24 ms·
New York Times tech workers vote to certify union
- erulabs 5y agoI need the long German word for “however this plays out, it will be used as a spurious example either for or against some extreme position”. If it works out, great - that hardly means unions are a foolproof idea - and if it fails it’s hardly a condemnation of unions themselves. And yet, it will be interesting to see how this plays out!
- djbusby 5y agoRandom Sample as Full Confirmation of the Extreme I've hacked into (help from G) StichprobeVollständigeBestätigungExtrems
- rndgermandude 5y agoSadly that word doesn't work at all as is, and the mid-word capitalizations do not work either. Good effort tho :) The random sample (Stichprobe) has to go last, as it is the subject. Extreme is probably the "extreme case" not "extreme value" in here, so Extremfall, but we need plural to consider all extremes at the same time - which has the added "aesthetic" bonus of adding another German umlaut in Fälle. Full Confirmation is just Bestätigung I'd say. So maybe Extremfälle-Bestätigungs-Stichprobe = Extremfällebestätigungsstichprobe (to make it plural, just add an n)
- urthor 5y agoSee this is cooler because it has EXTREME at the front.
- andrew_ 5y agoThat's confirmation bias, no?
- erulabs 5y agoIt’s like oncoming confirmation bias - like a car wreck you see coming but the car in front of you doesn’t - and you’re helpless to do anything but honk your horn “nooooooooooo!”
- iamjfu 5y agoSome highlights > The workers voted in favor, 404 to 88 > The group is the biggest tech union with bargaining rights in America. https://nytimesguild.org/tech-vote-count https://nytimesguild.org/tech-vote-count
- neonate 5y agohttps://archive.ph/htL2l https://archive.ph/htL2l http://web.archive.org/web/20220304012409/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/business/media/new-york-times-tech-union.html http://web.archive.org/web/20220304012409/https://www.nytime...
- riffic 5y agowe'll probably see a long trend towards more tech labor unionization. If you're up to it you can join the one big union in solidarity today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl...
- Apocryphon 5y agoFeels like right now in the labor market is when they would have the most leverage.
- tehjoker 5y agoI bet that also means that they have leverage forming a union too. If the employer can't afford to lose em, that's a great time to cement power.
- Apocryphon 5y agoThat's what I meant, actually. This is the time when workers have the most leverage to preserve that leverage for the long-term. Doing so through institutions like unions is one method.
- jart 5y agoOnly if it's through industrial unionism like the wobblies. Craft unionism isn't scalable.
- aspenmayer 5y agoCan you explain the difference to me? I’m interested how small/independent businesses can unionize. I’d like to know more.
- jart 5y agoThe goal of industrial unionism is to organize the entire working class so that everyone gets better treatment. It's a recognition that the goal of unionism should not be only for SWEs to enrich themselves, but rather most importantly show solidarity with all workers who are struggling.
- CSMastermind 5y agoI'm surprised they weren't already in one. I worked at a competitor (the Wall St. Journal) years ago and all software engineers there had to be part of the union. Unions in the news industry are extremely common and powerful. My subjective experience with it was that union membership was mostly inconsequential for developers. The market for programmers is so strong that people would just leave if they weren't treated well or compensated fairly.
- minhazm 5y ago> all software engineers there had to be part of the union. Is that legal? Can unions or companies force you to join the union as a condition of employment?
- benglish11 5y agoIt depends on the state. This is what “right to work” laws are about.
- mikeryan 5y agoA business can be a “closed shop” and require payment of a fee. Though you don’t, technically have to be a member. The fees are not “dues” they’re essentially “agency fees” or “fair share fee” that make up for the benefits you’re getting due to the union. The fees are usually very close to Union dues so most people just join to get all the rights. Exceptions are “Right to Work” states which explicitly outlaw closed shops.
- CountSessine 5y agoOf course they can - unless you live in a jurisdiction with a so-called “right to work” statute. If you weren’t forced to join then, in theory, management could subvert and then break the union by hiring lots of new employees who are compensated to “opt-out”.
- anamax 5y agoYou write "compensated to 'opt-out'" like it's a bad thing. Unions are a tool, not a goal.
