4 ms·

Open question (I'm not American, so I don't get the full context): would you lose that bargaining power if a union was created at your workplace?

csande17 4y ago
Say, for sake of argument, that I'm the World's Greatest Widget Engineer. I'm worth more than the average employee at my company, so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer. On the other hand, if a union imposes some broad agreement on the company under threat of strikes, I can't convince my company to break that agreement on my own because I'm not more valuable than the entire rest of the company combined. A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine—they're focused on protecting the majority of employees, who are probably not as valuable as me—so forming a union could very easily lead to me getting less of the things I want. For example, if a union convinced a company to pay/promote based on seniority rather than performance, that could be good for most of the people in the union but bad for me.
- kadoban 4y ago
  > A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. It's _possible_ for you to be worse off in a union, but rare.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. This really isn’t true. What you’re describing isn’t even a zero sum game it’s negative sum, where hurting the other party is among your goals in itself. The company is interested in using you to make money and for many purposes happy, satisfied employees who are growing in productivity are good. All of those are also things the employees usually want. Are employee and company interests fully aligned? Absolutely not, but if your employer’s interests are almost completely opposed to yours get out.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    > Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. You do know that your employment depends on the success of the business, right? The relationship with an employee is no more adversarial than your relationship with the local grocery store when you buy a bag of potatoes.
    - hiptobecubic 4y ago
      Yeah, except that switching grocery stores is practically zero cost, so any store that does silly shenanigans gets spanked almost immediately. Also, grocery stores are about a million billion gazillion times more transparent about trading with you relative to trading with other shoppers.
      - WWLink 4y ago
        The trading with a grocery store is heavily regulated as well. They have requirements for storage and handling, their scales have to be calibrated, and there can be very strict fines for things like screwing around with sale prices.
      - kortilla 4y ago
        Switching jobs has a very low cost now as well. It’s not 2009 anymore.
        hiptobecubic 4y ago
        Switching jobs is not "very low cost" at all. It's a huge pain in the ass, even if you don't count interview prep.
    - mbrodersen 4y ago
      The behaviour, motivation, and goals of individuals (including your boss and CEO) working for a business very rarely has anything to do with the goals of the business itself. There is a lot of pretend going on, but that is mostly just surface BS. Why do you think CEO’s spend billions buying back shares instead of using that money to invest in new products and other innovations that will make the business more successful long term? Could it perhaps be (gasp! horror!) that they care more about personal enrichment than making the business successful long term?
  - skeeter2020 4y ago
    > Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways I'm sad that you think this, and would urge you to analyze your situation to see if it's really true. My one piece of advice is that companies seek to minimize cost centers, but invest in profit centers. Get out of the former and in to the latter.
    - supersync 4y ago
      Cost centers: anything that improves your experience as an employee. It’s smart to move out of it, but the fact that you have to in order to progress is a clear indicator why companies will perpetually undervalue talent - even in competitive markets.
- mmmpop 4y ago
  That makes you management buddy, so saddle up and don't forget your helmet.
  - csande17 4y ago
    If you can become an enemy of the union simply by being good at your individual-contributor job, maybe that's why unions haven't really taken off in software engineering.
    - mmmpop 4y ago
      I'd venture a guess that the variance in quality between a set of "professional" electricians and another set of "professional" developers is different by an order of magnitude. Said another way, I can go down to the union hall and pick an electrician randomly and have a great deal more confidence in that person's ability than I could choosing a random developer off of LinkedIn to write my application. I think certifications have something to do with this, but it's also the complete lack of understanding of what makes someone a good developer by management... this is entirely the fault of management and I don't blame a developer for trying to "fake it til you make it."
