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Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive j

Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely not now and not in Europe. And this is not a matter of pay, e.g. airline pilots are paid more than programmers here yet they are heavily unionized.

closewith 4y ago
> And this is not a matter of pay, e.g. airline pilots are paid more than programmers here yet they are heavily unionized. [Citation needed]
- hectormalot 4y ago
  here you go: * https://centreforaviation.com/news/pilot-union-accepts-employee-contribution-clause-in-klm-restructuring-package-1035047 https://centreforaviation.com/news/pilot-union-accepts-emplo... * https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/klm-clears-path-to-bailout-with-union-deals/140941.article https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/klm-clears-path-to-bai... VNV is the pilots union of KLM, the Dutch national airline. IIRC they were the very last of the unions to sign up to the 'commitment clause' the Dutch gov required as part of their bail-out during Covid. Not a union without teeth.
  - closewith 4y ago
    I wasn’t clear. Pilots absolutely have strong unions (which is partly responsible for their levels of pay). I was contesting that pilots are paid more than developers. If you have data that supports that, please share. It seems like an absurd claim.
    - mm007emko 4y ago
      Well, depends on the country you live in. My country: https://www.platy.cz/platy/doprava-spedice-logistika/pilot https://www.platy.cz/platy/doprava-spedice-logistika/pilot https://www.platy.cz/platy/informacni-technologie/programator https://www.platy.cz/platy/informacni-technologie/programato... Average is CZK per calendar month gross (which is some 25-30% higher than net). Pilots 38k - 132k Programmers 36k - 86k as employees. If you work as a freelancer programmer (i.e. you have your own trade license) you can easily earn twice as much but if you count-in all the employee benefits granted by the Work law it's usually not worth it if you already have a family (which I have, therefore I switched from freelancing to being an employee). And of course, Ryanair/EasyJet pilots are not counted in the statistics. The same goes to students - programmers which kludge together a Wordpress site and "sell" it.
      - jmillikin 4y ago
        Those numbers roughly match what pilots make in USA[0], but 86,000 CZK per month is about 20% (or less) of what an entry-level programmer would make in the USA. The lower bound of 36,000 CZK per month would be only just above USA federal minimum wage. I think part of the push-back against programmer unions from American programmers is that there's such a wide range of skills, and at the moment the market allocates compensation more-or-less according to capability. In many important ways, a programmer earning $500,000 per year at Google is in a different industry than a programmer earning $50,000 per year at General Motors. [0] $52,000 per year according to https://www.indeed.com/career/pilot/salaries https://www.indeed.com/career/pilot/salaries
        mm007emko 4y ago
        Gosh... can't imagine paying for my pilot training (even in the USA it's usually half of what's here) and be paid $52k.
      - skeeter2020 4y ago
        It's pretty disingenuous to equate a RyanAir pilot with a student, which speaks to the misleading nature of comparing these statistics straight up; go look at what it takes in terms of training, experience and seniority to get to one of those higher paid pilot jobs. Now compare it to software development. 36k is less than minimum wage in Canada ( < $2K CAD / month); junior developers are easily making 3x that in their first role.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    If you include quality of life at work, exposure to radiation, not being able to sleep in your own bed and have dinner with your family everyday, and slogging through years of lower paid piloting to have a low probability chance of making it to the higher paying flights, programmers handily beat pilots in the pay to quality of life ratio.
- andruby 4y ago
  If this happens to be about France, then I can second this. $116K AirFrance vs €39K software engineer. https://fr.glassdoor.be/Salaries/airfrance-pilot-salary-SRCH_KO0,15.htm https://fr.glassdoor.be/Salaries/airfrance-pilot-salary-SRCH... https://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Software_Engineer_%2F_Developer_%2F_Programmer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Software_Engineer_%...
  - closewith 4y ago
    That seems like an example of selection bias. Does the average software developer in France earn €39k? Does the average pilot earn $116k? The answer is obviously not - do you have any salary data?
    - andruby 4y ago
      Did you look at the links? They both claim their numbers are averages. I’m not saying they are perfect sources, but they do align with anecdotal datapoints.
      - closewith 4y ago
