7 ms·

A lot of people seem confused why a lot of tech people aren't pushing for unions. For me it's simple: Tech has brought me from near poverty to pretty darn weal

A lot of people seem confused why a lot of tech people aren't pushing for unions. For me it's simple: Tech has brought me from near poverty to pretty darn wealthy. Why mess with that? Could a union help increase wages even more? Maybe. Are we being paid too little compared to our output? Maybe. But at the same time I'm being paid more than I could have possibly imagined before I entered the field.

tyingq 5y ago
Makes sense. They might be initially more popular in areas where companies tend not to treat their technology folks well. Game development, for example. Though there are some things that are pretty universal and unions would help with. Things like non-compete agreements, ownership of code written in off work hours, collusion across companies to "not poach", and so on. I imagine some of that might be a lot worse if the state of California didn't happen to take the positions they do. If Texas were instead the hotbed for tech companies, I think unions might be more popular.
- gundmc 5y ago
  I think this is a big part of it. Unions at FAANG companies these days seem to be more a vehicle for social activists than winning rights for employees. If you don't agree with the goals of the union organizers, there doesn't seem to be a benefit of joining.
btmiller 5y ago
I tend to agreed because I’m very likely to retire/be financially independent much, much earlier than 65 thanks to my tech career.
ebdbdbdb 5y ago
timmg 5y ago
I agree. To take it one step further: I have a pretty good relationship with my employer (coincidentally, Google). I don't need or want a third party to get in the middle of it.
- Crash0v3rid3 5y ago
  Also, Googles largest union, AWU, does not focus on anything I care about, so why should I pay them dues?
  - guyzero 5y ago
    You can be interested in fixing bad behaviour on the part of companies with a lot of power and leverage even if you're not the victim of it. Sure, you can also do nothing.
  - cjbgkagh 5y ago
    I think that is intentional
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    That's fine. Unions are democratically controlled organizations and they won't always align with your personal interests. "This specific union does not align with my priorities, so I'll avoid joining" is not something that will aggravate too many activists. "Unions suck and everybody should resist them in general" is what bothers people.
- guyzero 5y ago
  Everyone has a good relationship with their employer _until they don't._ And when the relationship goes bad it also becomes very, very one-sided.
  - julienb_sea 5y ago
    From what I can tell, a "bad relationship" with employer particularly in competitive tech fields is a direct result of poor performance by the employee, which actually seems reasonable. I don't think it makes sense to introduce bureaucracy with the explicit purpose of covering for poor performance, as that pummels incentives to actually perform well at work. It seems actively unfair to people that are doing their job well if a union is covering for people that aren't. Of course, a union can offer other benefits, but the downside of devaluing good performance seems strikingly not worthwhile.
omegaworks 5y ago
Your talents may be used to make the lives of people that did not have the same opportunity as you more unfair, difficult, surveilled, and dangerous. Whatever it takes to maximize the amount of profit. A union isn't just about wages, it's also about being able to speak collectively against decisions that commoditize human lives.
busterarm 5y ago
Indeed. Also everyone seems to forget that the history of unions in the US is inseparable from mafia racketeering. To the point that the federal government had to break some of the power of unions in order to break up the effectiveness of mafia racketeering.
- danans 5y ago
  > Also everyone seems to forget that the history of unions in the US is inseparable from mafia racketeering. This is disingenuous, because the sort of unions that were involved with racketeering were manufacturing unions, specifically the Teamsters, and overlapping a period during the late 19th century where corporations often employed actual violence (with paid armed security squads) against workers who attempted to organize. Both were wrong to engage in criminal behavior, but the incentives to do so were pretty strong. Furthermore, because the workers for these industries were drawn from largely impoverished communities where low-level organized rackets were practically a necessity for survival, it's not at all surprising that the relationships and methods continued into the workplace. There is, however, no history of mafia racketeering with teachers or nurses unions, and regardless of one's opinion about tech worker unions, there is no reason to think that they would have any affinity for organized crime outfits.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    The American Mafia ran it's biggest and most profitable racket, concrete for construction in NYC, aka the Concrete Club, from 1977 to 1985...long after the period you're talking about. You can even read about the corruption and (non-mafia) racketeering involved in NYC's lifeguard union, which continues literally to this very day. In most major cities, the mafia controlled a majority of the unions and used them to effectively provide mafia made men and associates with no-show jobs to provide non-earners in their organization with a paycheck -- on top of all of that they would find ways to skim a few percent off any labor being done. It's also easy for you to bring up teachers and nurses' unions not being mafia controlled -- jobs predominantly staffed with women. The American mafia literally cannot have women members per its own rules, so of course they couldn't influence those unions. If you do your research though, you'll see that the Russian mafia is heavily skimming from medical services through control of the nurses' union in Germany. There is no reason they couldn't replicate that here.
marricks 5y ago
Yep, tech can pay their employees very very well to ignore moral quandaries. Yet many still do care, goes to show money can’t fully buy people out.
- satsuma 5y ago
  see: meta/facebook having to raise salaries to get interest. there's a morality "tax" you have to pay if your employees are not proud of what your firm does.
Kneecaps07 5y ago
A union offers other protections. Right now, your employer can (I'm assuming) just fire you for whatever they want. If you have a union and a proper contract, then they need justification and the union will back you up.
- 0xy 5y ago
  Given how teacher's unions regularly protect sexual predators from firing, I'm not sure I want the same institution in tech protecting incompetent, malicious and/or predator co-workers.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    I guess since tech companies themselves already protect sexual predators, a union would just be unnecessary overhead in that regard. (/s, in case it's unclear)
    - JAlexoid 5y ago
      No /s necessary. From startups to mega corporations - sexual predators and outright rapists are systemically protected. (I am aware of a few "hushed up" incidents personally here in NYC)
tempnow987 5y ago
