7 ms·

Mapbox Employees Have Unionized

79 points by potench 5y ago

mkw2000 5y ago
Love to see it
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  More of this! Onward to the next companies.
  - mkw2000 5y ago
    Hopefully..
- deltree7 5y ago
  Great! Now I have an open database of people of"Never hire"
  - ozfive 5y ago
    You also will most likely only have mediocre talent in the long run. You shoot yourself in the foot with these statements.
babelfish 5y ago
Amazing news. Love to see the push for workers rights in tech.
vangelis 5y ago
That's right.
nunez 5y ago
Please sell me on the value of unionizing. At the moment, I don't support engineers unionizing in tech. But my mind is open, and I'm ready to change my view on this. Here's why this is where I stand: System/software/hardware engineering is one of the most highly-compensated and least-regulated careers out there. It's the only career where an individual can make over $100,000/year without having to complete years of additional training or apprenticeship. Unlike consulting (also non-unionized), you don't even need to graduate from target schools to get paid in this industry! I'm not talking about pure cash comp, either. Tech and tech-adjacent companies typically offer very good insurance policies with low/no-cost, great long-term disability benefits, great vacation and time-off policies, and more. Engineers have also been in a seller's market for a long time. "Recruiters fill my inbox so much, I have to ignore them" is a common trope in this industry. Engineers very much have the option of leaving a company if they disagree with work conditions. All I see are companies spending more money on bolstering their legal and HR departments to implement union relations. Which means less money and benefits for us.
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  Not sure why the need for unionizing at Mapbox in particular, but generally not all engineering departments in different industries are treated the same. You'd think that because earning potential is so much higher in other adjacent fields where you're doing the same exact job, people would just leave, but that seems to be a lot more personal than economic.
- babelfish 5y ago
  If you want to preserve the benefits you describe, unionize. If you want to rely on the goodwill of executives keeping things how they’ve been, don’t. But remember - executives are working as hard as possible to drive developer costs down.
- closeparen 5y ago
  I’m skeptical because I don’t necessarily trust the people who would be at the top of a union to align with my preferences better than status quo. Some of the orthodox opinions in the community are not mine. But it would go something like this: Despite tech workers’ financial power, management gets away with many widely unpopular working conditions. Think of the ubiquity of open offices, or of offices in general. Or sprints, or story points, or JIRA. Or the prioritization of new feature work over reliability and refactoring. Or the infamous crunch time near a deadline. Or the unfairness and perverse incentives in a promotion process. Coworkers making more than you because they joined at a lower stock price or had better counteroffers. Theoretically, workers could get more control over these conditions. There are also many things programmers are asked to build, which at least the loudest among us find reprehensible. This includes anything to do with advertising, personal data, aggressive sales practices, dark patterns, etc. Programmers could reduce the prevalence of these things by collectively refusing to work on them. Even informal rumblings made some headway on this kind of thing at Google. Finally there is a more general leftist solidarity angle where programmers could “make the world a better place” by using their own indispensability to leverage their employers into better pay and conditions for others. Kitchen staff, cleaning crew, even gig workers contracted through the platforms they work on. Tech workers have a better chance of getting this sort of thing done by contract than by legislation.
mrbadideas 5y ago
If unionization takes hold for tech / software engineering type jobs, I’m curious what this will do to the ability of companies to effectively compete and attract talent. The best people I know are aware of their value and typically want to work with like minded motivated people. How many pro-union people here have actually put in time at union shops in more traditional industries to understand the perverse incentive structure unions can have on individual productivity.
zthrowaway 5y ago
Going to be fun watching this backfire.

79 points by potench 5y ago

mkw2000 5y ago

Love to see it

toomuchtodo 5y ago
More of this! Onward to the next companies.
- mkw2000 5y ago
  Hopefully..
deltree7 5y ago
Great! Now I have an open database of people of"Never hire"
- ozfive 5y ago
  You also will most likely only have mediocre talent in the long run. You shoot yourself in the foot with these statements.

babelfish 5y ago

Amazing news. Love to see the push for workers rights in tech.

vangelis 5y ago

That's right.

nunez 5y ago

Please sell me on the value of unionizing. At the moment, I don't support engineers unionizing in tech. But my mind is open, and I'm ready to change my view on this. Here's why this is where I stand: System/software/hardware engineering is one of the most highly-compensated and least-regulated careers out there. It's the only career where an individual can make over $100,000/year without having to complete years of additional training or apprenticeship. Unlike consulting (also non-unionized), you don't even need to graduate from target schools to get paid in this industry! I'm not talking about pure cash comp, either. Tech and tech-adjacent companies typically offer very good insurance policies with low/no-cost, great long-term disability benefits, great vacation and time-off policies, and more. Engineers have also been in a seller's market for a long time. "Recruiters fill my inbox so much, I have to ignore them" is a common trope in this industry. Engineers very much have the option of leaving a company if they disagree with work conditions. All I see are companies spending more money on bolstering their legal and HR departments to implement union relations. Which means less money and benefits for us.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
Not sure why the need for unionizing at Mapbox in particular, but generally not all engineering departments in different industries are treated the same. You'd think that because earning potential is so much higher in other adjacent fields where you're doing the same exact job, people would just leave, but that seems to be a lot more personal than economic.
babelfish 5y ago
If you want to preserve the benefits you describe, unionize. If you want to rely on the goodwill of executives keeping things how they’ve been, don’t. But remember - executives are working as hard as possible to drive developer costs down.
closeparen 5y ago
I’m skeptical because I don’t necessarily trust the people who would be at the top of a union to align with my preferences better than status quo. Some of the orthodox opinions in the community are not mine. But it would go something like this: Despite tech workers’ financial power, management gets away with many widely unpopular working conditions. Think of the ubiquity of open offices, or of offices in general. Or sprints, or story points, or JIRA. Or the prioritization of new feature work over reliability and refactoring. Or the infamous crunch time near a deadline. Or the unfairness and perverse incentives in a promotion process. Coworkers making more than you because they joined at a lower stock price or had better counteroffers. Theoretically, workers could get more control over these conditions. There are also many things programmers are asked to build, which at least the loudest among us find reprehensible. This includes anything to do with advertising, personal data, aggressive sales practices, dark patterns, etc. Programmers could reduce the prevalence of these things by collectively refusing to work on them. Even informal rumblings made some headway on this kind of thing at Google. Finally there is a more general leftist solidarity angle where programmers could “make the world a better place” by using their own indispensability to leverage their employers into better pay and conditions for others. Kitchen staff, cleaning crew, even gig workers contracted through the platforms they work on. Tech workers have a better chance of getting this sort of thing done by contract than by legislation.

mrbadideas 5y ago

If unionization takes hold for tech / software engineering type jobs, I’m curious what this will do to the ability of companies to effectively compete and attract talent. The best people I know are aware of their value and typically want to work with like minded motivated people. How many pro-union people here have actually put in time at union shops in more traditional industries to understand the perverse incentive structure unions can have on individual productivity.

zthrowaway 5y ago

Going to be fun watching this backfire.