        Neither are reputable sources, I'm afraid. > I’m not saying they are perfect sources, but they do align with anecdotal datapoints. So you say, but that's definitely not true for me (who lives in the States and Ireland). In fact, it's an absurd claim to me.
        andruby 4y ago
        It’s absurd in most countries I’m sure. The OP said > airline pilots are paid more than programmers here (emphasis mine) I just gave one geographical example where I believe that to be true. I don’t think it is true everywhere, nor do I think OP meant that.
        closewith 4y ago
        It seems clear he means in Europe from his preceding sentence, where I think it is absurd ( including in France).
throwaway2056 4y ago
Geniunely asking. As I live in a part of world where we stay in longterm jobs. Is it not stressful when switching jobs? - from paperwork, interviews, new colleagues, friendships, on-boarding, new place politics - especially for brain.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  It is extremely stressful some of the times even. But it's the reality we live in. People don't change. Companies change extremely rarely. If you are smart enough to reverse-engineer software systems -- a necessary skill during onboarding -- then you are smart enough to see nobody will change things to a more positive environment, and hence you should leave. I hate it with all my heart but if I have to, I'll do it 50 times more. I am never allowing myself be held hostage.
  - ignoramous 4y ago
    > I am never allowing myself be held hostage. So, you navigate this quagmire begrudgingly, yet don't favour unionisation?
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      It wouldn’t change anything about the job description. Even unionizing doesn’t mean that developers suddenly get more say in how uselessly their time is spent.
      - gnz11 4y ago
        > Even unionizing doesn’t mean that developers suddenly get more say in how uselessly their time is spent. I mean...yes, at the macro level, that's part of the point of unionizing.
    - pdimitar 4y ago
      Unionization can be hijacked by employers, history knows of such occurrences. Plus Amazon and Google have been caught up (in the recent times nonetheless) of hiring paid saboteurs to impede people from unionizing. My job is not to do underground mafia wars. If the employers want to fight dirty I'll just move to someplace else. Eventually they'll be stuck with the people who are OK with being slaves -- but won't be creative or efficient. I wish them luck. They are hurting themselves, not me or the other worthy programmers. Unpopular opinion: unionization is like democracy: people think it works but in reality there are a lot of shady deals under the table and the system hasn't worked as it is supposed to, for a long long time.
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
>But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. [...] This does not happen for unionized workers. I can't work out what "this" is that does not happen to unionised workers? Unionised workers can switch jobs to get more pay too.
- kortilla 4y ago
  If the union has a structure with the company that rewards seniority then job hoppers are punished.
  - xg15 4y ago
    I think there are different definitions of what a union even is. German here and I was really quite surprised to understand that unions in the US are apparently per company. I believe in most of the EU, unions are per business sector - so while unions are in a sense stakeholders of the companies (if the company goes bust, it can't provide jobs), it usually doesn't have a specific interest in keeping employees in a particular company.
    - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
      American unions have 'shops', which often correspond to companies. But sure America has national unions. Most of them are.
      - xg15 4y ago
        Ah, that makes sense, then I might have misunderstood. So does that mean, when the headlines say "Amazon workers (from a particular warehouse) vote to unionize", it's really about bringing that warehouse under the umbrella of an existing union?
        ryanbrunner 4y ago
        Oftentimes, yes. They could form their own union but it's common to join an existing union. Having universal or near universal union membership for a certain profession is limited to certain jobs, things like warehouse workers or retail employees aren't anywhere near that.
SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
I also don’t need to unionize but I’m pro-union. I think software should have a guild like the actors guild, that enforced minimum standards. when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software! I would love to know as a member of such a hypothetical guild I have collective clout to ensure I’ll never have to deal with a bullshit metric tracker again.
- kortilla 4y ago