I wish that the US almost had mandated unions for anyone earning < 20/hr or something. All the cleaners, janitors, etc etc. The focus on the unions on public sector, and the horribly distorted and weird policies that result is a negative. It's hard to imagine a google being started by a union. Did the NY teachers union try to do a charter school in new york to show they could do as well as others? My impression was this was a flop. In CA union passed rules banning schools from maintaining reserves. This is while the same schools teach students about having some reserves (critical) as a life skill. It was AB5 which made life miserable for even folks who WANT to try to do right by staff and moved from a principles based a approach to a carve-out / exemptions approach (ie, forcing gig musicians to become employees for a 20 minute opening gig at a bar, forcing writers to clock in and out when thinking of their writing, and a ton more insanity). The list of careveouts they've had to add is mind boggling and illustrates how backwards they got it. Obama had this right by focusing on wage rates and hourly vs exempt. His approach was easy to implement and would have gotten rid of a ton of the "manager" abuse out there. The fight against someone groups like success academy (delivering amazing results to historically under served groups) - denying primarily minority parents the kind of choices that the union bosses and chancellors take for granted. I'm aware of a case where a union guy showed up drunk, drove a forklift and injured another worker and kept their job. I mean, more power to the union but I have friends who've quit working in a union workplace because showing up and working was like being a traitor to the rest of the group there (who had figured out how to create weird work rule conflicts for extra benefits with scheduling craziness etc). The history of corruption also less than ideal. "The unsealed criminal case describes a prolonged embezzlement scheme starting in involving union money from the Warren-based union local that bankrolled high-end shopping sprees at Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga and Apple, and more union funds spent on child support payments and Greektown Casino gambling binges."
kixiQu 5y ago
If I were in a union, I don't need them to negotiate on pay at all -- I'd want them to negotiate for better transparency about the ways that people get managed out / fired, because at the company where I work, that's all very The Pit And The Pendulum, hanging over your head even if you're doing good work. I'd want them to set some boundaries around oncall shifts, because unfairness or imbalance in those practices is handled entirely through watching for attrition. I'd want them to approximate some portion of the protections that the employees in Europe that I work with have, because clearly that's not so unreasonable that the company would fold, and it's led to some really unfair situations being shoved on non EU teams. I find this kind of thing tiresome to have to get political about and my interests are simple enough to have someone else represent them.
Chris2048 5y ago
> Why mess with that? Because the bubble might burst? corps are constantly trying to lowball devs, but for competitive leverage they might succeed. Unions are a way to build the profession while the going is good and bargaining power on our side - good luck getting that foosball table when there are more devs than jobs.
mrweasel 5y ago
I’m a member of a union here in Denmark. It’s cheap, it provides some safety, but they do not interfer when I talk salary with my boss. We’re paid well enough that the union don’t have to interven. The only time I’ve seen my union take action was when a previous employeer started bullshittimg about our pay been “industry leading” while in reality it was just average. Having a union that remaims friendly with the industry but isn’t afraid to callout single companies and use it’s leverage in that industry to make that company behave is extremely powerful.
analog31 5y ago
But speaking cynically, computer programmers have a lot of the clout that unions enjoy, due to market demand and also creating barriers to entry (programming languages and code bases that are difficult to learn). I refer to it as a guild. Doctors and professors are guilds in a similar fashion. My dad spent his career at a unionized company. There were both union and salaried workers. He was salaried. He experienced all of the frustrations of working in a union shop, such as practically having to bribe people to do things for him like plugging something into an electrical outlet (required an electrician). At some companies, they literally had to bribe people. Non-developers experience many of the same frustrations dealing with software. It's no secret why "shadow IT" is such a game changer for people who can engage in it. My point is that it may be technically true that programmers don't need a union, because they have something that functions like a union.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  We do, when we are lucky to work in countries that see programming that way, not everywhere being a computer guy is that high on the society scale, specially in those where electricity comes and goes.
nonameiguess 5y ago
While I don't think the situations are necessarily completely analogous because the total workforce size is a lot different, I think it's still worth pointing out that this is somewhat analogous in a lot of ways to the situation with pro athletes. They could easily have stayed happy earning many multiples of an American median salary, even though owners were taking an immensely disproportionate share of the profit pie. But, instead, they unionized, and now earn even more multiples of an American median salary.
binthere 5y ago
Yes, but you are not the only person working for that company. I for one fight for the right of every employee of the company I work for to be treated fairly and greatly. Just because YOU have a good relationship with your company (or more so with your manager) doesn't mean everyone is on equal foot. I feel extremely uncomfortable when my coworkers are crying for help and all I show is indifference.
- saltminer 5y ago
  This is a point I think needs to be shouted from the rooftops. We should always have sympathy for our fellow workers and stand up for each other. Even if you are doing a technically demanding job, you should still look out for those doing janitorial work and other "low skill" tasks you couldn't bear to come into the office without. Historically, the most successful unions in the southern US were those run by communists, because they didn't exclude people on the basis of their race. They correctly recognized that the liberation of the workers could only happen if everyone was united. It was often a hard sell to the white workers, being paid the same as a black man during Jim Crow, but the results ultimately spoke for themselves. Unions which were whites-only were far less effective. When the white workers would go on strike, temp agencies would just round up a bunch of black men to break the strike. Turns out being able to see people who look like yourself on a picket line makes you much less likely to cross. Source: "The Noir Forties" by Richard Lingeman
pjmlp 5y ago
Thing is, in many countries the union is for everyone on the building, and those in the tech floor benefit as everyone else.
amrangaye 5y ago
Not only that (how tech brought you out of poverty), the calculus is also very different for immigrant workers on immigrant visas. I wish their perspective was more represented in the conversation.