  - heartbreak 4y ago
    Not-so-subtle threats of violence. Another reason not to like labor unions.
    - Clubber 4y ago
      People should really stop with the hyperbole. It makes people not take you seriously and ruins the message, even if valid.
      - GeorgeTirebiter 4y ago
        Completely agree. Generally, when hyperbole is used, the underlying argument is week or poor, and the writer is trying to argue from emotion. Sadly, it often works.
- DharmaPolice 4y ago
  This feels a little contrived. I work for an organisation with trade union representation and yes there is an agreed pay structure in place. This doesn't prevent management identifying particularly critical people and those people being rewarded/incentivised outside the norms of the pay scales (I am one of these people). Sometimes specific cases are discussed in the management/union meetings but not often and even then it's just a matter of management saying "Yeah that guy is the world's greatest widget engineer if he leaves we're screwed so we created a new job to keep him here". It doesn't really go beyond that unless it's perceived that management are routinely violating the spirit of agreements and/or when the relationship between the union and management has already completely broken down.
- tikhonj 4y ago
  Hollywood actors are part of a large union (SAG-AFTRA), but individual actors still get compensated orders of magnitude more than the average. What particular aspect of having a union would make that substantially more difficult in tech?
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    The completely different industry structure. The film and theater industries work on time limited projects with a defined beginning, end and deliverable and most teams break up at the end of each project. Under those circumstances all a union can do to protect members is dualise, making lives better for insiders and harder for outsiders by restricting entry. Long lasting organizations that have multiple overlapping projects with unions end up with compressed wage structures because the union campaigns for the median worker and the structure does not militate against that.
- noisy_boy 4y ago
  > Say, for sake of argument, that I'm the World's Greatest Widget Engineer. Say, I am not. > so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer I cannot, see above. Does that mean I don't deserve to have the bargaining power for the best deal for myself? > A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine—they're focused on protecting the majority of employees, who are probably not as valuable as me—so forming a union could very easily lead to me getting less of the things I want. For example, if a union convinced a company to pay/promote based on seniority rather than performance, that could be good for most of the people in the union but bad for me. Well, based on the fact that I'm part of the majority i.e. not as valuable as you, it works very well for us (who are not the World's Greatest Widget Engineer).
  - csande17 4y ago
    > Does that mean I don't deserve to have the bargaining power for the best deal for myself? No, I do not believe you are entitled to a wealth transfer from people who are better at your job than you are. (Or, to put it another way, you're certainly free to do a little collective bargaining if you'd like, but the World's Greatest Widget Engineer has no reason to join your union.)
    - WWLink 4y ago
      I think a lot of devs are led to believe they're the World's Greatest Widget Engineer but what they've really fallen for is the "Hank Hill Special Deal" lol.
    - noisy_boy 4y ago
      Thats ok - they are one in a million anyway. We are talking about people in general, not exceptional diamonds (they clearly can take care of themselves).
    - Skinney 4y ago
      > better at your job than you are What you mean is «better at negotiating than you are». Work skill an negotiation skills don’t always coincide (in my experience they almost never do).
Godel_unicode 4y ago
According to a family friend who worked for the UAW (the huge American auto workers union) the answer to this is yes. I suspect the answer is actually "it depends", but I don't know of any documented examples of unions whose members are allowed to make a separate peace. There are people in the comments who it sounds like have done so, perhaps they can weigh in on the mechanism.
skeeter2020 4y ago
Yes, you would be compelled to support union actions, such as job action in support of collective goals you don't agree with, and get to pay for the right to do so as well. You would not be allowed to negotiate individual concessions for work or skill beyond the norm. Everyone is even more focused on "fair outcomes" (read: the same) than in any non-union environment. We're not interchangeable cogs in some manufacturing machine; we're extremely skilled experts in the biggest seller's market of our careers. Why anyone would want to unionize right now is beyond me.

