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From a union supporter who's spent some time reading about anti-union sentiment here, I've found it generally boils down to a few things: 1) A large portion of

by sfteus 4y ago

From a union supporter who's spent some time reading about anti-union sentiment here, I've found it generally boils down to a few things: 1) A large portion of users on this site are entrepreneurs or in higher-level tech. For the former, unions can be seen as getting in the way of the startup lifecycle; for the latter, many believe that the value they provide makes them untouchable, or believe that the supply of high-level tech workers will never meet demand so they will simply be able to move to another company if needed without much friction. 2) Many people believe that unions spend too much time protecting "low-performers," and that a union enacting barriers to protect employees from quick firing for performance will hurt the overall team/company. 3) Many people also believe that both paying union dues, and a union negotiating for the "average" worker will lead to them making significantly less money. IE, say your company was split 75% junior/25% senior devs, and paid junior devs $75k and senior devs $300k. If the union put pressure on the employer to raise the minimum salary to $100k, then they believe that money will come out of the senior devs salaries (reducing it to ~$225k). I can say in my experience, the first point is at least somewhat true right now (I had no issues moving to a more senior and better paid job after my last company sold out). I personally think the sentiment of point #2 is interesting; I generally don't view this as "protecting" those who should be fired, and more view it as a public defender ensuring everyone receives legal representation, even if they are clearly guilty. I'd also just note that even I'm not blanket pro-union; Police unions are a prime example of what happens when unions consolidate too much power because they went decades without any pushback. I'd consider that an extreme outlier though.