  > when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software! This is naive. Any ticket tracking system can be used to track productivity. And if you don’t have a ticket tracking system to organize work, that’s a miserable environment to work in.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    But it also means at minimum a middle manager can’t use software that does stupid shit like neatly displaying comparable lines of code and stack rank devs based off this. I like this minimum. I don’t need a union to perfectly solve the problem of micromanagement but I can happily pay portions of my salary towards minimum standards of workplace environment.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      If it used ticket-points instead of LoC, would that be OK? If it used “a fault-free oracle who told you a perfect measure of value created”, would that be OK? I’m trying to figure out if you’re opposed to terrible approximations of productivity or to making performance distinctions among engineers.
      - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
        I’m opposed to bullshit metrics to measure performance, lol. I don’t see how you can interpret my statement otherwise I’m good faith. I’m merely pointing out that at the very least the Kickstarter union was able to limit the degree of that particular bullshit.
smcl 4y ago
Would this not be the best time to form a union, though? If we start to hit tough times when programmers are treated like shit and the job market is tight, then your colleagues will be less inclined to rock the boat and management will be actively trying to crack down on any attempts to organize. Basically when you need a union it could be too late. Right now management will be off-guard, not expecting any unionisation push and will be a little bit unprepared as to how to counter it (that is, if they even try). Employees will likely feel comfortable openly discussing unions knowing that they probably won't feel any reprisals (and if they do, well the job market is still pretty good for the moment). The tough part would be convincing someone on $1x0,000/year that they might benefit from a union.
- junofan 4y ago
  The retaliation penalty is tiny. You’re not really the target demographic for the whole union thing. Spend your money/energy on lobbying.
- pixl97 4y ago
  Software engineers: "No, it's going to be different for us!" Education still doesn't prevent us from falling in particular traps.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Yep. Hell I'm guilty of the same thing. I'm saying "we" should unionise and it's a good thing to do - while not unionising myself. My defence (excuse!) is that I'm a foreigner, my local language skills suck to the point that I'd struggle to understand local employment law so I'd be a pretty awful person to spearhead this :)
jjav 4y ago
> Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay The last 15 years have also been a relentless boom market, longer than most. It won't always be that way! The best time to prep for bad times is when the going is still good.
b20000 4y ago
i don’t think you understand what unions are for also, for every engineer, there is one who will claim to be able to do the job cheaper. that is why we need unions. that, and to get rid of leetcode. people already went to college and that should be enough.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  >> that, on to get rid of leetcode. people already went to college and that should be enough. I don't like or do LC interviews, but even if (a big IF) college prepared you for programming, a LOT of professionals don't study development or even attend college. How would they get into the industry? Take 2 years off later in life and attend college?
  - b20000 4y ago
    if you did not go through college but picked up programming that’s cool. this should not put requirements like ridiculous leetcode interviews onto those that did go through college. any good college will require significant programming work, so by the time you graduate 4 years later you not only have CS theory subjects down but are able to write software and can pick up any language in a few days.
Phlarp 4y ago
>Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. As a counter-example to this specific point, the Screen Actors Guild does a tremendous amount of work to raise the pay and conditions of the median earning actors, without preventing the highest performing members from negotiating compensation in line with their ability to contribute to the success of a project. We can have our cake (collective negotiation) and eat it too (million dollar+/yr IC roles). Other notable examples; State bar associations (lawyers) and the American Medical Association (doctors).
- JJMcJ 4y ago
  All the Hollywood & TV & Stage unions do that. Also professional sports unions. The Bar Associations and the AMA are not quite unions though they certainly advocate and lobby strongly on behalf of their professions. For the Bar there may be confusion because of the names of licensing agencies. In California, the state agency is the State Bar of California, but that has nothing to do with various bar associations.