- charcircuit 5y ago
- rdtwo 5y agoYeah places that need unions usually have bad management. The #1 reason to form a Union is that you work for shitty unreasonable managers
- andrew_ 5y agoI've never loved a job so much that I'd try to organize versus finding a better home for my trade. It's a concept that's completely foreign to me. In tech, we've never been in a market this vast and this thirsty for talent. Making a move has never been more possible or more lucrative. It just doesn't add up for me personally.
- Spooky23 5y agoYou’re living in a happy time. Ask a former high flying IBM engineer from what Binghamton or Poughkeepsie, NY was like circa 1992 when IBM detonated the mainframe business. Or anyone from DEC or HP. If you don’t think that will happen to the current cohort of tech giants, you’re engaging in magical thinking.
- andrew_ 5y agoI get your point, but that was 30 years ago. When I played basketball, we used to say "two buckets is luck, three is a streak" - we've been in favorable markets, with a few temporary dips, for 20 years. I'd call that a streak, more so than magical thinking.
- mkr-hn 5y agoAll it takes is a structural shift. Blockbuster had a 29-year run, most of which was after it wiped out the independent stores that predated it.
- xrd 5y agoIs it just me or is there something strange about reading about this in the NYT itself?
- oh_sigh 5y agoSince people talk about this being the start of a wave of tech unionization, how will success or failure be determined for this union? It would be cool if we could see some OKRs for the union and check in a year if this actually did anything.
- andrew_ 5y agoI could see this being the start of a small wave. And that wave is exclusive to regions of the country and companies where tech workers lean extremely heavily left. I don't see this gaining widespread industry adoption though. The market is simply too hot.
- atlantas 5y agoWhat do others currently do to measure the results?
- goodluckchuck 5y agoSo will NYT be a union shop / the union will have a monopoly, have multiple unions, or have a mix of union and non-union work?
- mikeryan 5y agoIn a large and varied company like the New York Times you’re going to have multiple Unions representing different workers. The printers won’t usually be in the same union as the tech workers. You’ll always have a mix of union and non-union work since managers can’t be in the union and certain types of work may not be covered by one of the current unions.
- goodluckchuck 5y agoThanks for the response. I’m surprised that managers generally aren’t allowed in unions. But then I guess that’s probably a case by case thing with different criteria for different unions. Still, there are 20+ million “managers” according to the AFLCIO, excluding professionals who manage staff, e.g. some engineers, doctors, etc. Probably 10–20% of all workers. https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/the-professional-and-technical-workforce-by-the-numbers https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/the-professional-and-te...
- freedomben 5y agoAt least the unions I've been around, managers were the ones the unions were there to keep in check. It would have been very undermining to the union if the managers were part of it.
- native_samples 5y agoThe whole point of unions is to create an us vs them setup in which "management" is the enemy and "workers" are the poor oppressed victims. You can't have a union with managers in it for that reason, such an organization would be the same thing as the company itself. One reason unions make no sense in the tech world is that the line between "workers" and "managers" is often very blurry. What is a tech lead, for example? And of course the whole notion of class warfare being something to encourage is just an obsolete and very dangerous early 20th century Marxist idea. Most sensible people have disposed of it a long time ago, but no surprise the New York Times never let it go given the extremism and bias of their staff.
- ekianjo 5y agoFor a publication that always pushes for unions it seems a bit strange they are late adopters. Dont like your own food?
- afavour 5y agoThe company as a whole is not a late adopter. I forget but I know all the journalists are in a union already and there’s a long history of unions on printing presses.
- throwaway73838 5y agoProblem is, unions are actually counter productive to any industry. They reduce available work and further incentivize off-shoring of jobs. In the post WW2 period, the UK and German manufacturing industries lagged behind the US in both wages and productivity, largely due to the former being unionized and latter not.
- foepys 5y agoYou mean the good old times when the US military just shot at people trying to unionize? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
- google234123 5y agoNo, he said post ww2 which is after 1921.
- Animats 5y agoUm.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lmm 5y agoSo how's that working out for those manufacturing industries nowadays, hmm?