tyingq 5y ago

Makes sense. They might be initially more popular in areas where companies tend not to treat their technology folks well. Game development, for example. Though there are some things that are pretty universal and unions would help with. Things like non-compete agreements, ownership of code written in off work hours, collusion across companies to "not poach", and so on. I imagine some of that might be a lot worse if the state of California didn't happen to take the positions they do. If Texas were instead the hotbed for tech companies, I think unions might be more popular.

gundmc 5y ago
I think this is a big part of it. Unions at FAANG companies these days seem to be more a vehicle for social activists than winning rights for employees. If you don't agree with the goals of the union organizers, there doesn't seem to be a benefit of joining.

btmiller 5y ago

I tend to agreed because I’m very likely to retire/be financially independent much, much earlier than 65 thanks to my tech career.

ebdbdbdb 5y ago

timmg 5y ago

I agree. To take it one step further: I have a pretty good relationship with my employer (coincidentally, Google). I don't need or want a third party to get in the middle of it.

Crash0v3rid3 5y ago
Also, Googles largest union, AWU, does not focus on anything I care about, so why should I pay them dues?
- guyzero 5y ago
  You can be interested in fixing bad behaviour on the part of companies with a lot of power and leverage even if you're not the victim of it. Sure, you can also do nothing.
- cjbgkagh 5y ago
  I think that is intentional
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  That's fine. Unions are democratically controlled organizations and they won't always align with your personal interests. "This specific union does not align with my priorities, so I'll avoid joining" is not something that will aggravate too many activists. "Unions suck and everybody should resist them in general" is what bothers people.
guyzero 5y ago
Everyone has a good relationship with their employer _until they don't._ And when the relationship goes bad it also becomes very, very one-sided.
- julienb_sea 5y ago
  From what I can tell, a "bad relationship" with employer particularly in competitive tech fields is a direct result of poor performance by the employee, which actually seems reasonable. I don't think it makes sense to introduce bureaucracy with the explicit purpose of covering for poor performance, as that pummels incentives to actually perform well at work. It seems actively unfair to people that are doing their job well if a union is covering for people that aren't. Of course, a union can offer other benefits, but the downside of devaluing good performance seems strikingly not worthwhile.