closewith 4y ago

> And this is not a matter of pay, e.g. airline pilots are paid more than programmers here yet they are heavily unionized. [Citation needed]

hectormalot 4y ago
here you go: * https://centreforaviation.com/news/pilot-union-accepts-employee-contribution-clause-in-klm-restructuring-package-1035047 https://centreforaviation.com/news/pilot-union-accepts-emplo... * https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/klm-clears-path-to-bailout-with-union-deals/140941.article https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/klm-clears-path-to-bai... VNV is the pilots union of KLM, the Dutch national airline. IIRC they were the very last of the unions to sign up to the 'commitment clause' the Dutch gov required as part of their bail-out during Covid. Not a union without teeth.
- closewith 4y ago
  I wasn’t clear. Pilots absolutely have strong unions (which is partly responsible for their levels of pay). I was contesting that pilots are paid more than developers. If you have data that supports that, please share. It seems like an absurd claim.
  - mm007emko 4y ago
    Well, depends on the country you live in. My country: https://www.platy.cz/platy/doprava-spedice-logistika/pilot https://www.platy.cz/platy/doprava-spedice-logistika/pilot https://www.platy.cz/platy/informacni-technologie/programator https://www.platy.cz/platy/informacni-technologie/programato... Average is CZK per calendar month gross (which is some 25-30% higher than net). Pilots 38k - 132k Programmers 36k - 86k as employees. If you work as a freelancer programmer (i.e. you have your own trade license) you can easily earn twice as much but if you count-in all the employee benefits granted by the Work law it's usually not worth it if you already have a family (which I have, therefore I switched from freelancing to being an employee). And of course, Ryanair/EasyJet pilots are not counted in the statistics. The same goes to students - programmers which kludge together a Wordpress site and "sell" it.
    - jmillikin 4y ago
      Those numbers roughly match what pilots make in USA[0], but 86,000 CZK per month is about 20% (or less) of what an entry-level programmer would make in the USA. The lower bound of 36,000 CZK per month would be only just above USA federal minimum wage. I think part of the push-back against programmer unions from American programmers is that there's such a wide range of skills, and at the moment the market allocates compensation more-or-less according to capability. In many important ways, a programmer earning $500,000 per year at Google is in a different industry than a programmer earning $50,000 per year at General Motors. [0] $52,000 per year according to https://www.indeed.com/career/pilot/salaries https://www.indeed.com/career/pilot/salaries
      - mm007emko 4y ago
        Gosh... can't imagine paying for my pilot training (even in the USA it's usually half of what's here) and be paid $52k.
    - skeeter2020 4y ago
      It's pretty disingenuous to equate a RyanAir pilot with a student, which speaks to the misleading nature of comparing these statistics straight up; go look at what it takes in terms of training, experience and seniority to get to one of those higher paid pilot jobs. Now compare it to software development. 36k is less than minimum wage in Canada ( < $2K CAD / month); junior developers are easily making 3x that in their first role.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  If you include quality of life at work, exposure to radiation, not being able to sleep in your own bed and have dinner with your family everyday, and slogging through years of lower paid piloting to have a low probability chance of making it to the higher paying flights, programmers handily beat pilots in the pay to quality of life ratio.
andruby 4y ago
If this happens to be about France, then I can second this. $116K AirFrance vs €39K software engineer. https://fr.glassdoor.be/Salaries/airfrance-pilot-salary-SRCH_KO0,15.htm https://fr.glassdoor.be/Salaries/airfrance-pilot-salary-SRCH... https://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Software_Engineer_%2F_Developer_%2F_Programmer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Software_Engineer_%...
- closewith 4y ago
  That seems like an example of selection bias. Does the average software developer in France earn €39k? Does the average pilot earn $116k? The answer is obviously not - do you have any salary data?
  - andruby 4y ago
    Did you look at the links? They both claim their numbers are averages. I’m not saying they are perfect sources, but they do align with anecdotal datapoints.
    - closewith 4y ago
      Neither are reputable sources, I'm afraid. > I’m not saying they are perfect sources, but they do align with anecdotal datapoints. So you say, but that's definitely not true for me (who lives in the States and Ireland). In fact, it's an absurd claim to me.
      - andruby 4y ago
        It’s absurd in most countries I’m sure. The OP said > airline pilots are paid more than programmers here (emphasis mine) I just gave one geographical example where I believe that to be true. I don’t think it is true everywhere, nor do I think OP meant that.
        closewith 4y ago
        It seems clear he means in Europe from his preceding sentence, where I think it is absurd ( including in France).

throwaway2056 4y ago

Geniunely asking. As I live in a part of world where we stay in longterm jobs. Is it not stressful when switching jobs? - from paperwork, interviews, new colleagues, friendships, on-boarding, new place politics - especially for brain.

pdimitar 4y ago
It is extremely stressful some of the times even. But it's the reality we live in. People don't change. Companies change extremely rarely. If you are smart enough to reverse-engineer software systems -- a necessary skill during onboarding -- then you are smart enough to see nobody will change things to a more positive environment, and hence you should leave. I hate it with all my heart but if I have to, I'll do it 50 times more. I am never allowing myself be held hostage.
- ignoramous 4y ago
  > I am never allowing myself be held hostage. So, you navigate this quagmire begrudgingly, yet don't favour unionisation?
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    It wouldn’t change anything about the job description. Even unionizing doesn’t mean that developers suddenly get more say in how uselessly their time is spent.
    - gnz11 4y ago
      > Even unionizing doesn’t mean that developers suddenly get more say in how uselessly their time is spent. I mean...yes, at the macro level, that's part of the point of unionizing.
  - pdimitar 4y ago
    Unionization can be hijacked by employers, history knows of such occurrences. Plus Amazon and Google have been caught up (in the recent times nonetheless) of hiring paid saboteurs to impede people from unionizing. My job is not to do underground mafia wars. If the employers want to fight dirty I'll just move to someplace else. Eventually they'll be stuck with the people who are OK with being slaves -- but won't be creative or efficient. I wish them luck. They are hurting themselves, not me or the other worthy programmers. Unpopular opinion: unionization is like democracy: people think it works but in reality there are a lot of shady deals under the table and the system hasn't worked as it is supposed to, for a long long time.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago

>But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. [...] This does not happen for unionized workers. I can't work out what "this" is that does not happen to unionised workers? Unionised workers can switch jobs to get more pay too.

