in software: GitHub, Slack, Teams...). The idea that an internal dev team could sabotage these sufficiently to prevent outsourcing sounds far-fetched to me.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      I shouldn't have used "sabotage;" it has the wrong connotation. A union can organize through collective action a walkout of software maintainers. Few organizations (big or small) run automatically indefinitely without the hundreds to thousands of changes per day such teams make. The three examples you've provided (GitHub, Slack, Teams) often grow per-enterprise integrations to make them work the right way for a given company, and when those integrations crash, who will be available to restore or correct them? Through simple inaction, a site reliability team can "cause" a company's infrastructure to spin itself apart by simply refraining from stopping it from spinning itself apart.
bluGill 5y ago
Unions won't help that. What will help is being better, or lifting the wages of the out sourced countries. My company is finding India is more expensive than Germany right now (we are picking the best people in India which are more expensive, but well worth the additional price), and looking for other places to outsource to for savings.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  What will help is being better, or lifting the wages of the out sourced countries. That is the, as some would say, the "blackpill" that is toughest to swallow. Developers in the West need to realize their relatively high salaries are on borrowed time. It all will come to an equilibrium, but that doesn't mean we can't still fight for our collective rights to keep as much money in the country as possible.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    OP is right about "lifting the wages of the out sourced countries". International workers movements really are important. We need capital controls based on labor and environmental standards not nationalism to avoid a race to the bottom.
    - JohnWhigham 5y ago
      The result is still the same.
username90 5y ago
Unions really helped keep factory jobs in the country, didn't they?
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  People here don’t seem to get the basic fact that the industrial union made off shoring more attractive, not less.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Yes, but the solution to a race to the bottom isn't to not be the top. We need unions and capital controls based on the counterparty's labor and environmental standards.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
      That's a shared understanding of acceptable working conditions informing both union policy and import/export policy. Unions as an output of a much larger change upstream, as opposed to an input when talking about outsourcing.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Funny, didn't the rise of offshoring coincide with the decline of unions in the USA? So: Getting rid of unions really helped keep factory jobs in the country, didn't it?
mech422 5y ago
>>there will come a time in the near-future when the average software job starts being outsourced en masse I've been hearing this for 30 years, and went through all buzzwords: outsourcing (India), off-shoring (China) and whatever catchy name they gave Russia/Ukraine.. The world never ended, the pay never went down, and the jobs didn't disappear. The doomsayers will be right one day.. but not today :-)

petra 5y ago

Why will software jobs be outsourced? What will change?

JohnWhigham 5y ago
Big tech companies, especially Google, are spending massive amounts of money to get everyone in the world to code. Don't be fooled by their faux-magnanimous PR bullshit, this is an effort to drive down their largest expense: software developer salaries.

BobbyJo 5y ago

How would unions fight outsourcing? Wouldn't that expedite it if anything?

shadowgovt 5y ago
A lot of outsourcing practically relies these days on very codified process maintained by software... And that software is usually developed domestically. It wouldn't take a lot for the domestic software developers to passively sabotage such software via collective action of failure to maintain it and letting the first unexpected heavy dependency crashing bring the whole system down. Even if a lot of company ops are outsourced, having all your site reliability engineers walk off the job sets the company up for any small fire to quickly become a large one.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  I don't see how that answers either of my questions, or continues the thread of discussion I was attempting to pull on. Are you saying that unions would enable sabotage to prevent outsourcing? If so, I disagree. Software used by businesses often has many external vendors (notable ones in software: GitHub, Slack, Teams...). The idea that an internal dev team could sabotage these sufficiently to prevent outsourcing sounds far-fetched to me.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    I shouldn't have used "sabotage;" it has the wrong connotation. A union can organize through collective action a walkout of software maintainers. Few organizations (big or small) run automatically indefinitely without the hundreds to thousands of changes per day such teams make. The three examples you've provided (GitHub, Slack, Teams) often grow per-enterprise integrations to make them work the right way for a given company, and when those integrations crash, who will be available to restore or correct them? Through simple inaction, a site reliability team can "cause" a company's infrastructure to spin itself apart by simply refraining from stopping it from spinning itself apart.

bluGill 5y ago

Unions won't help that. What will help is being better, or lifting the wages of the out sourced countries. My company is finding India is more expensive than Germany right now (we are picking the best people in India which are more expensive, but well worth the additional price), and looking for other places to outsource to for savings.

JohnWhigham 5y ago
What will help is being better, or lifting the wages of the out sourced countries. That is the, as some would say, the "blackpill" that is toughest to swallow. Developers in the West need to realize their relatively high salaries are on borrowed time. It all will come to an equilibrium, but that doesn't mean we can't still fight for our collective rights to keep as much money in the country as possible.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  OP is right about "lifting the wages of the out sourced countries". International workers movements really are important. We need capital controls based on labor and environmental standards not nationalism to avoid a race to the bottom.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    The result is still the same.

username90 5y ago

Unions really helped keep factory jobs in the country, didn't they?

xyzzyz 5y ago
People here don’t seem to get the basic fact that the industrial union made off shoring more attractive, not less.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Yes, but the solution to a race to the bottom isn't to not be the top. We need unions and capital controls based on the counterparty's labor and environmental standards.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    That's a shared understanding of acceptable working conditions informing both union policy and import/export policy. Unions as an output of a much larger change upstream, as opposed to an input when talking about outsourcing.
CRConrad 5y ago
Funny, didn't the rise of offshoring coincide with the decline of unions in the USA? So: Getting rid of unions really helped keep factory jobs in the country, didn't it?

mech422 5y ago

>>there will come a time in the near-future when the average software job starts being outsourced en masse I've been hearing this for 30 years, and went through all buzzwords: outsourcing (India), off-shoring (China) and whatever catchy name they gave Russia/Ukraine.. The world never ended, the pay never went down, and the jobs didn't disappear. The doomsayers will be right one day.. but not today :-)