omegaworks 5y ago

Your talents may be used to make the lives of people that did not have the same opportunity as you more unfair, difficult, surveilled, and dangerous. Whatever it takes to maximize the amount of profit. A union isn't just about wages, it's also about being able to speak collectively against decisions that commoditize human lives.

busterarm 5y ago

Indeed. Also everyone seems to forget that the history of unions in the US is inseparable from mafia racketeering. To the point that the federal government had to break some of the power of unions in order to break up the effectiveness of mafia racketeering.

danans 5y ago
> Also everyone seems to forget that the history of unions in the US is inseparable from mafia racketeering. This is disingenuous, because the sort of unions that were involved with racketeering were manufacturing unions, specifically the Teamsters, and overlapping a period during the late 19th century where corporations often employed actual violence (with paid armed security squads) against workers who attempted to organize. Both were wrong to engage in criminal behavior, but the incentives to do so were pretty strong. Furthermore, because the workers for these industries were drawn from largely impoverished communities where low-level organized rackets were practically a necessity for survival, it's not at all surprising that the relationships and methods continued into the workplace. There is, however, no history of mafia racketeering with teachers or nurses unions, and regardless of one's opinion about tech worker unions, there is no reason to think that they would have any affinity for organized crime outfits.
- busterarm 5y ago
  The American Mafia ran it's biggest and most profitable racket, concrete for construction in NYC, aka the Concrete Club, from 1977 to 1985...long after the period you're talking about. You can even read about the corruption and (non-mafia) racketeering involved in NYC's lifeguard union, which continues literally to this very day. In most major cities, the mafia controlled a majority of the unions and used them to effectively provide mafia made men and associates with no-show jobs to provide non-earners in their organization with a paycheck -- on top of all of that they would find ways to skim a few percent off any labor being done. It's also easy for you to bring up teachers and nurses' unions not being mafia controlled -- jobs predominantly staffed with women. The American mafia literally cannot have women members per its own rules, so of course they couldn't influence those unions. If you do your research though, you'll see that the Russian mafia is heavily skimming from medical services through control of the nurses' union in Germany. There is no reason they couldn't replicate that here.

marricks 5y ago

Yep, tech can pay their employees very very well to ignore moral quandaries. Yet many still do care, goes to show money can’t fully buy people out.

satsuma 5y ago
see: meta/facebook having to raise salaries to get interest. there's a morality "tax" you have to pay if your employees are not proud of what your firm does.

Kneecaps07 5y ago

A union offers other protections. Right now, your employer can (I'm assuming) just fire you for whatever they want. If you have a union and a proper contract, then they need justification and the union will back you up.

0xy 5y ago
Given how teacher's unions regularly protect sexual predators from firing, I'm not sure I want the same institution in tech protecting incompetent, malicious and/or predator co-workers.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  I guess since tech companies themselves already protect sexual predators, a union would just be unnecessary overhead in that regard. (/s, in case it's unclear)
  - JAlexoid 5y ago
    No /s necessary. From startups to mega corporations - sexual predators and outright rapists are systemically protected. (I am aware of a few "hushed up" incidents personally here in NYC)

tempnow987 5y ago

I wish that the US almost had mandated unions for anyone earning < 20/hr or something. All the cleaners, janitors, etc etc. The focus on the unions on public sector, and the horribly distorted and weird policies that result is a negative. It's hard to imagine a google being started by a union. Did the NY teachers union try to do a charter school in new york to show they could do as well as others? My impression was this was a flop. In CA union passed rules banning schools from maintaining reserves. This is while the same schools teach students about having some reserves (critical) as a life skill. It was AB5 which made life miserable for even folks who WANT to try to do right by staff and moved from a principles based a approach to a carve-out / exemptions approach (ie, forcing gig musicians to become employees for a 20 minute opening gig at a bar, forcing writers to clock in and out when thinking of their writing, and a ton more insanity). The list of careveouts they've had to add is mind boggling and illustrates how backwards they got it. Obama had this right by focusing on wage rates and hourly vs exempt. His approach was easy to implement and would have gotten rid of a ton of the "manager" abuse out there. The fight against someone groups like success academy (delivering amazing results to historically under served groups) - denying primarily minority parents the kind of choices that the union bosses and chancellors take for granted. I'm aware of a case where a union guy showed up drunk, drove a forklift and injured another worker and kept their job. I mean, more power to the union but I have friends who've quit working in a union workplace because showing up and working was like being a traitor to the rest of the group there (who had figured out how to create weird work rule conflicts for extra benefits with scheduling craziness etc). The history of corruption also less than ideal. "The unsealed criminal case describes a prolonged embezzlement scheme starting in involving union money from the Warren-based union local that bankrolled high-end shopping sprees at Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga and Apple, and more union funds spent on child support payments and Greektown Casino gambling binges."

