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Ironically you’re being downvoted by the same folks who would benefit from unions. American Twitter employees, for instance, would have done a lot better with E

Ironically you’re being downvoted by the same folks who would benefit from unions. American Twitter employees, for instance, would have done a lot better with European labor protections. European Twitter employees probably have a sizable comeuppance on the horizon.

Zeyka 4y ago
Exactly, and I'm not trying to devalue their beliefs, I'm just trying to understand how they can be against something that would benefit them.
- mhb 4y ago
  Is it that hard to understand that someone might be in favor of something in principle, but object to its particular implementation? Or that someone could act against their own self-interest because of a belief in a broader principle? Maybe everyone's motivation isn't to blindly follow their own micro-self-interest.
  - ohCh6zos 4y ago
    Any time I hear the claim that people are against their best interests it does not quite make sense to me. My own observation leads me to believe that everyone is good at optimizing for their own priorities.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  It won’t benefit them. Maybe you should try to understand their perspective from a place of you being ignorant of the subject and wrong about unions.
- bombolo 4y ago
  They think "oh no my lazy coworkers might get a bigger bonus!" rather than realising that their boss is the former lazy coworker. Basically the american idea that deserving people (aka myself) will magically prevail.
  - Zeyka 4y ago
    But that's the thing, meritocracy isn't a thing, and saying no to more protections (from unions or from pro-worker laws) just doesn't make sense. Granted there was some things I didn't know about how unions worked in the US, which I learned more about in this thread, but the same questions remain for pro worker and worker protection laws, why do Americans oppose them so much.
    - yucky 4y ago
      > meritocracy isn't a thing One of many examples I can give to disprove this as I'm sitting here watching Croatia & Morocco in the World Cup, is looking at some of the contracts some of these players get from their clubs. Wide disparity and definitely seems to be based on a meritocracy. Taken further, why are none of these fans in the stands, many of whom who also play for fun not equally compensated or even compensated at all? After all, they can kick a ball too. So now that we've established that meritocracy is obviously a real thing, we have to ask what evidence you have that a meritocracy wouldn't exist in other fields, like programming for instance.
      - bombolo 4y ago
        > So now that we've established that meritocracy is obviously a real thing We have? Because… a football match was played? What did it prove exactly?
        yucky 4y ago
        Uh...no. Better players make more money (due to meritocracy). Do you think the better players should make the same as the worst players?
        bombolo 4y ago
        > Better players make more money Well you define "better players" as "those making more money"… so in the end you are proving your statement via tautology. Which is meaningless. In any case, even admitting that meritocracy in football works (it probably doesn't)… so what? Most workers aren't professional football players.
formercoder 4y ago
I really don’t understand the push for white collar tech employees to be in unions. It’s my understanding that in most union jobs, compensation and benefits are strictly based on time in role, not performance. I try and excel in my role and others are less interested in doing so. I should be promoted faster and compensated higher.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  Generally the people who are advocating for a union are doing it to level the playing field for themselves against you.
  - bombolo 4y ago
    Yes for example an immigrant that is under threat of being deported might want a more level playing field.
    - dantheman 4y ago
      Unions are anti-immigrant.
      - bombolo 4y ago
        And companies are pro-exploitation-of-immigrants… and not very pro-immigrants.
      - wpietri 4y ago
        Do you have any current data on that? I think it was true of the "Reagan Democrat" variety of union worker in the 1980s, but I suspect it's an outdated stereotype now. For example, SEIU, one of America's largest unions, represents a lot of immigrants and is strongly pro-immigrant: https://www.seiu.org/justice-for-immigrants/ https://www.seiu.org/justice-for-immigrants/
        ThrowawayR2 4y ago
throwaway6734 4y ago
But American tech companies would be even less likely to be created in the first place under European labor laws
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Spotify, SAP, Skype, Unity, Sitecore, OutSystems, Bayer, Pfizer, Nokia, Ericson, Vodafone.... Managed just fine.
  - throwaway6734 4y ago
    Do you think tech companies are more likely to come out of Europe or the US?
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Moving goal posts, but yeah, Europe lacks a SV with venture capitalists raining money on every crazy idea, with Tony Stark like feudal lords pushing their minions to sleep in office with promises of free drinks and pizza, hoping to capitalize on the startup being sold. Thankfully.
      - throwaway6734 4y ago
        Not moving goalposts. Read my original post.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        Examples were given, we enjoy our unions, thank you very much.
      - bartart 4y ago
        I am curious, is putting up with the occasional self-obsessed ceo not worth it? For example Tesla has a market value greater than every European carmaker combined, having gone from approximately 0 annual car deliveries to over a million in just a few years while revolutionizing electric travel. Or with space x developing reusable rockets that have utterly transformed the industry. These companies will contribute to economic dynamism and wealth creation for years and decades. Macron said of American space companies, “Unfortunately they’re not European, but they took a bet”. Perhaps at a certain level you need people with lots of money who are willing to risk it
logicalmonster 4y ago
If the European standards are so good, where are all of the influential European tech companies? To properly weigh all of the tradeoffs, you might consider asking if those Twitter jobs would even emerge in the European system and if there's a link between European labor standards and the lack of influential European tech companies. Europe is a large market that is filled with many capable and educated technology workers, yet almost always all of the tech companies we're ever talking about are American. Why is this?
- BigRedDog1669 4y ago
  Good company to work for is not the same as big company everyone is talking about on hacker news. Those are two different things. Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige? I might not care to work for Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Influential can be a bad thing if they are negatively influencing society.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    > Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige? The thing I'd like to focus on isn't nerd prestige, but good jobs, as the article was about inequality as nothing fixes social alienation and inequality more than lots of people having a good income and being part of society. These big tech companies, whatever major negatives they provide to the culture in many ways, at least employ a lot of people and give them a path to being part of that comfy middle class. If the concern is inequality, then is a pile of great paying jobs with worse labor standards better than a few ok paying jobs with great labor standards? See where I'm going with that? These are complex issues...I don't think I have all of the answers, but I just want to point out that there might be some tradeoffs to the good sounding things like unions and much better labor protections.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Spotify, Skype, Minecraft, Battlefield, Ericsson, SAAB oh and the Linux kernel. Is your brain broken?
  - 4y ago
missedthecue 4y ago
Why are European wages so low? Why aren't their unions extracting more meaningful pay? Why do the non-unionized US workers make so much more money?
pxmpxm 4y ago
Ha, if anything Twitter's the paragon of a European tech company. Overstaffed, politicized and unable to make money, all while their top talent flees to competitors in sf bay area.