kortilla 4y ago
If the union has a structure with the company that rewards seniority then job hoppers are punished.
- xg15 4y ago
  I think there are different definitions of what a union even is. German here and I was really quite surprised to understand that unions in the US are apparently per company. I believe in most of the EU, unions are per business sector - so while unions are in a sense stakeholders of the companies (if the company goes bust, it can't provide jobs), it usually doesn't have a specific interest in keeping employees in a particular company.
  - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
    American unions have 'shops', which often correspond to companies. But sure America has national unions. Most of them are.
    - xg15 4y ago
      Ah, that makes sense, then I might have misunderstood. So does that mean, when the headlines say "Amazon workers (from a particular warehouse) vote to unionize", it's really about bringing that warehouse under the umbrella of an existing union?
      - ryanbrunner 4y ago
        Oftentimes, yes. They could form their own union but it's common to join an existing union. Having universal or near universal union membership for a certain profession is limited to certain jobs, things like warehouse workers or retail employees aren't anywhere near that.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago

I also don’t need to unionize but I’m pro-union. I think software should have a guild like the actors guild, that enforced minimum standards. when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software! I would love to know as a member of such a hypothetical guild I have collective clout to ensure I’ll never have to deal with a bullshit metric tracker again.

kortilla 4y ago
> when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software! This is naive. Any ticket tracking system can be used to track productivity. And if you don’t have a ticket tracking system to organize work, that’s a miserable environment to work in.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  But it also means at minimum a middle manager can’t use software that does stupid shit like neatly displaying comparable lines of code and stack rank devs based off this. I like this minimum. I don’t need a union to perfectly solve the problem of micromanagement but I can happily pay portions of my salary towards minimum standards of workplace environment.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    If it used ticket-points instead of LoC, would that be OK? If it used “a fault-free oracle who told you a perfect measure of value created”, would that be OK? I’m trying to figure out if you’re opposed to terrible approximations of productivity or to making performance distinctions among engineers.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
      I’m opposed to bullshit metrics to measure performance, lol. I don’t see how you can interpret my statement otherwise I’m good faith. I’m merely pointing out that at the very least the Kickstarter union was able to limit the degree of that particular bullshit.

smcl 4y ago

Would this not be the best time to form a union, though? If we start to hit tough times when programmers are treated like shit and the job market is tight, then your colleagues will be less inclined to rock the boat and management will be actively trying to crack down on any attempts to organize. Basically when you need a union it could be too late. Right now management will be off-guard, not expecting any unionisation push and will be a little bit unprepared as to how to counter it (that is, if they even try). Employees will likely feel comfortable openly discussing unions knowing that they probably won't feel any reprisals (and if they do, well the job market is still pretty good for the moment). The tough part would be convincing someone on $1x0,000/year that they might benefit from a union.

junofan 4y ago
The retaliation penalty is tiny. You’re not really the target demographic for the whole union thing. Spend your money/energy on lobbying.
pixl97 4y ago
Software engineers: "No, it's going to be different for us!" Education still doesn't prevent us from falling in particular traps.
- smcl 4y ago
  Yep. Hell I'm guilty of the same thing. I'm saying "we" should unionise and it's a good thing to do - while not unionising myself. My defence (excuse!) is that I'm a foreigner, my local language skills suck to the point that I'd struggle to understand local employment law so I'd be a pretty awful person to spearhead this :)

jjav 4y ago

> Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay The last 15 years have also been a relentless boom market, longer than most. It won't always be that way! The best time to prep for bad times is when the going is still good.

b20000 4y ago

i don’t think you understand what unions are for also, for every engineer, there is one who will claim to be able to do the job cheaper. that is why we need unions. that, and to get rid of leetcode. people already went to college and that should be enough.

skeeter2020 4y ago
>> that, on to get rid of leetcode. people already went to college and that should be enough. I don't like or do LC interviews, but even if (a big IF) college prepared you for programming, a LOT of professionals don't study development or even attend college. How would they get into the industry? Take 2 years off later in life and attend college?
- b20000 4y ago
  if you did not go through college but picked up programming that’s cool. this should not put requirements like ridiculous leetcode interviews onto those that did go through college. any good college will require significant programming work, so by the time you graduate 4 years later you not only have CS theory subjects down but are able to write software and can pick up any language in a few days.

Phlarp 4y ago

>Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. As a counter-example to this specific point, the Screen Actors Guild does a tremendous amount of work to raise the pay and conditions of the median earning actors, without preventing the highest performing members from negotiating compensation in line with their ability to contribute to the success of a project. We can have our cake (collective negotiation) and eat it too (million dollar+/yr IC roles). Other notable examples; State bar associations (lawyers) and the American Medical Association (doctors).

JJMcJ 4y ago
All the Hollywood & TV & Stage unions do that. Also professional sports unions. The Bar Associations and the AMA are not quite unions though they certainly advocate and lobby strongly on behalf of their professions. For the Bar there may be confusion because of the names of licensing agencies. In California, the state agency is the State Bar of California, but that has nothing to do with various bar associations.