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I would absolutely never work in a union shop. The romanticizing of unions by tech workers is hilarious to me and shows how privileged and detached we are from

I would absolutely never work in a union shop. The romanticizing of unions by tech workers is hilarious to me and shows how privileged and detached we are from real labor. Construction unions etc are hyper corrupt and reward tenure over effort. I can’t imagine what a union would do with Google money.

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seibelj 4y ago
If the tech industry was unionized like the trades: "Sorry, I can't merge this pull request, these config files are managed by the DevOps union and only they can review this code." "I know the system is down and our customers are failing, but we don't work weekends." "I can't give you a raise because you are maxed out for your 4 years of time put in here. Everyone with 4 years time gets paid exactly the same rate." "Sorry you are getting laid off - these other (less skilled) people have more time here than you. We lay off based on seniority."
- notriddle 4y ago
  Most of those problems already exist. The working-weekends one is the result of mismanagement.
- ydlr 4y ago
  Because tech industry is not unionized: "I know we hired you to work in R&D, but are now being assigned to ads." "We need to meet a completely arbitrary deadline so that I can increase my yearly bonus, so you are working this weekend. Isn't it great that programmers are exempt from overtime pay?" "I can't give you a raise because our promotion matrix, developed without any worker input, says you do not meet the requirements. It is a completely objective system based on scores your managers have given you. No, you can not know how those scores are arrived at." "Sorry you are getting laid off. Because a black box machine-learning algorithm chose you."
  - capitalsigma 4y ago
    If you have the skills, get a different job. If you don't have the skills, why should my paycheck go towards propping you up?
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - azemetre 4y ago
      Because collective bargaining against multinational corporations is the only leverage you have. Unless you happen to be one of the 15 or so people on earth that are literal programming gods... then yes you do have exquisite leverage.
      - capitalsigma 4y ago
        My leverage is getting a different job. If that's not enough to get what I want, that's too bad for me: looks like it's in everyone's interest for me to leave -- I get to go to a company that's better suited to my interest, and my company gets to hire someone that's better suited to their interests. If my company is as bad as I think it is, then all of the good SWEs will leave and they'll go out of business. If it doesn't go out of business, then it looks like I was wrong about how bad it is. I also shudder to think of the painful position it would put the R&D team in if they had to bargain with a union every time they got a new transfer that doesn't work out: someone escalates to a manager and it gets communicated to the transfer as "hey buddy, we think it might be better if you spend some time working on ads" for the sake of saving everyone's feelings. Next thing you know, what should have been a polite reshuffling is a negotiation with a union rep...
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      It is weird to me how this community complains incessantly about things like lack of raises, nightmare interviewing processes, opaque promotion systems, micromanagement, abusive oncall, and forced attrition and also concludes "I am a rockstar god." For a specific example, people often notice that higher pay is going to more recent hires in spite of being less skilled. It is very clear that the current system is not "the most skilled get the most pay" but when unions are mentioned people immediately retreat to this assumption.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  When the tech industry isn't unionized: "Sorry, we need long 24h oncall shifts to keep the service up. No, we won't pay you extra." "Sorry, we are shutting down your team. No severance, by the way." "No, we won't share the minutes for the meeting the managers had to discuss your promotion where we rejected you. Try again next time." "I know that Bob is paid $50,000 more than you despite being at the same level and with less experience. No, we won't give you a raise."
- UtopiaPunk 4y ago
  That's FUD.
pjmlp 4y ago
Thankfully in many European countries unions span across the industry, it doesn't matter if there is one on the building to enforce our worker rights.
tibbon 4y ago
I used to think this too, but then I recently helped organize a new tech union. Traditional unions and tech unions are pretty different indeed. But unions stand to be one possible tool to help remediate some of the problems unique to tech. For non-managers, this change can often be difficult to influence otherwise. Nothing says they have to mirror construction unions, anymore than management in tech has to mirror construction management In addition to having a stronger voice around working conditions (which are pretty awful in some tech fields like game development), they also stand to help workers have a stronger guiding voice on decision making. There is valid critique against tech that too rarely does anyone ask if something should be done; not just if it can be done.
camtarn 4y ago
> how privileged and detached we are from real labor Speak for yourself. My partner is a horticulturist, a job which involves rather a lot of manual labour, and was one of the union reps for the Botanic Gardens at which he worked for a while. And I still think unions are a very good idea. Maybe this is a non-American view, and his counterpart unionized horticulturists in the US are all taking bribes on the side. But I can't see it. It feels like the problem is that construction unions - which, yep, got pretty notorious for corruption - are the only unions people know about, not the ones quietly working to fight for their members' rights.
dleslie 4y ago
My wife works in health care in Canada, in a paramedical role. Despite working in both Union and non-Union roles, she absolutely prefers working in private clinics without Union oversight. The reason is simple: the total compensation is better, and none of the petty personal politics of the public sector Union gets in the way of her efforts. Similarly, I have numerous members of my extended family who worked or still work in government Union roles. Most hate their union, due to the aforementioned petty politics, some have moved to private industry and become much happier, and notably the only one happy with their union is deeply involved in it. When people say tech should unionize I wonder what is so appealing about being compensated less, having opportunities for internal progression gated by seniority, and giving your job an extra thick layer of social harassment and stress. But then, I live in Canada, and we have some fairly decent basic employment rights and social supports.
- UtopiaPunk 4y ago
  Anecdotes are neat. I have a lot of friends and family who work in education and in medicine. Some are union, some aren't. The unionized workers are really happy to have the support of their union. The COVID pandemic was brutal on both industries. I recall one of them saying, "I feel like the only people that care about what happens to me is my union."
  - dleslie 4y ago
    COVID was brutal on medical here in Canada, and seems to have been the final push to send our health care system into full collapse. The unions basically abandoned their membership, taking no meaningful action beyond some wailing to the press. At least inflation seems to be giving some impetus to take action, with BCGEU taking job action. Three years after COVID hit and only because every member, regardless of seniority and cushy position, is hit by the effects of inflation.
CPLX 4y ago
Indeed. When I look at union workers like Lebron James and Ja’marr Chase all I see is people who contribute zero effort and a workplace that only rewards tenure.
UncleMeat 4y ago
And as we all know, ordinary corporate management is never filled with political bullshit that promotes people for reasons other than quality work and impact.
doikor 4y ago
I've worked my whole career in tech (ok a couple summers as a bicycle mechanic and doing forest work while younger) and all of those in a union shop. Seems to be just fine to me though I don't have any experience of it not being like that. Also I've never actually been a member of the union but that does seem to have mattered in my career as by law every employee has to be treated the same if you are a union member or not here (Finland). > Construction unions etc are hyper corrupt and reward tenure over effort. There is no reason why the tech union has to be like that. The union is made out of its members so they pretty much decide its course.
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UtopiaPunk 4y ago
Lol, did a CEO or HR rep write this? "Ewwww, unions are for dumb rich people and are also corrupt" lmao Unions are a way for workers to have more bargaining power in their workplace. When one employee sits at a table with their boss, exactly one person is in charge, and exactly one person is at risk of being fired. When multiple workers stand together, they can withhold their valuable labor from their employer. The tables are much more even, and more fruitful bargaining process can take place. That's just two parties haggling, classic market stuff.
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seibelj 4y ago

