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So many of you are also convinced you are expert negotiators and 200x programmers who surely deserve, and can get, get more for your work than the average progr

So many of you are also convinced you are expert negotiators and 200x programmers who surely deserve, and can get, get more for your work than the average programmer, so unions would surely result in less money for you. Or at least I sure do see that sentiment in most discussions of unions on HN.

zamadatix 5y ago
I don't think HN represents the average tech worker so that may well be true. At the very least HN represents the tech worker either genuinely interested or personally invested in their job if not being entirely focused as a place for the top performers to share projects and information in the first place. Since by definition half of people can get more than the average if you apply either the above filters to define the average HN user then most people here probably would be right - they could get significantly more than their average peer.
- robocat 5y ago
  > Since by definition half of people can get more than the average Median, not average. Salaries are nothing like a normal distribution. As the saying goes, Jeff Bezos walks into a bar and on average everyone in the bar is a billionaire.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    Average doesn't always refer to arithmetic mean but yes in this case particularly median.
jandrewrogers 5y ago
For the kinds of devs you are referring to, the kind that post on HN, I am skeptical that a union could materially improve the year-over-year wage increases they already see. At best their compensation trajectory wouldn’t change and unionization often causes wage compression in other industries (read: it would reduce their compensation). If you are one of those highly paid devs, everything about the calculus of unionization is unlikely to produce a positive expected return. Software is manifestly not in a race to the bottom; there are persistently more jobs than devs that can fill them if you are sufficiently skilled. In Europe, businesses encourage labor solidarity among software devs because it suppresses wages in a global environment where software wages are rising rapidly. Exceptional devs are shamed for believing their worth is so far above their peers, even if it is true. I don’t believe most wage gains in software in Europe would be happening if US tech companies weren’t in Europe pushing the wages upward. Unions focus on the compensation of the median ability worker. The issue in the software is that ability has something like a barbell distribution; workers at different ends of that barbell live in different worlds and are not interchangeable. The “median dev” barely exists as a useful abstraction.
- jiveturkey 5y ago
  https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/ https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/
gremloni 5y ago
Unions will come with professional licensing and tests to be a software programmer. I would hate this since now it’s very easy to get into the industry with several alternate modes of training. It would also create friction with hiring developers from overseas and really hamstring America’s ability to get good software out quickly. I also think we make a good living so I don’t see what exactly would improve. The only thing I can think of is unpaid overtime for salaried workers.
- jdub 5y ago
  Licensing and testing is not an inevitable consequence of unionisation. Those are more closely associated with professional associations or guilds, which don't tend to represent the same kinds of workers as unions.
KKKKkkkk1 5y ago
Your sarcastically expressed sentiment is correct. Unions play a zero-sum game. They change the way the pie is split between consumers, investors, and workers, in favor of the workers. Among the workers, they act in favor of the incumbents to the detriment of the newcomers. So the folks who are posting on HN will benefit from union power. Young people and especially women and minorities will lose.
roenxi 5y ago
Theory 1: HN commentators are irrational and could make more money. Theory 2: HN commentators correctly identify that a union would make them less money. The age old clash of collectivists and individualists. I personally think strong union activity is more likely to move tech clusters for America to China than it is to make software engineers more money. Software engineers already seem to be making a lot of money, it is unclear that asking for more will work, even if done loudly.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > Software engineers already seem to be making a lot of money, it is unclear that asking for more will work, even if done loudly. Software engineers at Amazon, Apple, Uber and others could show solidarity to non-tech colleagues, just like in Hollywood, the Directors Guild barely has any reason to initiate strike action, but doesn't cross the picket line, but instead often supports "lowlier" unions. That said - money isn't the only thing unions can negotiate: all that industry-wide malfeasance folk like to complain about on HN, e.g. around privacy and advertising: unions could negotiate rules around those.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    Another one is a rule about not being managed by someone who can't code. But in general the solidarity problem is huge. If you look at Europe where we get strikes now and again, there's always a fault line between the group that wants some change and their friends. The third party always has this problem of "do we want to piss off people that we personally are ok with at the moment?". It's understandable too, everyday people don't want to be bothered by some specific issue that causes a general strike.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    > ... e.g. around privacy and advertising: unions could negotiate rules around those... That is a political minefield, because it implies fairly directly that software engineers should try to leverage their technical knowledge to enforce their social values. 1. Risk of migrating the tech clusters to exotic foreign lands. 2. Some fairly substantial minorities in the tech industry do not support the political morals and values of the majority, and will be truly unhappy about that sort of faux-union.
cblconfederate 5y ago
But the situation is not comparable to gig workers, devs are much more privileged because they (think they) are in short supply. Devs may genuinely have no need for unions but the rest of the economy is increasingly exposed

zamadatix 5y ago

I don't think HN represents the average tech worker so that may well be true. At the very least HN represents the tech worker either genuinely interested or personally invested in their job if not being entirely focused as a place for the top performers to share projects and information in the first place. Since by definition half of people can get more than the average if you apply either the above filters to define the average HN user then most people here probably would be right - they could get significantly more than their average peer.

