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> We'd see some real progress in medicine if it was easier for people to get in and fix the rather obvious problems that plague the industry. I know that'd do m

> We'd see some real progress in medicine if it was easier for people to get in and fix the rather obvious problems that plague the industry. I know that'd do much more good for my family than me avoiding the pain of sending out a lot of resumes every 2 decades. But would that be good for doctors' paychecks? This pivot midway through from "unions are bad for the people in the unions" to "unions and similar mechanisms are protecting the people in them at other people's expense" doesn't seem fully consistent. It's consistent from your point of view - "give me what I think is best in the situation regardless" - but that "I just want what's best for me" is exactly why collective action is so often appealing. A view of the field as "the salaries are outrageous relative to the amount of effort put in" sounds like a management POV, not an engineer POV, and similarly focusing solely on the "effort" to frame software engineers poorly instead of "the value created by the work for the organization" which paints the engineers as more critical to the business.

roenxi 4y ago
Well they'd see job growth far in excess of the 5% that is causing this fuss. There is a shortage of medical care and a lot of good people who want to go in and make life better for others. Warms the heart to see their efforts, even if legislation is causing a lot of the work to go to waste. I expect the average wage of doctors are paid would rise, employment would certainly rise, and if we look at the real outcomes the doctors would have a better quality of life (as would we all) because medical care would be better. So I think they'd probably see nominal pay rises, but even if you want to be pessimistic and assume they were nominally paid less, their quality of life would probably improve. The basic strategy of unions is to not work sometimes and pick fights with employers. That isn't making anyone better off in the real world.
- majormajor 4y ago
  Orrrr you have more doctors and some of the "obvious problems that plague the industry" get way worse because now the power shifts even more to non-practicing administrators who push less face time with patients, more paperwork, etc, as they try to maximize a certain particular definition of "efficiency" over everything else... I'd need a lot more details on how you'd expect more competition for medical jobs to result in rising salaries to buy the claim.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Present state: Dave tries to practice medicine. Doctors guild shuts him down. He earns nothing. Alternate state: Dave practices medicine. He gets good at it. He earns a very high salary. The union argument isn't about whether workers can cooperate - they can already do that. Free speech and all that. It is about whether employees can prevent others (often called "scabs" in Australia, not sure about the US term) from working. Guilds are similar.
    - majormajor 4y ago
      I wasn't asking if Dave's salary went down. I was asking if the existing doctors' did. Expecting unions to be good for the whole world is stupid. Nobody expects a company to act in the whole world's interest rather than its own. The union is just a tool to level the playing field, to get some control back over "Dave will practice medicine for half what we're paying you, without complaining, so fuck off"
      - roenxi 4y ago
        If they are relying on being good at what they do? Probably not. If they are relying on the fact that they are in a guild? Probably. Good thing too. They should be making money by being competent. That is why we should be resisting unions. We're paying money for nothing when we interact with unionised industries, and in software we'd be protecting weak engineers at the expense of people who are good at their job. If everyone unionises, that just means everyone is worse off. If you want to protect economic dead weight then we just end up with a basic prisoners dilemma scenario where the optimum outcome is everyone cooperates and bans unions.
        clipsy 4y ago
        So you agree, then, that the union/guild is good for its members?
        roenxi 4y ago
hedora 4y ago
In my experience, unions drive out people that are capable of getting employment elsewhere, and give tenure to people that are OK with infinite bullshit and with extorting their employers. If you are in the latter category, go for it. Unionize. I’ll happily join a startup and get an extra 7 figures in my exit because your teams repeatedly tripped over their own dicks while actively preventing management from defending your market share. This isn’t true in all industries, but tech workers are exceptionally mobile, and the technology landscape constantly shifts, which undermines incumbent players. Together, those two factors make it true for us. Also, I should point out that I have been aggressively spoiled by current and former employers. Historically, those organizations have to treat us well or attrition would kill them. The current downturn is relatively minor, and doesn’t seem to have made any fundamental changes to these trade offs.

roenxi 4y ago

Well they'd see job growth far in excess of the 5% that is causing this fuss. There is a shortage of medical care and a lot of good people who want to go in and make life better for others. Warms the heart to see their efforts, even if legislation is causing a lot of the work to go to waste. I expect the average wage of doctors are paid would rise, employment would certainly rise, and if we look at the real outcomes the doctors would have a better quality of life (as would we all) because medical care would be better. So I think they'd probably see nominal pay rises, but even if you want to be pessimistic and assume they were nominally paid less, their quality of life would probably improve. The basic strategy of unions is to not work sometimes and pick fights with employers. That isn't making anyone better off in the real world.

majormajor 4y ago
Orrrr you have more doctors and some of the "obvious problems that plague the industry" get way worse because now the power shifts even more to non-practicing administrators who push less face time with patients, more paperwork, etc, as they try to maximize a certain particular definition of "efficiency" over everything else... I'd need a lot more details on how you'd expect more competition for medical jobs to result in rising salaries to buy the claim.
- roenxi 4y ago
  Present state: Dave tries to practice medicine. Doctors guild shuts him down. He earns nothing. Alternate state: Dave practices medicine. He gets good at it. He earns a very high salary. The union argument isn't about whether workers can cooperate - they can already do that. Free speech and all that. It is about whether employees can prevent others (often called "scabs" in Australia, not sure about the US term) from working. Guilds are similar.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    I wasn't asking if Dave's salary went down. I was asking if the existing doctors' did. Expecting unions to be good for the whole world is stupid. Nobody expects a company to act in the whole world's interest rather than its own. The union is just a tool to level the playing field, to get some control back over "Dave will practice medicine for half what we're paying you, without complaining, so fuck off"
    - roenxi 4y ago
      If they are relying on being good at what they do? Probably not. If they are relying on the fact that they are in a guild? Probably. Good thing too. They should be making money by being competent. That is why we should be resisting unions. We're paying money for nothing when we interact with unionised industries, and in software we'd be protecting weak engineers at the expense of people who are good at their job. If everyone unionises, that just means everyone is worse off. If you want to protect economic dead weight then we just end up with a basic prisoners dilemma scenario where the optimum outcome is everyone cooperates and bans unions.
      - clipsy 4y ago
        So you agree, then, that the union/guild is good for its members?
        roenxi 4y ago

hedora 4y ago

In my experience, unions drive out people that are capable of getting employment elsewhere, and give tenure to people that are OK with infinite bullshit and with extorting their employers. If you are in the latter category, go for it. Unionize. I’ll happily join a startup and get an extra 7 figures in my exit because your teams repeatedly tripped over their own dicks while actively preventing management from defending your market share. This isn’t true in all industries, but tech workers are exceptionally mobile, and the technology landscape constantly shifts, which undermines incumbent players. Together, those two factors make it true for us. Also, I should point out that I have been aggressively spoiled by current and former employers. Historically, those organizations have to treat us well or attrition would kill them. The current downturn is relatively minor, and doesn’t seem to have made any fundamental changes to these trade offs.