8 ms·

Pro athletes are orders of magnitude away from tech workers in terms of how valuable and irreplaceable they are. There are fewer than 500 NBA players and fewer

Pro athletes are orders of magnitude away from tech workers in terms of how valuable and irreplaceable they are. There are fewer than 500 NBA players and fewer than 1700 NFL players on current rosters, and few of them can be usefully replaced by anyone not currently in the league. Also, tech is a fairly open marketplace. John Carmack can start his own company and has done so multiple times, but LeBron James can’t start or even buy his own NBA franchise if he wants to play. So while professional sports owners are an obvious, fixed counterparty to the players in a collective bargaining sense, the top tech workers can be and often are the owners and management of tech companies.

Apocryphon 4y ago
Doctors, psychiatrists, and lawyers all of professional organizations that effectively function as unions. And the SAG includes many workers beyond the marquee film stars.
- philwelch 4y ago
  Yes, let’s talk about the doctors, then. Thanks to the AMA (the de facto US doctors union), there is a deliberate and structural shortage of doctors in order to deliberately prop up the pay for US doctors. It’s also virtually impossible for any practicing physician outside the US—even in other developed countries—to immigrate to the US and continue practicing medicine. This has obvious negative consequences for the availability, affordability, and cost of health care in the United States.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    The AMA's actions were undesirable, but that just goes to show the power it wielded on behalf of its members, and the occupation it represented. Imagine if the IEEE/ACM could lobby for SWEs as effectively, but in a socially desirable way. Also, perhaps in the present or future, the AMA could use its own power to undo the mistakes it made in the past: https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/03/15/ama-scope-of-practice-lobbying/ https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/03/15/ama-scope...
    - philwelch 4y ago
      Yes, if we had a powerful union that exerted power in the specific ways that you agreed with, I’m sure you’d be happy with it. In fact, why stop there, we could just make you dictator! Or at least someone who exclusively did things you agreed with, if you didn’t want the extra work. Failing that, we have a bit of a fork. Either we have a union that acts in the interests of its members (which the AMA has done!) or we have a union with some serious principal/agent issues that follows some other agenda, and the odds aren’t very good that you or I would always agree with that agenda.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        All beings act in the interests of its members, and can still do so while in compliance to some greater system. That is why perhaps a union, like any other association of sentients that have ever existed, may be governed by a greater set of rules, such as laws, designed to preclude abuses such as in the AMA case. Which is why it is possible to support a ruler- even me- while simultaneously be at ease that they are not a dictator, because we live in a society of the rule of law.
        philwelch 4y ago
        Sure. Which laws stopped the AMA’s abuses? Conversely, which laws made those abuses possible? How are laws made, and how has the AMA, or unions in general, influenced that process? How often is the answer, “the union is a de facto segment of a specific political party, always contributes to that party’s campaign funds, and due to closed-shop employment arrangements, those funds are collected from workers’ paychecks regardless of their personal opinions”?
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Certainly, if both parties worked with unions, labor would not be seen as a partisan topic. And perhaps the continued rise of inequality might have been stymied. https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-decline-inequality-rises/ https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-decline-inequality-ri... And again, the AMA is not a union, but a professional association.

Apocryphon 4y ago

Doctors, psychiatrists, and lawyers all of professional organizations that effectively function as unions. And the SAG includes many workers beyond the marquee film stars.

philwelch 4y ago
Yes, let’s talk about the doctors, then. Thanks to the AMA (the de facto US doctors union), there is a deliberate and structural shortage of doctors in order to deliberately prop up the pay for US doctors. It’s also virtually impossible for any practicing physician outside the US—even in other developed countries—to immigrate to the US and continue practicing medicine. This has obvious negative consequences for the availability, affordability, and cost of health care in the United States.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  The AMA's actions were undesirable, but that just goes to show the power it wielded on behalf of its members, and the occupation it represented. Imagine if the IEEE/ACM could lobby for SWEs as effectively, but in a socially desirable way. Also, perhaps in the present or future, the AMA could use its own power to undo the mistakes it made in the past: https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/03/15/ama-scope-of-practice-lobbying/ https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/03/15/ama-scope...
  - philwelch 4y ago
    Yes, if we had a powerful union that exerted power in the specific ways that you agreed with, I’m sure you’d be happy with it. In fact, why stop there, we could just make you dictator! Or at least someone who exclusively did things you agreed with, if you didn’t want the extra work. Failing that, we have a bit of a fork. Either we have a union that acts in the interests of its members (which the AMA has done!) or we have a union with some serious principal/agent issues that follows some other agenda, and the odds aren’t very good that you or I would always agree with that agenda.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      All beings act in the interests of its members, and can still do so while in compliance to some greater system. That is why perhaps a union, like any other association of sentients that have ever existed, may be governed by a greater set of rules, such as laws, designed to preclude abuses such as in the AMA case. Which is why it is possible to support a ruler- even me- while simultaneously be at ease that they are not a dictator, because we live in a society of the rule of law.
      - philwelch 4y ago
        Sure. Which laws stopped the AMA’s abuses? Conversely, which laws made those abuses possible? How are laws made, and how has the AMA, or unions in general, influenced that process? How often is the answer, “the union is a de facto segment of a specific political party, always contributes to that party’s campaign funds, and due to closed-shop employment arrangements, those funds are collected from workers’ paychecks regardless of their personal opinions”?
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Certainly, if both parties worked with unions, labor would not be seen as a partisan topic. And perhaps the continued rise of inequality might have been stymied. https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-decline-inequality-rises/ https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-decline-inequality-ri... And again, the AMA is not a union, but a professional association.