taeric 4y ago
There are at least a few of us that view unions as just a smaller extra government entity, and would prefer we rather had stronger governments. To wit, I don't want folks dependent on their job. Period. And unions often do give workers better conditions, but only so long as they are workers. That said, I typically fall on the pro-union side of most debates. Often is a better alternative than where we are.
- dfxm12 4y ago
  It would be great if benefits unions are known for fighting for like health care was guaranteed by the government, but there's some things that a union closer to the workers, which is focused on one thing, can better fight for than the government, like standards for safety beyond OSHA, standards for scheduling, training, discipline, etc. If I understand what you're saying right. If you think unions are a smaller extra government entity, how do you view Apple in that same lens? Likely, the unions have the least power in this triangle (besides individual employees not covered by a union), and Apple has more power than the government in some, but not all, respects.
  - taeric 4y ago
    I'm not clear what you mean "safety beyond OSHA." Training and such can feel better tailored to the company, I suppose? I'm not sure what your point is on companies regarding smaller extra governments. I do think corporate power needs checks. My view is that that is best done by governments. I'm also game for training and other benefits, but I don't like them being tied to employment. Especially not a particular employment. Health care is a good example of how that goes wrong. Unions are odd because they are setup as representative governments. Complete with elections and essentially taxation of the represented individuals in the form of dues. Note that I am explicitly not arguing against the dues, necessarily. I would instead argue that those should go to make the entire community stronger in the form of general taxes. And again, with the current setup, I would likely fall fully on the "pro-union" side for most debates.
Ancapistani 4y ago
I'm very much anti-unionization, but don't really fall into any of those buckets. To be fair, I didn't take it to be an exhaustive list. Basically, I'm opposed to unions as they exist in the US because of the government being involved and "artificially" granting them power.
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  The government artificially grants corporations power by virtue of creating the concept of a corporation and limited liability, so to me it seems only fair for them to grant a collective of workers power as well.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  > Basically, I'm opposed to unions as they exist in the US because of the government being involved and "artificially" granting them power. Artificial is an unfair characterization of history. The President didn't just descend from on high and grant unions powers out of magnanimity. At one point the unions were extremely powerful to the point that they were able to codify in law the rights they had attained.
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    > the rights they had attained Rights they had to fight for, in many cases _die_ for. Corporations and the government were not above using police, private firms to do violence, even fatal violence, to employees who were not willing to bend over backwards (unsafe, unhealthy, inhumane working conditions) for their employer.
- ruined 4y ago
  most american laws around unions are actually prohibitory and limiting. if legal recognition and regulation for organized labor were eliminated, i don't think it would result in less power wielded by unions.
- andrepd 4y ago
  As opposed to enforcing "artificial" property rights. That's government interference that you can tolerate :)
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>2) Many people believe that unions spend too much time protecting "low-performers," and that a union enacting barriers to protect employees from quick firing for performance will hurt the overall team/company. This is not a "some people think" issue. This is a reality of running an organization like a union. Literally every low barrier to entry organization from unions to political parties to organized religion to organized crime has to invest a significant amount of resources in giving a good chunk of its "dolts" a better deal than they could get anywhere else (even sometimes going to an extent that is not sustainable in order to advertise to other members how far the organization can/will go for you) because that ensures that those people will 100% go to bat for the organization. It is a necessary part of operations at scale.
- PathOfEclipse 4y ago
  This is especially true of teacher's unions, who have been openly hostile towards any meaningful way of measuring teacher performance, and have made it astronomically expensive to fire any teacher no matter how bad or incompetent. The world would be a much better place if teacher's unions didn't exist.
  - andrepd 4y ago
    How do you measure teacher performance? Have you looked at the actual proposals? They're atrocious, as if education needed to be any more of a rat race of chasing idiotic """performance""" metrics.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - FireBeyond 4y ago
      What might make for sensible, objective teacher metrics?
    - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
      If you read this book, there's a whole chapter dedicated to someone successfully coming up with a metric and validated it: https://www.amazon.com/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Education/dp/B09FCB468C https://www.amazon.com/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Edu... The short answer is you measure student progress over time via standardized testing. Someone was able to obtain anonymized per-teacher data via FOIA request and verify that some teachers perform consistently and significantly better than others in terms of helping their students progress, and that this performance was stable across time and even when teachers moved to different schools. At one point, schools were required to provide this data until the law was successfully repealed at the behest of teacher's unions. Teacher's unions pay mainly based on seniority, but this same data showed that, after about 5 years, teacher performance didn't really improve much. The unions also pay more for higher degrees, but there was no association found between higher degrees and teacher performance. The book also discusses how different types of testing have been shown to be strong predictors of both future academic and professional success. You should not be so dismissive of objective numeric testing, whose results can be tracked and compared over time. No metric is perfect, but just about any metric beats that of the unions, who, in one area, had 99.8% of their teachers rated as "proficient". The union's metric is useless, and that is a feature for them, not a bug.
kodah 4y ago
I can be kind of mixed from a union standpoint. It really just depends on the goals and outcomes of a particular union. Airline unions tend to be particularly bad when it comes to controlling internal dissent against the union, and regulating peoples pay and flying hours (especially around furloughs). Things may have changed since I heard this criticism, but I'd hate to have this happen in software. That said, we could use standardization in pay, better and more standardized promotions, and someone to tear down the existing LeetCode interview process. I have not seen any software unions that aim to do this though.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Why would I want standardization in pay? I would make less money. Why would I want standardized promotions? I don't want to be lead by people just because they have been around longer than me. Why would I want to tear down the leetcode interview process? It's much easier.than having to do demo projects.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
I see unions as mostly other entrenched institutions that add their own layers of bureaucracy and politics. They aren't any better or worse than corporations and governments, but simply by having a place at the table, things move slower and with less efficiency than they could. Of course, if the alternative is abuse of power by corporations and/or governments, they are a necessary evil.
bumby 4y ago
>Police unions Public unions seem to be a special case and, while I generally support unions, I can understand the perspective that public unions bring about specific problems. E.g., a strong bargaining chip for a union is the right to strike. The idea that a public service can strike creates problems. As another example, I witnessed changes in competition and economics force auto unions to compromise for the business to remain solvent; in the public sphere there is not the same competitive pressure.
- Geezus-42 4y ago
  The main problem with the police union (in the US) is that they have been able to repeatedly stop officers who have done horrible things from being fired or even truly punished (paid leave is not punishment).
  - taeric 4y ago
    Can you explain a check that prevents the same abuse from happening in other settings? I'm always very wary of the arguments that somehow police are a special industry where unions are bad. I don't really see any logical reasoning put forth to support that. Just evidence on how things have gone. :(
    - bumby 4y ago
      >are a special industry Public services are a special industry (not unique to just police) so the dynamics of unions are different. For one, many public services exist because they are critical to the functioning of society. You can tell this is fundamentally special case because the govt carves out special mechanisms to mitigate the risk (see the the current threat of a rail strike). Secondly, the government doesn't allow competition, so there is not the same solvency problem that a private union has to address. This second point exacerbates the first. A private police force can't just come in and out-compete the existing one to show that they can work better or more efficiently.
      - taeric 4y ago
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
There are a lot of people here who see themselves as temporarily disenfranchised members of the ownership class, and so unions are a negative thing for them because some day they'll hit it big and be rewarded for their steadfast adherence to greed.

