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They do it because they can. Because most employees are spineless and will fall in line. People making the money we make in the tech industry should be living

They do it because they can. Because most employees are spineless and will fall in line. People making the money we make in the tech industry should be living well below their means, saving, and supplanting the tech giants with worker-owned coops and guilds. If all tech workers united into guilds the corps would come begging us for technical contributions, and we would collectively charge up the ass for it — and all make 100% of the profits.

coldpie 4y ago
I agree. However, it's easy to post on HN, and much harder to do in practice. Do keep us posted if you make some progress in this direction. (This isn't sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested in that model.)
- survirtual 4y ago
  Agreed. Generally, I think that the strategy will be some combination of technology, coop ownership, and worker insurance. Technology, for making corporation killers. Making alternative tech stacks that make existing corporate offerings irrelevant and requiring a sort of ransom to keep the licenses non-competitive. This provides nuclear leverage. Cooperative ownership to align the organizations objectives with individual workers. The profit is distributed in a relatively fair way without these 100x pay differences, in a manner members can all agree with, and planets away from only caring about enriching investors. Worker insurance where the coop offers healthcare and minimum income guarantees between jobs with corps. When a member is working for a corp, it is expected the corp pays for their insurance etc. If the member leaves the corp, they seamlessly continue to have healthcare etc. I think the first step to making something like this happen is creating an extremely valuable piece of tech that society cannot do without. That acts as a beacon to attract workers and provides leverage. With the appropriate legal framework around that, it would cascade from there.
allochthon 4y ago
Over the last decade I've had a similar thought and hope. Or at least the idea of working for an employee-owned and directed tech business (maybe on the model of REI?). Curious whether anyone knows of any successes in this area with respect to the tech industry?
htag 4y ago
In the days-of-old to gain a skill you needed an apprenticeship. To gain an apprenticeship you can to become a guild member. This created a moat, where only guild members were highly skilled. How do you purpose to market guild labor over non-guild labor, especially at a time when anyone can earn a CS degree, publish open source, and right to work laws pepper the country.
- survirtual 4y ago
  Guild-owned technology, created with human-aligned intentions (as opposed to greed-aligned). Human-centric tech is superior to capital-centric tech. Open source is basically this in a naive and unorganized way, especially when MIT licensed (a giant con in my opinion). GNU does much better. But if there existed a guild license connected to tech and patents that are must haves, it would tip the balance. The guild would offer objective security to a worker — health insurance, income insurance, and legal backing, with intentions aligned entirely with the worker. It provides a behemoth aligned with maximizing the rights and income of a worker. That would do a whole lot in attracting people to join.
  - htag 4y ago
    What is this guild license, and how does it differ from the current system of having private companies own software licenses, tech patents, and trade secrets? It sounds to me like you're just describing a tech company.
    - survirtual 4y ago
      It is a tech company but it is owned by specialized, skilled workers. It is a guild because tech workers are professional artisans. Guilds are an organization of skilled professionals which have quality certification for work, often times integrated with legal frameworks in a government. Software needs to be elevated, credentialed, regulated, and more respected. This is what a guild would enable. But I think merging benefits of unions with the prestige of a guild would provide some needed innovation in that space. Providing skilled professionals with an army of lawyers, professional insurance, income guarantees, healthcare, lead management, all with cooperative ownership, profit sharing, etc is a drastically different incentive structure than existing organizations.
jstx1 4y ago
> most employees are spineless and will fall in line. I don't get this. It's a layoff - what do you think not spineless and not falling in line looks like?
- survirtual 4y ago
  “If you layoff Bob, I quit” “If you do these layoffs, all of us will strike” In other words, unified action among the workers that costs the business significantly more funds than the savings from laying people off. That is one example of having a spine. There are countless others.
twobitshifter 4y ago
A union would force these layoffs to be justified well beyond what we see in these PR releases, however, the severance packages offered are very good for non-unionized labor. It makes me suspect that the loose association of programmers has latent power even if it’s not in a guild or union.
- htrp 4y ago
  More like if you cheap out on severance.... no one will ever come work for you without a significant comp premium

coldpie 4y ago

I agree. However, it's easy to post on HN, and much harder to do in practice. Do keep us posted if you make some progress in this direction. (This isn't sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested in that model.)

survirtual 4y ago
Agreed. Generally, I think that the strategy will be some combination of technology, coop ownership, and worker insurance. Technology, for making corporation killers. Making alternative tech stacks that make existing corporate offerings irrelevant and requiring a sort of ransom to keep the licenses non-competitive. This provides nuclear leverage. Cooperative ownership to align the organizations objectives with individual workers. The profit is distributed in a relatively fair way without these 100x pay differences, in a manner members can all agree with, and planets away from only caring about enriching investors. Worker insurance where the coop offers healthcare and minimum income guarantees between jobs with corps. When a member is working for a corp, it is expected the corp pays for their insurance etc. If the member leaves the corp, they seamlessly continue to have healthcare etc. I think the first step to making something like this happen is creating an extremely valuable piece of tech that society cannot do without. That acts as a beacon to attract workers and provides leverage. With the appropriate legal framework around that, it would cascade from there.

allochthon 4y ago

Over the last decade I've had a similar thought and hope. Or at least the idea of working for an employee-owned and directed tech business (maybe on the model of REI?). Curious whether anyone knows of any successes in this area with respect to the tech industry?

htag 4y ago

In the days-of-old to gain a skill you needed an apprenticeship. To gain an apprenticeship you can to become a guild member. This created a moat, where only guild members were highly skilled. How do you purpose to market guild labor over non-guild labor, especially at a time when anyone can earn a CS degree, publish open source, and right to work laws pepper the country.

survirtual 4y ago
Guild-owned technology, created with human-aligned intentions (as opposed to greed-aligned). Human-centric tech is superior to capital-centric tech. Open source is basically this in a naive and unorganized way, especially when MIT licensed (a giant con in my opinion). GNU does much better. But if there existed a guild license connected to tech and patents that are must haves, it would tip the balance. The guild would offer objective security to a worker — health insurance, income insurance, and legal backing, with intentions aligned entirely with the worker. It provides a behemoth aligned with maximizing the rights and income of a worker. That would do a whole lot in attracting people to join.
- htag 4y ago
  What is this guild license, and how does it differ from the current system of having private companies own software licenses, tech patents, and trade secrets? It sounds to me like you're just describing a tech company.
  - survirtual 4y ago
    It is a tech company but it is owned by specialized, skilled workers. It is a guild because tech workers are professional artisans. Guilds are an organization of skilled professionals which have quality certification for work, often times integrated with legal frameworks in a government. Software needs to be elevated, credentialed, regulated, and more respected. This is what a guild would enable. But I think merging benefits of unions with the prestige of a guild would provide some needed innovation in that space. Providing skilled professionals with an army of lawyers, professional insurance, income guarantees, healthcare, lead management, all with cooperative ownership, profit sharing, etc is a drastically different incentive structure than existing organizations.

jstx1 4y ago

> most employees are spineless and will fall in line. I don't get this. It's a layoff - what do you think not spineless and not falling in line looks like?

survirtual 4y ago
“If you layoff Bob, I quit” “If you do these layoffs, all of us will strike” In other words, unified action among the workers that costs the business significantly more funds than the savings from laying people off. That is one example of having a spine. There are countless others.

twobitshifter 4y ago

A union would force these layoffs to be justified well beyond what we see in these PR releases, however, the severance packages offered are very good for non-unionized labor. It makes me suspect that the loose association of programmers has latent power even if it’s not in a guild or union.

htrp 4y ago
More like if you cheap out on severance.... no one will ever come work for you without a significant comp premium