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What recourse do we as workers have? We can soft boycott and quit/stop applying to onsite positions, but there are hundreds of thousands willing and able to tak

What recourse do we as workers have? We can soft boycott and quit/stop applying to onsite positions, but there are hundreds of thousands willing and able to take these positions.

sundaeofshock 3y ago
Unions.
- moshun 3y ago
  It’s always been the same answer for hundreds of years. Unions and solidarity.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    But don’t you know? We are exceptional. Unions are for the plebs. /s But of course the reality is tech workers are the plebs too, far closer to the median than to capital elite. Treasured illusions die hard. Unions enjoy 71% public support and organizing is federally protected activity. The minority isn’t stopping anyone, they can be safely ignored. (My note: I recognize I will never be obscenely wealthy; it does not appeal to me. The wealthy just try to buy back their soul with charity after leaving a wake of destruction on their journey. I would rather work for autonomy and quality of life for my peers, which if done properly, will lead to a better life for myself)
    - jprete 3y ago
      The perks of FAANG are there, IMO, to pay the employees with a feeling of high-class status. Meanwhile, from an economic-class perspective, engineering is essentially blue-collar - it’s mostly about things and not (directly) about people. It’s a weird dichotomy.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Unions. From my recent experience, unions can't help you keep remote work they way they work here today. I work(ed) at a unionized German company and when management call everyone back to the office after the Covid vaccination was done, it wasn't protested by the unions and everyone sowed up at the office without protest, and remote work was kept as "in case of emergency" perk you can get every now and then if you get approval from your manager beforehand. Unions here only serve the purpose to intervene in case of major force like discrimination, health and safety, layoffs, working hours, overtime, and the negociate mandatory yearly pay increases based on inflation and company profits, not help you keep your desired perk of not commuting to the office as the office is seen as the mandatory place of work by contract, not your home, so physical presence at work part is usually non-negotiable. Actually, unions here are relatively against remote work or at least quiet on the topic, as they assume it'll lead to easier off-shoring in the long run (already happening anyway) and the loss of their jobs , so on-site presence of the workforce is considered as an advantage in convincing the company to keep invested in Germany and not move abroad (generals like seeing their soldiers at work where their money is goes).
  - oblio 3y ago
    Is it only a perk if it basically improves family life, social life, mental health for many, reduces expenses but it also reduces pollution, combats climate change, relieves pressure on infrastructure, etc?
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      It is, but German companies and management don't see it that way. Decisions are made top-down without consulting with what the workers actually want because the priority is the company's profits. Plus, the wellbeing of workers in Germany is already considered (at least on paper) to be top notch that mandating remote work for everyone is not considered necessary as "German workers already have it so good". And with German labor loosing competitiveness, unions are relatively toothless when demanding remote work as there's no government mandate to offer that like it is with working hours, parental leave, etc. and the companies often threaten with relocation/off-shoring when they get demands they don't like so the German government is in no rush to pressure them for new social perks. So it's up to you to search for a company that's fully WFH, not wait for your union to solve it for you. Unions can work only when they have teeth.
- akudha 3y ago
  Yup. And electing people to office with at least an iota of conscience. One area the current admin is better than the previous one - labor issues. Not perfect (they screwed the railway workers) but better
ponderings 3y ago
compete with them
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  No, no, I have it on good authority that the optimal strategy is to gang up on the employer and force them to meet the workers' demands. This will somehow make the employer more competitive, rather than less, and will not in any way incentivize outsourcing and automation at the cost of the domestic jobs in question. I read it on HN, so it must be true.
  - ponderings 3y ago
    There is always an exchange of good and bad deeds between employees and employers. If you are a dick you should be treated as such. If you are a saint you should be too! You never just go to war with your employer or your employees. I had one employer who would sometimes get stuck in a loop thanking me for what I've done, how embarrassed he was he couldn't pay me more and that he could never do what I did for such little money. I would mock him by listing the instances of terrible things that would have happened if I wasn't there. If he called me right now, years later, I would do what I could to keep his ship afloat just because the idea of having to fire people haunts him in his sleep. My previous manager asked me to do an extra shift one time. I told him I understand why he asked it but that this must never happen again. Before that I told him that he couldn't just schedule an extra shift but that he should ask me first. If the place burned down around me I would use it to light my cigar after casually tossing my coat over my arm.
itronitron 3y ago
Ride a bike, take the bus, report sexual harassment by managers, microwave fish dumplings for lunch if your in the office, etc.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
The labor market overall is tight but tech is in an employment recession so employers currently have power. Do what you need to do to put yourself in a position where you can bail and jump to a remote employer at the first opportunity. If the majority does this, companies will have to change or die. Going back to the office because of the current power dynamic is ok but getting complacent and not using your most powerful weapon, jumping to another job, is now the RTO folks win longterm.
xiphias2 3y ago
Have somebody ,,ticket in'' for you and accept that sometimes bs things are parts of your job. Managers don't care as long as the numbers are good.
asdff 3y ago
Maybe even more powerful than unionmaking would be coop making. Realistically, everyone could take their team of the 10 closest workers they know, form a coop, and contract their work back to the employer akin to a freelancer. This would help take the real leverage from large organizations, their magnitude and its ability to shape markets due to inertia alone, if that magnitude was more of a temporal nature on a per project basis. In a perfect world in this coop model, labor wouldn't be "locked up" on boring projects for large companies, labor would be free to freelance onto interesting or mutually beneficial projects if there was any idle time that could be filled with more billable work. Profits would also be shared among labor since ownership is distributed among labor, versus being this separate parasitic class carried on a palanquin by labor.
- lostdog 3y ago
  Have you made a coop? Why or why not?

