5 ms·

I think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as 1x programmers. Conversely, somet

I think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as 1x programmers. Conversely, something like airline piloting or being a factory worker or nurse can be done much more equally by everyone in the field, so they are more likely to unionize. Are there wild variations in talent of VFX professionals?

0xRusty 4y ago
Absolutely 100% agree. I work in a senior role in a vfx company. The adage that 20% of the workers do 80% of the work is more true in vfx than you'd likely believe.
moomin 4y ago
Honestly I think the real reason programmers don’t unionise is that we’re not smart enough to realize we’re Labour.
- booleandilemma 4y ago
  This is the answer. A lot of programmers I've met are either narcissists or autists bereft of self-awareness. If you're a normal person you go into product management. A coworker once told me that we are "society's elite". That's the level of delusion we're talking about here.
ma2rten 4y ago
This doesn’t make sense to me. Why wouldn’t just the 1x programmers unionize? I’m sure they would be in the majority as 10x programmers are rare. I also do not really believe in this concept in general. Programming skills are not one dimensional, people have different strengths and weaknesses.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  The 1x programmers - which is virtually all of us - all think they’re 10x programmers.
  - emptyparadise 4y ago
    That just makes us the greatest fools of all.
  - Foobar8568 4y ago
    Or we are all well paid diva who, if bored, would just switch companies without much problems nor thinking. I am unsure if being in union (as in the US type of unions) would bring a lot of wage benefits.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    My number of X's adapt to fit the possibilities and potential of the environment. Right now it's 1x. Actually that's a lie, it's my 1x effort but the company I work with is floating on cloud 10x because I know more of the requirements than they do. Still have no idea what this mythical 1x - 10x number scale maps to. Inspiration can up anyone's game.
true_religion 4y ago
Programmers don’t unionize because they are well paid, and there is no structural barrier stopping people who gain skills and experience from getting better paid in the future. To contrast that look at medicine. Doctors have no union. They have a huge barrier to entry but once you are already a doctor then how much you get paid is determined by your skills and where you work. Doctors can get paid millions with enough prestige on them. Nurses on the other hand have a terminal limit. Every pay increase is gated by another nursing exam giving an additional certificate. Then in the end, the only upgrade is to doctor. However that means losing all benefits, retraining, and starting in a new track despite both professions being medical. Nurses therefore need a union. Another thing that stops unionization is the ability to work on your own. Nurses with high enough qualifications can work on their own, but in most cases they still need a supervising doctor even if that doctor is only a warm body. VFX pros are much the same. They need a team with them to work on a big budget movie. Programmers and doctors though can break away and start their own practice, serving the public directly and no one can stop them. With a little business savvy they can even rival the agencies that would have hired them as employees. If your profession can double as a stand-alone business then you rarely get a proper union. Even in cases (e.g. electricians) where a union is formed, it will still conduct training and certification which positions it somewhat like a guild.
- closewith 4y ago
  > Doctors have no union. Citation needed.
  - dsr_ 4y ago
    The AMA controls medical school certification, and size, and therefore controls the number of new entrants, keeping earnings high. It doesn't organize medical doctors for working conditions, salary and benefits negotiation, insurance, or most of the other features of a union. A hospital chain doesn't negotiate with the AMA on behalf of their surgeons and hospitalists. (It would probably be a very good thing if interns and early residents had a union supervising working conditions.)
    - 4y ago
mook 4y ago
That doesn't make much sense — some actors make much more than 10x over other actors (and they bring the kind of audience to command that extra compensation), and yet they're definitely unionized.
- johnthescott 4y ago
  but did they unionize after getting rich or when they were broke? for screenwriters, most studios will not even review scripts without going through SAG, according to an awarding screenwriter/director who is a good friend on mine.
  - analog31 4y ago
    I can't speak about actors, but there was a time when a major benefit of being in the musicians union was the standardization of contracts that might cover complicated issues such as credit, royalties, re-publishing, and so forth. So it wasn't necessarily the magnitude of the money, but making it humanly fathomable how the money would actually be distributed. I've heard people say to freelance musicians (like myself), that you don't really need the union until you start working in recording or broadcast. I've not seen a screen actor's contract but I'll bet the provisions for working conditions and rights are a bigger deal than the pay scale. Also, I've read that in general, unionization efforts tend to be triggered by working conditions rather than pay. Even programmers could benefit from that.
  - kurupt213 4y ago
    I think you have to be a union member to be able to work. Without a SAG card you are SOL, even if you are Tom Cruise
carapace 4y ago
Years ago I felt that programmers didn't need unions because we are so in-demand and already highly paid. Then the whole "no poaching" scandal came out, and now I definitely do think we need some sort of union-ish something. I hate to say it because many of the individuals are actually good people, but the managers/execs as a class are amoral bastards who will do whatever they think they can get away with to make a buck. To me the extraordinary thing is that Apple has more money than Scrooge McDuck and still screwed over their own engineers. It reminds me of the scene from the Simpsons: Homer and Mr. Burns are chilling together in what will become the rocket-house: Homer: Oh Mr. Burns, you're the richest man I know. Mr. Burns: Ah yes, but I'd trade it all... for a little more.
throw0101a 4y ago
> I think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as 1x programmers. Tom Cruise makes (e.g.) $10M for being in a movie, and Jane Doe who plays Waitress #2 gets paid $10K for being in the same movie, and yet they're both part of SAG. You can create union/guild structures which have a minimum pay scale but not a maximum.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