- throwaway73838 5y agoWell, since they’ve been increasingly unionized, they moved places like Texas (Tesla, SpaceX etc) and China. Take the medical industry, for example - they can’t exactly go on strike, yet they are the highest paying industry in most countries. Which goes to show that unions aren’t necessary to be paid a high wage (also Singapore, unions are illegal, yet they have higher average wages than most developed nations). In my country of Australia, garbage collectors earn $120,000, which is around $80,000USD. Yet just recently, they went on strike, refusing to collect the garbage. This is despite earning far more than the average person. Or train drivers - they are paid even higher, yet they also go on strike. This is not fighting for basic health and safety rights of Cockney chimney sweeps - this is blackmailing their employer for more money for nothing, for already privilege and highly paid staff in a competitive industry. Which ultimately leads to higher costs for consumers, less competitive industry, and more general inefficiency.
- throwaway984393 5y agoThis is not exactly relevant, but I wish these companies would just become co-ops. Less profit for the people at the top (probably) but you wouldn't need a union.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wslh 5y agoHow this plays out for small companies? Is it a TLDR for this?
- dgb23 5y agoUnions are important and solve real problems. But I tend to think that they are a necessary evil rather than attacking the root or at least a deeper branch. In my worldview there are two principles that I think are fundamental to a well functioning community (a workplace is just that): - Meritocracy. The kind where better ideas and actions get more consideration. I'm thinking in terms of basic virtues here: loyalty, rationality, empathy, courage, cunning. Potential rewards and incentives should align but should always be in service of outcomes and not the goal in of itself. This is material/knowledge focused. - Consensus. To keep a peaceful, sustainable, fair, productive environment one needs a process to reconcile differing views and interests. Open communication, democracy, agency. This is people focused. When a community doesn't follow these principles then it eventually degrades, becomes brittle and rigid until it crumbles under its own weight or a counterforce (such as a union) is formed. But what should happen is a disentanglement of power into meritocracy and consensus.
- VictorPath 5y ago> Meritocracy Large corporations who have been around a while are controlled by heirs who have never worked, the purpose of which (according to law) is to extract as much surplus value profit from those doing the work. It sounds like the antithesis of meritocracy. Unions are organizations where union elections are comprised of those doing the work and creating the wealth.
- beepbooptheory 5y agoThe general resistance in this thread is something. Every day on here we all find issues with the industry as a whole, have complaints, identify negative patterns grounded in investment goals or profit. A huge majority of people on here agree: there are problems and things as a whole need to change. Its not "what use is a union to me", it is that there is an ethical imperative to try and fight against the destructive force of profit seeking itself, when left unchecked. It is about giving agency to the only force that can stand opposed to those destructive forces.
- IanDrake 5y ago[dead]
- Devasta 5y agoIts fascinating that for a profession that likes to think its all about understanding complex systems, we have so many that oppose unionization.
- treeman79 5y agoLook at what unions did to Detroit.
- rowanajmarshall 5y agoAlthough a lot of the jobs from Detroit moved to Japan, a country with higher unionisation rates.
- VictorPath 5y agoLook at what unions did to North Carolina. North Carolina is in a tie with South Carolina for lowest unionization in the US. The textile mills promised workers if they didn't unionize they would be OK. They didn't, yet the textile mills closed up and left the country any how. After years of low pat they are now low skilled workers with little savings in a town without industry. In Detroit, workers like Larry Page's grandfather battled during 1930s strike and wound up making a good living. He sent his son to college, and his son founded Google, holding aloft the improvised weapon his grandfather made in the 1930s UAW strike. The difference is when Detroit was a union town, it produced grandsons like Larry Page. Burlington, North Carolina was never a union town and it was working class then and nowadays over one third of those under 18 are under the property line. Also Detroit was in a union state when one-income families with the breadwinner working 40 hours a week owned a home, had a car (or two) working in a factory. Now Detroit is not in a union state, it is in a so-called right-to-work state.
- chernevik 5y agoTechnical unions are a good way for people who are better at politics to make a living off of people who are better at programming. Personally I'd rather keep my money for myself.