Zeyka 4y ago

Exactly, and I'm not trying to devalue their beliefs, I'm just trying to understand how they can be against something that would benefit them.

mhb 4y ago
Is it that hard to understand that someone might be in favor of something in principle, but object to its particular implementation? Or that someone could act against their own self-interest because of a belief in a broader principle? Maybe everyone's motivation isn't to blindly follow their own micro-self-interest.
- ohCh6zos 4y ago
  Any time I hear the claim that people are against their best interests it does not quite make sense to me. My own observation leads me to believe that everyone is good at optimizing for their own priorities.
thepasswordis 4y ago
It won’t benefit them. Maybe you should try to understand their perspective from a place of you being ignorant of the subject and wrong about unions.
bombolo 4y ago
They think "oh no my lazy coworkers might get a bigger bonus!" rather than realising that their boss is the former lazy coworker. Basically the american idea that deserving people (aka myself) will magically prevail.
- Zeyka 4y ago
  But that's the thing, meritocracy isn't a thing, and saying no to more protections (from unions or from pro-worker laws) just doesn't make sense. Granted there was some things I didn't know about how unions worked in the US, which I learned more about in this thread, but the same questions remain for pro worker and worker protection laws, why do Americans oppose them so much.
  - yucky 4y ago
    > meritocracy isn't a thing One of many examples I can give to disprove this as I'm sitting here watching Croatia & Morocco in the World Cup, is looking at some of the contracts some of these players get from their clubs. Wide disparity and definitely seems to be based on a meritocracy. Taken further, why are none of these fans in the stands, many of whom who also play for fun not equally compensated or even compensated at all? After all, they can kick a ball too. So now that we've established that meritocracy is obviously a real thing, we have to ask what evidence you have that a meritocracy wouldn't exist in other fields, like programming for instance.
    - bombolo 4y ago
      > So now that we've established that meritocracy is obviously a real thing We have? Because… a football match was played? What did it prove exactly?
      - yucky 4y ago
        Uh...no. Better players make more money (due to meritocracy). Do you think the better players should make the same as the worst players?
        bombolo 4y ago
        > Better players make more money Well you define "better players" as "those making more money"… so in the end you are proving your statement via tautology. Which is meaningless. In any case, even admitting that meritocracy in football works (it probably doesn't)… so what? Most workers aren't professional football players.

