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I used to think programmers didn't need unions. Then that massive no-poaching collusion amongst dozens of the top tech companies in the US surfaced. https://e

I used to think programmers didn't need unions. Then that massive no-poaching collusion amongst dozens of the top tech companies in the US surfaced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... It wasn't just "Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay", the practice spread to "dozens" of other companies: > Confidential internal Google and Apple memos, buried within piles of court dockets and reviewed by PandoDaily, clearly show that what began as a secret cartel agreement between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Eric Schmidt to illegally fix the labor market for hi-tech workers, expanded within a few years to include companies ranging from Dell, IBM, eBay and Microsoft, to Comcast, Clear Channel, Dreamworks, and London-based public relations behemoth WPP. All told, the combined workforces of the companies involved totals well over a million employees. https://web.archive.org/web/20210912195239/https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210912195239/https://pando.com... It's actually pretty insane what's revealed in the documents, they knew exactly what they were doing, they were completely ruthless. Anyway, now I think that we do need unions, or something, because these folks are clearly willing to do anything they think they can get away with.

akkartik 4y ago
How would unions help against such no-poaching collusion?
- carapace 4y ago
  Good question. I have no idea. (That's why I said "or something" above, eh?) I know almost nothing about unions, and I don't work for large corporations. (FWIW, I mostly worked for startups, but I did try the corporate thing for a couple of years, mostly for the experience. What I decided was that corporations are not bad, in fact I'd say they are mostly a huge improvement over previous forms of large-scale human organization, but they're not for me. This isn't a judgment thing, it's a matter of personal taste.) - - - - edit to add: I started a non-profit mutual benefit corporation a couple of months ago to pursue a simple tech stack w/o the overhead (pun intended) of being a for-profit startup. It's way too soon to say whether it will work or not, but at least I'm living my values. :)

akkartik 4y ago

How would unions help against such no-poaching collusion?

carapace 4y ago
Good question. I have no idea. (That's why I said "or something" above, eh?) I know almost nothing about unions, and I don't work for large corporations. (FWIW, I mostly worked for startups, but I did try the corporate thing for a couple of years, mostly for the experience. What I decided was that corporations are not bad, in fact I'd say they are mostly a huge improvement over previous forms of large-scale human organization, but they're not for me. This isn't a judgment thing, it's a matter of personal taste.) - - - - edit to add: I started a non-profit mutual benefit corporation a couple of months ago to pursue a simple tech stack w/o the overhead (pun intended) of being a for-profit startup. It's way too soon to say whether it will work or not, but at least I'm living my values. :)