10 ms·

Good thing that are a lot of retail and services sector workers are organizing- “Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, Trader Joe’s, Target” https://twitter.com/camdenmitc

Good thing that are a lot of retail and services sector workers are organizing- “Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, Trader Joe’s, Target” https://twitter.com/camdenmitchel13/status/1525525023674466307 https://twitter.com/camdenmitchel13/status/15255250236744663... Once the recession comes, tech workers will be put to the test whether our self-assumed irreplaceability will continue to provide enough leverage against management dictates such as the pullback of remote work. At that time many of us will be wishing that we had taken this opportunity to do a little organizing.

jancsika 5y ago
If HN is any indicator, in tech a unionization drive will get you N very smart troglodytes with N distinct first takes, cooked up from hand-carved first principles. Probably garnished with a smattering of alleged uncles' union job war stories. Believe me-- my own uncle used to be a union organizer in tech. After decades of dealing with this pattern he landed in hospital and died. (Doctors said most likely from a broken heart.) And don't forget that unionization drives would necessarily introduce recurring interruptions to developers' coding flow. Just in the U.S. that could hinder development rates by a double-digit percentage. In conclusion, I'd be wary of any unionization drive in tech.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Organizing tech workers can take any number of forms- I'm partial to the idea of simply strengthening the IEEE/ACM to something akin to the AMA for doctors or APA for psychologists in some capacities. But the main point is that this profession has taken its perks and relative labor power for granted in the past decade, and now that the good times might be ending, we will all soon see what happens when we are without the luxury of a bull market. Perhaps it would have been prudent to have gotten a lot of this codified prior with the leverage that a union or a professional association accords. It's a very "the grasshopper and the ant" situation.

jancsika 5y ago

If HN is any indicator, in tech a unionization drive will get you N very smart troglodytes with N distinct first takes, cooked up from hand-carved first principles. Probably garnished with a smattering of alleged uncles' union job war stories. Believe me-- my own uncle used to be a union organizer in tech. After decades of dealing with this pattern he landed in hospital and died. (Doctors said most likely from a broken heart.) And don't forget that unionization drives would necessarily introduce recurring interruptions to developers' coding flow. Just in the U.S. that could hinder development rates by a double-digit percentage. In conclusion, I'd be wary of any unionization drive in tech.

Apocryphon 5y ago
Organizing tech workers can take any number of forms- I'm partial to the idea of simply strengthening the IEEE/ACM to something akin to the AMA for doctors or APA for psychologists in some capacities. But the main point is that this profession has taken its perks and relative labor power for granted in the past decade, and now that the good times might be ending, we will all soon see what happens when we are without the luxury of a bull market. Perhaps it would have been prudent to have gotten a lot of this codified prior with the leverage that a union or a professional association accords. It's a very "the grasshopper and the ant" situation.