What recourse do we as workers have? We can soft boycott and quit/stop applying to onsite positions, but there are hundreds of thousands willing and able to take these positions.

sundaeofshock 3y ago

Unions.

moshun 3y ago
It’s always been the same answer for hundreds of years. Unions and solidarity.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  But don’t you know? We are exceptional. Unions are for the plebs. /s But of course the reality is tech workers are the plebs too, far closer to the median than to capital elite. Treasured illusions die hard. Unions enjoy 71% public support and organizing is federally protected activity. The minority isn’t stopping anyone, they can be safely ignored. (My note: I recognize I will never be obscenely wealthy; it does not appeal to me. The wealthy just try to buy back their soul with charity after leaving a wake of destruction on their journey. I would rather work for autonomy and quality of life for my peers, which if done properly, will lead to a better life for myself)
  - jprete 3y ago
    The perks of FAANG are there, IMO, to pay the employees with a feeling of high-class status. Meanwhile, from an economic-class perspective, engineering is essentially blue-collar - it’s mostly about things and not (directly) about people. It’s a weird dichotomy.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Unions. From my recent experience, unions can't help you keep remote work they way they work here today. I work(ed) at a unionized German company and when management call everyone back to the office after the Covid vaccination was done, it wasn't protested by the unions and everyone sowed up at the office without protest, and remote work was kept as "in case of emergency" perk you can get every now and then if you get approval from your manager beforehand. Unions here only serve the purpose to intervene in case of major force like discrimination, health and safety, layoffs, working hours, overtime, and the negociate mandatory yearly pay increases based on inflation and company profits, not help you keep your desired perk of not commuting to the office as the office is seen as the mandatory place of work by contract, not your home, so physical presence at work part is usually non-negotiable. Actually, unions here are relatively against remote work or at least quiet on the topic, as they assume it'll lead to easier off-shoring in the long run (already happening anyway) and the loss of their jobs , so on-site presence of the workforce is considered as an advantage in convincing the company to keep invested in Germany and not move abroad (generals like seeing their soldiers at work where their money is goes).
- oblio 3y ago
  Is it only a perk if it basically improves family life, social life, mental health for many, reduces expenses but it also reduces pollution, combats climate change, relieves pressure on infrastructure, etc?
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    It is, but German companies and management don't see it that way. Decisions are made top-down without consulting with what the workers actually want because the priority is the company's profits. Plus, the wellbeing of workers in Germany is already considered (at least on paper) to be top notch that mandating remote work for everyone is not considered necessary as "German workers already have it so good". And with German labor loosing competitiveness, unions are relatively toothless when demanding remote work as there's no government mandate to offer that like it is with working hours, parental leave, etc. and the companies often threaten with relocation/off-shoring when they get demands they don't like so the German government is in no rush to pressure them for new social perks. So it's up to you to search for a company that's fully WFH, not wait for your union to solve it for you. Unions can work only when they have teeth.
akudha 3y ago
Yup. And electing people to office with at least an iota of conscience. One area the current admin is better than the previous one - labor issues. Not perfect (they screwed the railway workers) but better

ponderings 3y ago

compete with them

CamperBob2 3y ago
No, no, I have it on good authority that the optimal strategy is to gang up on the employer and force them to meet the workers' demands. This will somehow make the employer more competitive, rather than less, and will not in any way incentivize outsourcing and automation at the cost of the domestic jobs in question. I read it on HN, so it must be true.
- ponderings 3y ago
  There is always an exchange of good and bad deeds between employees and employers. If you are a dick you should be treated as such. If you are a saint you should be too! You never just go to war with your employer or your employees. I had one employer who would sometimes get stuck in a loop thanking me for what I've done, how embarrassed he was he couldn't pay me more and that he could never do what I did for such little money. I would mock him by listing the instances of terrible things that would have happened if I wasn't there. If he called me right now, years later, I would do what I could to keep his ship afloat just because the idea of having to fire people haunts him in his sleep. My previous manager asked me to do an extra shift one time. I told him I understand why he asked it but that this must never happen again. Before that I told him that he couldn't just schedule an extra shift but that he should ask me first. If the place burned down around me I would use it to light my cigar after casually tossing my coat over my arm.

itronitron 3y ago

Ride a bike, take the bus, report sexual harassment by managers, microwave fish dumplings for lunch if your in the office, etc.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

The labor market overall is tight but tech is in an employment recession so employers currently have power. Do what you need to do to put yourself in a position where you can bail and jump to a remote employer at the first opportunity. If the majority does this, companies will have to change or die. Going back to the office because of the current power dynamic is ok but getting complacent and not using your most powerful weapon, jumping to another job, is now the RTO folks win longterm.

xiphias2 3y ago

Have somebody ,,ticket in'' for you and accept that sometimes bs things are parts of your job. Managers don't care as long as the numbers are good.

asdff 3y ago

Maybe even more powerful than unionmaking would be coop making. Realistically, everyone could take their team of the 10 closest workers they know, form a coop, and contract their work back to the employer akin to a freelancer. This would help take the real leverage from large organizations, their magnitude and its ability to shape markets due to inertia alone, if that magnitude was more of a temporal nature on a per project basis. In a perfect world in this coop model, labor wouldn't be "locked up" on boring projects for large companies, labor would be free to freelance onto interesting or mutually beneficial projects if there was any idle time that could be filled with more billable work. Profits would also be shared among labor since ownership is distributed among labor, versus being this separate parasitic class carried on a palanquin by labor.

lostdog 3y ago
Have you made a coop? Why or why not?