by sfteus 4y ago

taeric 4y ago

There are at least a few of us that view unions as just a smaller extra government entity, and would prefer we rather had stronger governments. To wit, I don't want folks dependent on their job. Period. And unions often do give workers better conditions, but only so long as they are workers. That said, I typically fall on the pro-union side of most debates. Often is a better alternative than where we are.

dfxm12 4y ago
It would be great if benefits unions are known for fighting for like health care was guaranteed by the government, but there's some things that a union closer to the workers, which is focused on one thing, can better fight for than the government, like standards for safety beyond OSHA, standards for scheduling, training, discipline, etc. If I understand what you're saying right. If you think unions are a smaller extra government entity, how do you view Apple in that same lens? Likely, the unions have the least power in this triangle (besides individual employees not covered by a union), and Apple has more power than the government in some, but not all, respects.
- taeric 4y ago
  I'm not clear what you mean "safety beyond OSHA." Training and such can feel better tailored to the company, I suppose? I'm not sure what your point is on companies regarding smaller extra governments. I do think corporate power needs checks. My view is that that is best done by governments. I'm also game for training and other benefits, but I don't like them being tied to employment. Especially not a particular employment. Health care is a good example of how that goes wrong. Unions are odd because they are setup as representative governments. Complete with elections and essentially taxation of the represented individuals in the form of dues. Note that I am explicitly not arguing against the dues, necessarily. I would instead argue that those should go to make the entire community stronger in the form of general taxes. And again, with the current setup, I would likely fall fully on the "pro-union" side for most debates.

Ancapistani 4y ago

I'm very much anti-unionization, but don't really fall into any of those buckets. To be fair, I didn't take it to be an exhaustive list. Basically, I'm opposed to unions as they exist in the US because of the government being involved and "artificially" granting them power.

dpkirchner 4y ago
The government artificially grants corporations power by virtue of creating the concept of a corporation and limited liability, so to me it seems only fair for them to grant a collective of workers power as well.
arrosenberg 4y ago
> Basically, I'm opposed to unions as they exist in the US because of the government being involved and "artificially" granting them power. Artificial is an unfair characterization of history. The President didn't just descend from on high and grant unions powers out of magnanimity. At one point the unions were extremely powerful to the point that they were able to codify in law the rights they had attained.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  > the rights they had attained Rights they had to fight for, in many cases _die_ for. Corporations and the government were not above using police, private firms to do violence, even fatal violence, to employees who were not willing to bend over backwards (unsafe, unhealthy, inhumane working conditions) for their employer.
ruined 4y ago
most american laws around unions are actually prohibitory and limiting. if legal recognition and regulation for organized labor were eliminated, i don't think it would result in less power wielded by unions.
andrepd 4y ago
As opposed to enforcing "artificial" property rights. That's government interference that you can tolerate :)

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

>2) Many people believe that unions spend too much time protecting "low-performers," and that a union enacting barriers to protect employees from quick firing for performance will hurt the overall team/company. This is not a "some people think" issue. This is a reality of running an organization like a union. Literally every low barrier to entry organization from unions to political parties to organized religion to organized crime has to invest a significant amount of resources in giving a good chunk of its "dolts" a better deal than they could get anywhere else (even sometimes going to an extent that is not sustainable in order to advertise to other members how far the organization can/will go for you) because that ensures that those people will 100% go to bat for the organization. It is a necessary part of operations at scale.