If the tech industry was unionized like the trades: "Sorry, I can't merge this pull request, these config files are managed by the DevOps union and only they can review this code." "I know the system is down and our customers are failing, but we don't work weekends." "I can't give you a raise because you are maxed out for your 4 years of time put in here. Everyone with 4 years time gets paid exactly the same rate." "Sorry you are getting laid off - these other (less skilled) people have more time here than you. We lay off based on seniority."

notriddle 4y ago
Most of those problems already exist. The working-weekends one is the result of mismanagement.
ydlr 4y ago
Because tech industry is not unionized: "I know we hired you to work in R&D, but are now being assigned to ads." "We need to meet a completely arbitrary deadline so that I can increase my yearly bonus, so you are working this weekend. Isn't it great that programmers are exempt from overtime pay?" "I can't give you a raise because our promotion matrix, developed without any worker input, says you do not meet the requirements. It is a completely objective system based on scores your managers have given you. No, you can not know how those scores are arrived at." "Sorry you are getting laid off. Because a black box machine-learning algorithm chose you."
- capitalsigma 4y ago
  If you have the skills, get a different job. If you don't have the skills, why should my paycheck go towards propping you up?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - azemetre 4y ago
    Because collective bargaining against multinational corporations is the only leverage you have. Unless you happen to be one of the 15 or so people on earth that are literal programming gods... then yes you do have exquisite leverage.
    - capitalsigma 4y ago
      My leverage is getting a different job. If that's not enough to get what I want, that's too bad for me: looks like it's in everyone's interest for me to leave -- I get to go to a company that's better suited to my interest, and my company gets to hire someone that's better suited to their interests. If my company is as bad as I think it is, then all of the good SWEs will leave and they'll go out of business. If it doesn't go out of business, then it looks like I was wrong about how bad it is. I also shudder to think of the painful position it would put the R&D team in if they had to bargain with a union every time they got a new transfer that doesn't work out: someone escalates to a manager and it gets communicated to the transfer as "hey buddy, we think it might be better if you spend some time working on ads" for the sake of saving everyone's feelings. Next thing you know, what should have been a polite reshuffling is a negotiation with a union rep...
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    It is weird to me how this community complains incessantly about things like lack of raises, nightmare interviewing processes, opaque promotion systems, micromanagement, abusive oncall, and forced attrition and also concludes "I am a rockstar god." For a specific example, people often notice that higher pay is going to more recent hires in spite of being less skilled. It is very clear that the current system is not "the most skilled get the most pay" but when unions are mentioned people immediately retreat to this assumption.
UncleMeat 4y ago
When the tech industry isn't unionized: "Sorry, we need long 24h oncall shifts to keep the service up. No, we won't pay you extra." "Sorry, we are shutting down your team. No severance, by the way." "No, we won't share the minutes for the meeting the managers had to discuss your promotion where we rejected you. Try again next time." "I know that Bob is paid $50,000 more than you despite being at the same level and with less experience. No, we won't give you a raise."
UtopiaPunk 4y ago
That's FUD.