robocat 5y ago
> Since by definition half of people can get more than the average Median, not average. Salaries are nothing like a normal distribution. As the saying goes, Jeff Bezos walks into a bar and on average everyone in the bar is a billionaire.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- zamadatix 5y ago
  Average doesn't always refer to arithmetic mean but yes in this case particularly median.

jandrewrogers 5y ago

For the kinds of devs you are referring to, the kind that post on HN, I am skeptical that a union could materially improve the year-over-year wage increases they already see. At best their compensation trajectory wouldn’t change and unionization often causes wage compression in other industries (read: it would reduce their compensation). If you are one of those highly paid devs, everything about the calculus of unionization is unlikely to produce a positive expected return. Software is manifestly not in a race to the bottom; there are persistently more jobs than devs that can fill them if you are sufficiently skilled. In Europe, businesses encourage labor solidarity among software devs because it suppresses wages in a global environment where software wages are rising rapidly. Exceptional devs are shamed for believing their worth is so far above their peers, even if it is true. I don’t believe most wage gains in software in Europe would be happening if US tech companies weren’t in Europe pushing the wages upward. Unions focus on the compensation of the median ability worker. The issue in the software is that ability has something like a barbell distribution; workers at different ends of that barbell live in different worlds and are not interchangeable. The “median dev” barely exists as a useful abstraction.

jiveturkey 5y ago
https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/ https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/

gremloni 5y ago

Unions will come with professional licensing and tests to be a software programmer. I would hate this since now it’s very easy to get into the industry with several alternate modes of training. It would also create friction with hiring developers from overseas and really hamstring America’s ability to get good software out quickly. I also think we make a good living so I don’t see what exactly would improve. The only thing I can think of is unpaid overtime for salaried workers.

jdub 5y ago
Licensing and testing is not an inevitable consequence of unionisation. Those are more closely associated with professional associations or guilds, which don't tend to represent the same kinds of workers as unions.

KKKKkkkk1 5y ago

Your sarcastically expressed sentiment is correct. Unions play a zero-sum game. They change the way the pie is split between consumers, investors, and workers, in favor of the workers. Among the workers, they act in favor of the incumbents to the detriment of the newcomers. So the folks who are posting on HN will benefit from union power. Young people and especially women and minorities will lose.

roenxi 5y ago

Theory 1: HN commentators are irrational and could make more money. Theory 2: HN commentators correctly identify that a union would make them less money. The age old clash of collectivists and individualists. I personally think strong union activity is more likely to move tech clusters for America to China than it is to make software engineers more money. Software engineers already seem to be making a lot of money, it is unclear that asking for more will work, even if done loudly.

sangnoir 5y ago
> Software engineers already seem to be making a lot of money, it is unclear that asking for more will work, even if done loudly. Software engineers at Amazon, Apple, Uber and others could show solidarity to non-tech colleagues, just like in Hollywood, the Directors Guild barely has any reason to initiate strike action, but doesn't cross the picket line, but instead often supports "lowlier" unions. That said - money isn't the only thing unions can negotiate: all that industry-wide malfeasance folk like to complain about on HN, e.g. around privacy and advertising: unions could negotiate rules around those.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Another one is a rule about not being managed by someone who can't code. But in general the solidarity problem is huge. If you look at Europe where we get strikes now and again, there's always a fault line between the group that wants some change and their friends. The third party always has this problem of "do we want to piss off people that we personally are ok with at the moment?". It's understandable too, everyday people don't want to be bothered by some specific issue that causes a general strike.
- roenxi 5y ago
  > ... e.g. around privacy and advertising: unions could negotiate rules around those... That is a political minefield, because it implies fairly directly that software engineers should try to leverage their technical knowledge to enforce their social values. 1. Risk of migrating the tech clusters to exotic foreign lands. 2. Some fairly substantial minorities in the tech industry do not support the political morals and values of the majority, and will be truly unhappy about that sort of faux-union.

cblconfederate 5y ago

But the situation is not comparable to gig workers, devs are much more privileged because they (think they) are in short supply. Devs may genuinely have no need for unions but the rest of the economy is increasingly exposed