kixiQu 5y ago

If I were in a union, I don't need them to negotiate on pay at all -- I'd want them to negotiate for better transparency about the ways that people get managed out / fired, because at the company where I work, that's all very The Pit And The Pendulum, hanging over your head even if you're doing good work. I'd want them to set some boundaries around oncall shifts, because unfairness or imbalance in those practices is handled entirely through watching for attrition. I'd want them to approximate some portion of the protections that the employees in Europe that I work with have, because clearly that's not so unreasonable that the company would fold, and it's led to some really unfair situations being shoved on non EU teams. I find this kind of thing tiresome to have to get political about and my interests are simple enough to have someone else represent them.

Chris2048 5y ago

> Why mess with that? Because the bubble might burst? corps are constantly trying to lowball devs, but for competitive leverage they might succeed. Unions are a way to build the profession while the going is good and bargaining power on our side - good luck getting that foosball table when there are more devs than jobs.

mrweasel 5y ago

I’m a member of a union here in Denmark. It’s cheap, it provides some safety, but they do not interfer when I talk salary with my boss. We’re paid well enough that the union don’t have to interven. The only time I’ve seen my union take action was when a previous employeer started bullshittimg about our pay been “industry leading” while in reality it was just average. Having a union that remaims friendly with the industry but isn’t afraid to callout single companies and use it’s leverage in that industry to make that company behave is extremely powerful.

analog31 5y ago

But speaking cynically, computer programmers have a lot of the clout that unions enjoy, due to market demand and also creating barriers to entry (programming languages and code bases that are difficult to learn). I refer to it as a guild. Doctors and professors are guilds in a similar fashion. My dad spent his career at a unionized company. There were both union and salaried workers. He was salaried. He experienced all of the frustrations of working in a union shop, such as practically having to bribe people to do things for him like plugging something into an electrical outlet (required an electrician). At some companies, they literally had to bribe people. Non-developers experience many of the same frustrations dealing with software. It's no secret why "shadow IT" is such a game changer for people who can engage in it. My point is that it may be technically true that programmers don't need a union, because they have something that functions like a union.

pjmlp 5y ago
We do, when we are lucky to work in countries that see programming that way, not everywhere being a computer guy is that high on the society scale, specially in those where electricity comes and goes.

nonameiguess 5y ago

While I don't think the situations are necessarily completely analogous because the total workforce size is a lot different, I think it's still worth pointing out that this is somewhat analogous in a lot of ways to the situation with pro athletes. They could easily have stayed happy earning many multiples of an American median salary, even though owners were taking an immensely disproportionate share of the profit pie. But, instead, they unionized, and now earn even more multiples of an American median salary.

binthere 5y ago

Yes, but you are not the only person working for that company. I for one fight for the right of every employee of the company I work for to be treated fairly and greatly. Just because YOU have a good relationship with your company (or more so with your manager) doesn't mean everyone is on equal foot. I feel extremely uncomfortable when my coworkers are crying for help and all I show is indifference.

saltminer 5y ago
This is a point I think needs to be shouted from the rooftops. We should always have sympathy for our fellow workers and stand up for each other. Even if you are doing a technically demanding job, you should still look out for those doing janitorial work and other "low skill" tasks you couldn't bear to come into the office without. Historically, the most successful unions in the southern US were those run by communists, because they didn't exclude people on the basis of their race. They correctly recognized that the liberation of the workers could only happen if everyone was united. It was often a hard sell to the white workers, being paid the same as a black man during Jim Crow, but the results ultimately spoke for themselves. Unions which were whites-only were far less effective. When the white workers would go on strike, temp agencies would just round up a bunch of black men to break the strike. Turns out being able to see people who look like yourself on a picket line makes you much less likely to cross. Source: "The Noir Forties" by Richard Lingeman

pjmlp 5y ago

Thing is, in many countries the union is for everyone on the building, and those in the tech floor benefit as everyone else.

amrangaye 5y ago

Not only that (how tech brought you out of poverty), the calculus is also very different for immigrant workers on immigrant visas. I wish their perspective was more represented in the conversation.