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(disclosure: current Mapbox employee, in the proposed bargaining unit) The primary value is that a union is the only realistic way a worker in the US can get t

(disclosure: current Mapbox employee, in the proposed bargaining unit) The primary value is that a union is the only realistic way a worker in the US can get their employment terms specified in a contract. Without a contract, these terms can in many cases be changed arbitrarily and with any amount of notice. For example, Yahoo made remote employees either relocate to an office or resign in 2013 [0]. With a contract, the process by which this change could be made could be defined in advance. Severance is another example. In many companies, the amount of severance an employee will receive is not disclosed in advance. A common process is to offer the lowest amount the company thinks the employee will accept and still sign a separation agreement. This penalizes employees without substantial savings. And since there's a short window to exercise potentially expensive stock options after termination, many employees have an urgent need for a large lump sum of cash right away. The employee is in a weaker position without a contract specifying severance. A contract could also do things like limit non-compete clauses. These are already non-enforceable in California, but are still common in other areas of the country. Judging by the disclosures in the proxy statements of public tech companies, executives frequently have these types of provisions in their employment contracts. Because of their position, they're able to negotiate these individually; regular workers need to act collectively to get similar benefits. [0] https://money.cnn.com/2013/02/25/technology/yahoo-work-from-home/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2013/02/25/technology/yahoo-work-from-...

nunez 5y ago
That’s an interesting angle. But do unions actually prevent that? Ford has closed UAW (United Auto Workers) factories and forced relocation for these employees, for example: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2021/03/16/uaw-blasts-ford-backing-out-ohio-assembly-investment/4718047001/ https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2021/0... Also, I can see a universe in which the proliferation of unions causes a rift in the industry between Union and non-Union employers. Wouldn’t this reduce the already extensive mobility that engineers have in the market?
- mattficke 5y ago
  No that's right, unions can't prevent layoffs or office closures, the idea isn't to prevent any sort of changes. To use a programming metaphor, it's more about avoiding undefined behavior. We use contracts to define professional relationships in almost all other contexts; employment relationships are unusual in having terms that are largely unspecified. A union is just a framework for negotiating a contract. It does two unique, significant things: it allows for negotiating a contract that covers a group of workers (rather than an individual), and it requires the company to negotiate in good faith (they can't just refuse to agree to a contract at all). The contract itself is the important part, and the details are going to vary based on the situation. A $1M minimum salary wouldn't make sense at a tech company, but is reasonable in the NBA. On relocations, you're probably not going to forbid them, but maybe you have some specified amount of severance for this situation for people who can't move to the new location. Or maybe there's a minimum amount of notice the company needs to provide, so people don't have to pull their kids out of school in the middle of the year or whatever. I don't see why it would necessarily reduce mobility. I think it would make the company a more appealing place to work, so perhaps people would be more likely to stay at a unionized shop, but I don't think that's really all that different from someone staying at Google because they like the office cafeteria. Mostly, though, I think a union is not as extreme of a change as it's sometimes portrayed. It can't make money appear out of thin air, or turn around a failing company or industry, but it also doesn't prevent innovation or remove the flexibility to reward high performance. It's just a way for employees to put themselves on more equal footing with the company when setting employment terms.

nunez 5y ago

That’s an interesting angle. But do unions actually prevent that? Ford has closed UAW (United Auto Workers) factories and forced relocation for these employees, for example: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2021/03/16/uaw-blasts-ford-backing-out-ohio-assembly-investment/4718047001/ https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2021/0... Also, I can see a universe in which the proliferation of unions causes a rift in the industry between Union and non-Union employers. Wouldn’t this reduce the already extensive mobility that engineers have in the market?

mattficke 5y ago
No that's right, unions can't prevent layoffs or office closures, the idea isn't to prevent any sort of changes. To use a programming metaphor, it's more about avoiding undefined behavior. We use contracts to define professional relationships in almost all other contexts; employment relationships are unusual in having terms that are largely unspecified. A union is just a framework for negotiating a contract. It does two unique, significant things: it allows for negotiating a contract that covers a group of workers (rather than an individual), and it requires the company to negotiate in good faith (they can't just refuse to agree to a contract at all). The contract itself is the important part, and the details are going to vary based on the situation. A $1M minimum salary wouldn't make sense at a tech company, but is reasonable in the NBA. On relocations, you're probably not going to forbid them, but maybe you have some specified amount of severance for this situation for people who can't move to the new location. Or maybe there's a minimum amount of notice the company needs to provide, so people don't have to pull their kids out of school in the middle of the year or whatever. I don't see why it would necessarily reduce mobility. I think it would make the company a more appealing place to work, so perhaps people would be more likely to stay at a unionized shop, but I don't think that's really all that different from someone staying at Google because they like the office cafeteria. Mostly, though, I think a union is not as extreme of a change as it's sometimes portrayed. It can't make money appear out of thin air, or turn around a failing company or industry, but it also doesn't prevent innovation or remove the flexibility to reward high performance. It's just a way for employees to put themselves on more equal footing with the company when setting employment terms.