formercoder 4y ago

I really don’t understand the push for white collar tech employees to be in unions. It’s my understanding that in most union jobs, compensation and benefits are strictly based on time in role, not performance. I try and excel in my role and others are less interested in doing so. I should be promoted faster and compensated higher.

thepasswordis 4y ago
Generally the people who are advocating for a union are doing it to level the playing field for themselves against you.
- bombolo 4y ago
  Yes for example an immigrant that is under threat of being deported might want a more level playing field.
  - dantheman 4y ago
    Unions are anti-immigrant.
    - bombolo 4y ago
      And companies are pro-exploitation-of-immigrants… and not very pro-immigrants.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      Do you have any current data on that? I think it was true of the "Reagan Democrat" variety of union worker in the 1980s, but I suspect it's an outdated stereotype now. For example, SEIU, one of America's largest unions, represents a lot of immigrants and is strongly pro-immigrant: https://www.seiu.org/justice-for-immigrants/ https://www.seiu.org/justice-for-immigrants/
      - ThrowawayR2 4y ago

throwaway6734 4y ago

But American tech companies would be even less likely to be created in the first place under European labor laws

pjmlp 4y ago
Spotify, SAP, Skype, Unity, Sitecore, OutSystems, Bayer, Pfizer, Nokia, Ericson, Vodafone.... Managed just fine.
- throwaway6734 4y ago
  Do you think tech companies are more likely to come out of Europe or the US?
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Moving goal posts, but yeah, Europe lacks a SV with venture capitalists raining money on every crazy idea, with Tony Stark like feudal lords pushing their minions to sleep in office with promises of free drinks and pizza, hoping to capitalize on the startup being sold. Thankfully.
    - throwaway6734 4y ago
      Not moving goalposts. Read my original post.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Examples were given, we enjoy our unions, thank you very much.
    - bartart 4y ago
      I am curious, is putting up with the occasional self-obsessed ceo not worth it? For example Tesla has a market value greater than every European carmaker combined, having gone from approximately 0 annual car deliveries to over a million in just a few years while revolutionizing electric travel. Or with space x developing reusable rockets that have utterly transformed the industry. These companies will contribute to economic dynamism and wealth creation for years and decades. Macron said of American space companies, “Unfortunately they’re not European, but they took a bet”. Perhaps at a certain level you need people with lots of money who are willing to risk it

logicalmonster 4y ago

If the European standards are so good, where are all of the influential European tech companies? To properly weigh all of the tradeoffs, you might consider asking if those Twitter jobs would even emerge in the European system and if there's a link between European labor standards and the lack of influential European tech companies. Europe is a large market that is filled with many capable and educated technology workers, yet almost always all of the tech companies we're ever talking about are American. Why is this?

BigRedDog1669 4y ago
Good company to work for is not the same as big company everyone is talking about on hacker news. Those are two different things. Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige? I might not care to work for Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Influential can be a bad thing if they are negatively influencing society.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  > Why should people optimize for computer nerd prestige? The thing I'd like to focus on isn't nerd prestige, but good jobs, as the article was about inequality as nothing fixes social alienation and inequality more than lots of people having a good income and being part of society. These big tech companies, whatever major negatives they provide to the culture in many ways, at least employ a lot of people and give them a path to being part of that comfy middle class. If the concern is inequality, then is a pile of great paying jobs with worse labor standards better than a few ok paying jobs with great labor standards? See where I'm going with that? These are complex issues...I don't think I have all of the answers, but I just want to point out that there might be some tradeoffs to the good sounding things like unions and much better labor protections.
rejectfinite 4y ago
Spotify, Skype, Minecraft, Battlefield, Ericsson, SAAB oh and the Linux kernel. Is your brain broken?
- 4y ago

missedthecue 4y ago

Why are European wages so low? Why aren't their unions extracting more meaningful pay? Why do the non-unionized US workers make so much more money?

pxmpxm 4y ago

Ha, if anything Twitter's the paragon of a European tech company. Overstaffed, politicized and unable to make money, all while their top talent flees to competitors in sf bay area.