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> Given the state of the market and how corporations are treating their human capital nowadays do you think an union for software developers is a viable thing?

• bwestergard 4y ago
  I'm a software engineer, and my coworkers and I are currently bargaining a contract as part of the CWA. We aren't taking the approach you describe. In general a union contract isn't going to end up with terms that the members don't want, because members are doing the bargaining and (in the CWA at least) have to ratify the contract by a majority vote. The same is true for other unions organizing software occupations, like OPEIU Local 1010. We are aiming for automatic cost of living increases within job grades - to avoid the need to job hob endlessly - and objective performance reviews between grades. It's been a lot of work to get i right, but I think where we'll land will produce a much more objective promotions process than any other I've participated in. Other CWA unions with software developers have taken a similar approach. Our contract will be publicly available when it's concluded.
  • doix 4y ago
    That's great, I truly wish you and your members all the best. Just to clarify, I am not anti-union and do not support union busting. I just think that right now, even in the current market, I have equal power in the employment relationship. Maybe I'm delusional and I'll be begging to join your union in a few years. > more objective promotions process than any other I've participated in. I cannot even begin to imagine what something like that would look like. If you base it off _any_ metric, it will be optimized and gamed. That's what engineers do. If it's not based on some quantifiable metric, I don't see how it can be in a contract. Performance evaluations are definitely flawed, but I can't imagine a better solution. Hopefully your contract will be public and I can be enlightened. Make sure you submit it to HN when/if it does go public!
  • legitster 4y ago
    > We are aiming for automatic cost of living increases within job grades - to avoid the need to job hob endlessly How does that work if I enjoy job hopping? If I get burned out at one workplace, would I have to start all over at the bottom of seniority at another?
    • bwestergard 4y ago
      No. While we want to eliminate the need to switch jobs just to get a COLA, nothing about the contract would make job hopping harder. Under all CWA contracts covering devs that I'm aware of, the employer gets to determine which grade a pay step the employee starts at when they are hired. Bargaining around your starting grade and step would be purely individual. In the future, I would personally like to see the union operate a hiring hall that allows developers to go through one standardized certification processes. If they pass, they would then be eligible for placement with unionized employers for a certain period of time (e.g. two years). For those devs/qa/designers/etc. who prefer jumping from project to project, the hall system would eliminate the hassle of interviewing constantly. For employers, they would effectively be outsourcing a large part of recruitment to the union. Developing such a certification process, and getting a critical mass of software workers and employers on board would be a huge lift, though. Some construction and merchant marine unions, back in the day, even had systems in place that allowed groups of coworkers to "ship out" as a group to employers when possible. I've hopped between jobs with groups of coworkers before, and it's great to arrive on a project and have rapport with your peers on day one.
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    > We are aiming for automatic cost of living increases within job grades - to avoid the need to job hob endlessly - and objective performance reviews between grades. Are you looking at fine-grained grades where the COLA would adjust the pay bad for the grade, but you’d also expect fairly regular grade promotion with good performance? With my (unionized, public sector) employer, COLAs that adjust pay bands are not automatic but are negotiated in each contract, but with satisfactory performance there is an automatic 5% annual increase within the band for your class until you top out.
  • robswc 4y ago
    > because members are doing the bargaining and (in the CWA at least) have to ratify the contract by a majority vote What if you feel you should be paid more but your peers don't? Are you able to negotiate your individual contract?
• mrguyorama 4y ago
  >Teachers and nurses(not an exhaustive list, just the first things that came to mind) have unions and are still criminally underpaid compared to the value they provide to society. I know lots of teachers and nurses. When they don't have collective bargaining power and a union at their backs, they are only treated worse.
• legitster 4y ago
  > I'm not convinced unions would make things better. Teachers and nurses(not an exhaustive list, just the first things that came to mind) have unions and are still criminally underpaid compared to the value they provide to society. Flamingly controversial opinion over here, but I don't think either are criminally underpaid. Both professions make well above median income. Teachers especially considering they only work ~180 days a year and get a pension. It is probably the region I live in, but I don't know any teachers who are doing poorly in life. You can argue teachers are important to society, but given how opposed some unions have been to education innovation (like Common Core or Direct Instruction) I think an argument could be made that unions help teachers, but not necessarily improve the quality of teaching.
• x86x87 4y ago
  Is this true? Do you not see any value in having some protection for the workers? Layoffs is a classic example. Unless your survival depends on it you don't punish the workers for bad decisions.