PathOfEclipse 4y ago
This is especially true of teacher's unions, who have been openly hostile towards any meaningful way of measuring teacher performance, and have made it astronomically expensive to fire any teacher no matter how bad or incompetent. The world would be a much better place if teacher's unions didn't exist.
- andrepd 4y ago
  How do you measure teacher performance? Have you looked at the actual proposals? They're atrocious, as if education needed to be any more of a rat race of chasing idiotic """performance""" metrics.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    What might make for sensible, objective teacher metrics?
  - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
    If you read this book, there's a whole chapter dedicated to someone successfully coming up with a metric and validated it: https://www.amazon.com/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Education/dp/B09FCB468C https://www.amazon.com/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Edu... The short answer is you measure student progress over time via standardized testing. Someone was able to obtain anonymized per-teacher data via FOIA request and verify that some teachers perform consistently and significantly better than others in terms of helping their students progress, and that this performance was stable across time and even when teachers moved to different schools. At one point, schools were required to provide this data until the law was successfully repealed at the behest of teacher's unions. Teacher's unions pay mainly based on seniority, but this same data showed that, after about 5 years, teacher performance didn't really improve much. The unions also pay more for higher degrees, but there was no association found between higher degrees and teacher performance. The book also discusses how different types of testing have been shown to be strong predictors of both future academic and professional success. You should not be so dismissive of objective numeric testing, whose results can be tracked and compared over time. No metric is perfect, but just about any metric beats that of the unions, who, in one area, had 99.8% of their teachers rated as "proficient". The union's metric is useless, and that is a feature for them, not a bug.

kodah 4y ago

I can be kind of mixed from a union standpoint. It really just depends on the goals and outcomes of a particular union. Airline unions tend to be particularly bad when it comes to controlling internal dissent against the union, and regulating peoples pay and flying hours (especially around furloughs). Things may have changed since I heard this criticism, but I'd hate to have this happen in software. That said, we could use standardization in pay, better and more standardized promotions, and someone to tear down the existing LeetCode interview process. I have not seen any software unions that aim to do this though.

fallingknife 4y ago
Why would I want standardization in pay? I would make less money. Why would I want standardized promotions? I don't want to be lead by people just because they have been around longer than me. Why would I want to tear down the leetcode interview process? It's much easier.than having to do demo projects.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

I see unions as mostly other entrenched institutions that add their own layers of bureaucracy and politics. They aren't any better or worse than corporations and governments, but simply by having a place at the table, things move slower and with less efficiency than they could. Of course, if the alternative is abuse of power by corporations and/or governments, they are a necessary evil.

bumby 4y ago

>Police unions Public unions seem to be a special case and, while I generally support unions, I can understand the perspective that public unions bring about specific problems. E.g., a strong bargaining chip for a union is the right to strike. The idea that a public service can strike creates problems. As another example, I witnessed changes in competition and economics force auto unions to compromise for the business to remain solvent; in the public sphere there is not the same competitive pressure.

Geezus-42 4y ago
The main problem with the police union (in the US) is that they have been able to repeatedly stop officers who have done horrible things from being fired or even truly punished (paid leave is not punishment).
- taeric 4y ago
  Can you explain a check that prevents the same abuse from happening in other settings? I'm always very wary of the arguments that somehow police are a special industry where unions are bad. I don't really see any logical reasoning put forth to support that. Just evidence on how things have gone. :(
  - bumby 4y ago
    >are a special industry Public services are a special industry (not unique to just police) so the dynamics of unions are different. For one, many public services exist because they are critical to the functioning of society. You can tell this is fundamentally special case because the govt carves out special mechanisms to mitigate the risk (see the the current threat of a rail strike). Secondly, the government doesn't allow competition, so there is not the same solvency problem that a private union has to address. This second point exacerbates the first. A private police force can't just come in and out-compete the existing one to show that they can work better or more efficiently.
    - taeric 4y ago

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

There are a lot of people here who see themselves as temporarily disenfranchised members of the ownership class, and so unions are a negative thing for them because some day they'll hit it big and be rewarded for their steadfast adherence to greed.