4 ms·

This is just a caricature of what labor unions are. It's as if I was saying that company hierarchies are useless because they introduce a level of management an

This is just a caricature of what labor unions are. It's as if I was saying that company hierarchies are useless because they introduce a level of management and workers would be better off if they could negotiate directly with the CEO or even the shareholders! Companies are unions of shareholders, getting together to achieve more than what they could do if they were alone. Labor unions works on exactly the same principle. Please have a look at labor history and see what unions where able to do for workers. Are labor unions perfect with no corruption, no mismanagement, no abuse. Of course not, it's a human organization. Just like companies, governments, municipalities or any other group or people. But it's by participating, keeping informed and holding the people in charge accountable that you work it out. Realizing this is part of growing up.

Firmwarrior 4y ago
I don't think I'd join or support a software union even though I think unions are a good idea in general. Software engineering is one of the few careers where the market has actually forced a decent balance between labor and management. Realistically, unionized software engineers would make hilariously less money than FAANG people are making right now. At least, that's what I'd assume from looking at how things work in Europe.
- flir 4y ago
  (a) There aren't really any developer unions in Europe (maybe someone will correct me but I think I'm right). (b) There must be a name for the fallacy of examining the top 10% and using it to claim a policy would be bad for everybody.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    That's true, but this is a site for the top 10% of programmers
    - flir 4y ago
      That's an incredible feed line. I honestly don't know where to start.
      - Firmwarrior 4y ago
        All right, to steel-man your argument: Honestly, I think even your lowest-brow code camp copy-paste monkey is in a pretty good spot nowadays in the USA. It's easy to make a six figure income just churning out CRUD apps for 40 hours a week. Any company that won't pay up gets disrupted into oblivion by ones that will. (Or it just clunks along forever with a bunch of underpaid workers churning out low quality crap, like what we see from government/hospital systems. Either way, everything's fine.) What do you want out of a software union? (Keeping in mind that we can comfortably afford and demand basically any perk you can imagine.)

Firmwarrior 4y ago

I don't think I'd join or support a software union even though I think unions are a good idea in general. Software engineering is one of the few careers where the market has actually forced a decent balance between labor and management. Realistically, unionized software engineers would make hilariously less money than FAANG people are making right now. At least, that's what I'd assume from looking at how things work in Europe.

flir 4y ago
(a) There aren't really any developer unions in Europe (maybe someone will correct me but I think I'm right). (b) There must be a name for the fallacy of examining the top 10% and using it to claim a policy would be bad for everybody.
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  That's true, but this is a site for the top 10% of programmers
  - flir 4y ago
    That's an incredible feed line. I honestly don't know where to start.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      All right, to steel-man your argument: Honestly, I think even your lowest-brow code camp copy-paste monkey is in a pretty good spot nowadays in the USA. It's easy to make a six figure income just churning out CRUD apps for 40 hours a week. Any company that won't pay up gets disrupted into oblivion by ones that will. (Or it just clunks along forever with a bunch of underpaid workers churning out low quality crap, like what we see from government/hospital systems. Either way, everything's fine.) What do you want out of a software union? (Keeping in mind that we can comfortably afford and demand basically any perk you can imagine.)