csande17 4y ago

Say, for sake of argument, that I'm the World's Greatest Widget Engineer. I'm worth more than the average employee at my company, so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer. On the other hand, if a union imposes some broad agreement on the company under threat of strikes, I can't convince my company to break that agreement on my own because I'm not more valuable than the entire rest of the company combined. A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine—they're focused on protecting the majority of employees, who are probably not as valuable as me—so forming a union could very easily lead to me getting less of the things I want. For example, if a union convinced a company to pay/promote based on seniority rather than performance, that could be good for most of the people in the union but bad for me.

kadoban 4y ago
> A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. It's _possible_ for you to be worse off in a union, but rare.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. This really isn’t true. What you’re describing isn’t even a zero sum game it’s negative sum, where hurting the other party is among your goals in itself. The company is interested in using you to make money and for many purposes happy, satisfied employees who are growing in productivity are good. All of those are also things the employees usually want. Are employee and company interests fully aligned? Absolutely not, but if your employer’s interests are almost completely opposed to yours get out.
- kortilla 4y ago
  > Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. You do know that your employment depends on the success of the business, right? The relationship with an employee is no more adversarial than your relationship with the local grocery store when you buy a bag of potatoes.
  - hiptobecubic 4y ago
    Yeah, except that switching grocery stores is practically zero cost, so any store that does silly shenanigans gets spanked almost immediately. Also, grocery stores are about a million billion gazillion times more transparent about trading with you relative to trading with other shoppers.
    - WWLink 4y ago
      The trading with a grocery store is heavily regulated as well. They have requirements for storage and handling, their scales have to be calibrated, and there can be very strict fines for things like screwing around with sale prices.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      Switching jobs has a very low cost now as well. It’s not 2009 anymore.
      - hiptobecubic 4y ago
        Switching jobs is not "very low cost" at all. It's a huge pain in the ass, even if you don't count interview prep.
  - mbrodersen 4y ago
    The behaviour, motivation, and goals of individuals (including your boss and CEO) working for a business very rarely has anything to do with the goals of the business itself. There is a lot of pretend going on, but that is mostly just surface BS. Why do you think CEO’s spend billions buying back shares instead of using that money to invest in new products and other innovations that will make the business more successful long term? Could it perhaps be (gasp! horror!) that they care more about personal enrichment than making the business successful long term?
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  > Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways I'm sad that you think this, and would urge you to analyze your situation to see if it's really true. My one piece of advice is that companies seek to minimize cost centers, but invest in profit centers. Get out of the former and in to the latter.
  - supersync 4y ago
    Cost centers: anything that improves your experience as an employee. It’s smart to move out of it, but the fact that you have to in order to progress is a clear indicator why companies will perpetually undervalue talent - even in competitive markets.
mmmpop 4y ago
That makes you management buddy, so saddle up and don't forget your helmet.
- csande17 4y ago
  If you can become an enemy of the union simply by being good at your individual-contributor job, maybe that's why unions haven't really taken off in software engineering.
  - mmmpop 4y ago
    I'd venture a guess that the variance in quality between a set of "professional" electricians and another set of "professional" developers is different by an order of magnitude. Said another way, I can go down to the union hall and pick an electrician randomly and have a great deal more confidence in that person's ability than I could choosing a random developer off of LinkedIn to write my application. I think certifications have something to do with this, but it's also the complete lack of understanding of what makes someone a good developer by management... this is entirely the fault of management and I don't blame a developer for trying to "fake it til you make it."
- heartbreak 4y ago
  Not-so-subtle threats of violence. Another reason not to like labor unions.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    People should really stop with the hyperbole. It makes people not take you seriously and ruins the message, even if valid.
    - GeorgeTirebiter 4y ago
      Completely agree. Generally, when hyperbole is used, the underlying argument is week or poor, and the writer is trying to argue from emotion. Sadly, it often works.
DharmaPolice 4y ago
This feels a little contrived. I work for an organisation with trade union representation and yes there is an agreed pay structure in place. This doesn't prevent management identifying particularly critical people and those people being rewarded/incentivised outside the norms of the pay scales (I am one of these people). Sometimes specific cases are discussed in the management/union meetings but not often and even then it's just a matter of management saying "Yeah that guy is the world's greatest widget engineer if he leaves we're screwed so we created a new job to keep him here". It doesn't really go beyond that unless it's perceived that management are routinely violating the spirit of agreements and/or when the relationship between the union and management has already completely broken down.
tikhonj 4y ago
Hollywood actors are part of a large union (SAG-AFTRA), but individual actors still get compensated orders of magnitude more than the average. What particular aspect of having a union would make that substantially more difficult in tech?
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  The completely different industry structure. The film and theater industries work on time limited projects with a defined beginning, end and deliverable and most teams break up at the end of each project. Under those circumstances all a union can do to protect members is dualise, making lives better for insiders and harder for outsiders by restricting entry. Long lasting organizations that have multiple overlapping projects with unions end up with compressed wage structures because the union campaigns for the median worker and the structure does not militate against that.
noisy_boy 4y ago
> Say, for sake of argument, that I'm the World's Greatest Widget Engineer. Say, I am not. > so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer I cannot, see above. Does that mean I don't deserve to have the bargaining power for the best deal for myself? > A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine—they're focused on protecting the majority of employees, who are probably not as valuable as me—so forming a union could very easily lead to me getting less of the things I want. For example, if a union convinced a company to pay/promote based on seniority rather than performance, that could be good for most of the people in the union but bad for me. Well, based on the fact that I'm part of the majority i.e. not as valuable as you, it works very well for us (who are not the World's Greatest Widget Engineer).
- csande17 4y ago
  > Does that mean I don't deserve to have the bargaining power for the best deal for myself? No, I do not believe you are entitled to a wealth transfer from people who are better at your job than you are. (Or, to put it another way, you're certainly free to do a little collective bargaining if you'd like, but the World's Greatest Widget Engineer has no reason to join your union.)
  - WWLink 4y ago
    I think a lot of devs are led to believe they're the World's Greatest Widget Engineer but what they've really fallen for is the "Hank Hill Special Deal" lol.
  - noisy_boy 4y ago
    Thats ok - they are one in a million anyway. We are talking about people in general, not exceptional diamonds (they clearly can take care of themselves).
  - Skinney 4y ago
    > better at your job than you are What you mean is «better at negotiating than you are». Work skill an negotiation skills don’t always coincide (in my experience they almost never do).

Godel_unicode 4y ago

According to a family friend who worked for the UAW (the huge American auto workers union) the answer to this is yes. I suspect the answer is actually "it depends", but I don't know of any documented examples of unions whose members are allowed to make a separate peace. There are people in the comments who it sounds like have done so, perhaps they can weigh in on the mechanism.

skeeter2020 4y ago

Yes, you would be compelled to support union actions, such as job action in support of collective goals you don't agree with, and get to pay for the right to do so as well. You would not be allowed to negotiate individual concessions for work or skill beyond the norm. Everyone is even more focused on "fair outcomes" (read: the same) than in any non-union environment. We're not interchangeable cogs in some manufacturing machine; we're extremely skilled experts in the biggest seller's market of our careers. Why anyone would want to unionize right now is beyond me.