0xRusty 4y ago

Absolutely 100% agree. I work in a senior role in a vfx company. The adage that 20% of the workers do 80% of the work is more true in vfx than you'd likely believe.

moomin 4y ago

Honestly I think the real reason programmers don’t unionise is that we’re not smart enough to realize we’re Labour.

booleandilemma 4y ago
This is the answer. A lot of programmers I've met are either narcissists or autists bereft of self-awareness. If you're a normal person you go into product management. A coworker once told me that we are "society's elite". That's the level of delusion we're talking about here.

ma2rten 4y ago

This doesn’t make sense to me. Why wouldn’t just the 1x programmers unionize? I’m sure they would be in the majority as 10x programmers are rare. I also do not really believe in this concept in general. Programming skills are not one dimensional, people have different strengths and weaknesses.

ceejayoz 4y ago
The 1x programmers - which is virtually all of us - all think they’re 10x programmers.
- emptyparadise 4y ago
  That just makes us the greatest fools of all.
- Foobar8568 4y ago
  Or we are all well paid diva who, if bored, would just switch companies without much problems nor thinking. I am unsure if being in union (as in the US type of unions) would bring a lot of wage benefits.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  My number of X's adapt to fit the possibilities and potential of the environment. Right now it's 1x. Actually that's a lie, it's my 1x effort but the company I work with is floating on cloud 10x because I know more of the requirements than they do. Still have no idea what this mythical 1x - 10x number scale maps to. Inspiration can up anyone's game.

true_religion 4y ago

Programmers don’t unionize because they are well paid, and there is no structural barrier stopping people who gain skills and experience from getting better paid in the future. To contrast that look at medicine. Doctors have no union. They have a huge barrier to entry but once you are already a doctor then how much you get paid is determined by your skills and where you work. Doctors can get paid millions with enough prestige on them. Nurses on the other hand have a terminal limit. Every pay increase is gated by another nursing exam giving an additional certificate. Then in the end, the only upgrade is to doctor. However that means losing all benefits, retraining, and starting in a new track despite both professions being medical. Nurses therefore need a union. Another thing that stops unionization is the ability to work on your own. Nurses with high enough qualifications can work on their own, but in most cases they still need a supervising doctor even if that doctor is only a warm body. VFX pros are much the same. They need a team with them to work on a big budget movie. Programmers and doctors though can break away and start their own practice, serving the public directly and no one can stop them. With a little business savvy they can even rival the agencies that would have hired them as employees. If your profession can double as a stand-alone business then you rarely get a proper union. Even in cases (e.g. electricians) where a union is formed, it will still conduct training and certification which positions it somewhat like a guild.

closewith 4y ago
> Doctors have no union. Citation needed.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  The AMA controls medical school certification, and size, and therefore controls the number of new entrants, keeping earnings high. It doesn't organize medical doctors for working conditions, salary and benefits negotiation, insurance, or most of the other features of a union. A hospital chain doesn't negotiate with the AMA on behalf of their surgeons and hospitalists. (It would probably be a very good thing if interns and early residents had a union supervising working conditions.)
  - 4y ago

mook 4y ago

That doesn't make much sense — some actors make much more than 10x over other actors (and they bring the kind of audience to command that extra compensation), and yet they're definitely unionized.

johnthescott 4y ago
but did they unionize after getting rich or when they were broke? for screenwriters, most studios will not even review scripts without going through SAG, according to an awarding screenwriter/director who is a good friend on mine.
- analog31 4y ago
  I can't speak about actors, but there was a time when a major benefit of being in the musicians union was the standardization of contracts that might cover complicated issues such as credit, royalties, re-publishing, and so forth. So it wasn't necessarily the magnitude of the money, but making it humanly fathomable how the money would actually be distributed. I've heard people say to freelance musicians (like myself), that you don't really need the union until you start working in recording or broadcast. I've not seen a screen actor's contract but I'll bet the provisions for working conditions and rights are a bigger deal than the pay scale. Also, I've read that in general, unionization efforts tend to be triggered by working conditions rather than pay. Even programmers could benefit from that.
- kurupt213 4y ago
  I think you have to be a union member to be able to work. Without a SAG card you are SOL, even if you are Tom Cruise

carapace 4y ago

Years ago I felt that programmers didn't need unions because we are so in-demand and already highly paid. Then the whole "no poaching" scandal came out, and now I definitely do think we need some sort of union-ish something. I hate to say it because many of the individuals are actually good people, but the managers/execs as a class are amoral bastards who will do whatever they think they can get away with to make a buck. To me the extraordinary thing is that Apple has more money than Scrooge McDuck and still screwed over their own engineers. It reminds me of the scene from the Simpsons: Homer and Mr. Burns are chilling together in what will become the rocket-house: Homer: Oh Mr. Burns, you're the richest man I know. Mr. Burns: Ah yes, but I'd trade it all... for a little more.

throw0101a 4y ago

> I think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as 1x programmers. Tom Cruise makes (e.g.) $10M for being in a movie, and Jane Doe who plays Waitress #2 gets paid $10K for being in the same movie, and yet they're both part of SAG. You can create union/guild structures which have a minimum pay scale but not a maximum.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]