pjmlp 4y ago

Thankfully in many European countries unions span across the industry, it doesn't matter if there is one on the building to enforce our worker rights.

tibbon 4y ago

I used to think this too, but then I recently helped organize a new tech union. Traditional unions and tech unions are pretty different indeed. But unions stand to be one possible tool to help remediate some of the problems unique to tech. For non-managers, this change can often be difficult to influence otherwise. Nothing says they have to mirror construction unions, anymore than management in tech has to mirror construction management In addition to having a stronger voice around working conditions (which are pretty awful in some tech fields like game development), they also stand to help workers have a stronger guiding voice on decision making. There is valid critique against tech that too rarely does anyone ask if something should be done; not just if it can be done.

camtarn 4y ago

> how privileged and detached we are from real labor Speak for yourself. My partner is a horticulturist, a job which involves rather a lot of manual labour, and was one of the union reps for the Botanic Gardens at which he worked for a while. And I still think unions are a very good idea. Maybe this is a non-American view, and his counterpart unionized horticulturists in the US are all taking bribes on the side. But I can't see it. It feels like the problem is that construction unions - which, yep, got pretty notorious for corruption - are the only unions people know about, not the ones quietly working to fight for their members' rights.

dleslie 4y ago

My wife works in health care in Canada, in a paramedical role. Despite working in both Union and non-Union roles, she absolutely prefers working in private clinics without Union oversight. The reason is simple: the total compensation is better, and none of the petty personal politics of the public sector Union gets in the way of her efforts. Similarly, I have numerous members of my extended family who worked or still work in government Union roles. Most hate their union, due to the aforementioned petty politics, some have moved to private industry and become much happier, and notably the only one happy with their union is deeply involved in it. When people say tech should unionize I wonder what is so appealing about being compensated less, having opportunities for internal progression gated by seniority, and giving your job an extra thick layer of social harassment and stress. But then, I live in Canada, and we have some fairly decent basic employment rights and social supports.

UtopiaPunk 4y ago
Anecdotes are neat. I have a lot of friends and family who work in education and in medicine. Some are union, some aren't. The unionized workers are really happy to have the support of their union. The COVID pandemic was brutal on both industries. I recall one of them saying, "I feel like the only people that care about what happens to me is my union."
- dleslie 4y ago
  COVID was brutal on medical here in Canada, and seems to have been the final push to send our health care system into full collapse. The unions basically abandoned their membership, taking no meaningful action beyond some wailing to the press. At least inflation seems to be giving some impetus to take action, with BCGEU taking job action. Three years after COVID hit and only because every member, regardless of seniority and cushy position, is hit by the effects of inflation.

CPLX 4y ago

Indeed. When I look at union workers like Lebron James and Ja’marr Chase all I see is people who contribute zero effort and a workplace that only rewards tenure.

UncleMeat 4y ago

And as we all know, ordinary corporate management is never filled with political bullshit that promotes people for reasons other than quality work and impact.

doikor 4y ago

I've worked my whole career in tech (ok a couple summers as a bicycle mechanic and doing forest work while younger) and all of those in a union shop. Seems to be just fine to me though I don't have any experience of it not being like that. Also I've never actually been a member of the union but that does seem to have mattered in my career as by law every employee has to be treated the same if you are a union member or not here (Finland). > Construction unions etc are hyper corrupt and reward tenure over effort. There is no reason why the tech union has to be like that. The union is made out of its members so they pretty much decide its course.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

UtopiaPunk 4y ago

Lol, did a CEO or HR rep write this? "Ewwww, unions are for dumb rich people and are also corrupt" lmao Unions are a way for workers to have more bargaining power in their workplace. When one employee sits at a table with their boss, exactly one person is in charge, and exactly one person is at risk of being fired. When multiple workers stand together, they can withhold their valuable labor from their employer. The tables are much more even, and more fruitful bargaining process can take place. That's just two parties haggling, classic market stuff.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]