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Great but for those of us who have better than adequate working conditions and enough money, please explain why we "deserve a union". Reading through this inte
by slibhb 3y ago
Great but for those of us who have better than adequate working conditions and enough money, please explain why we "deserve a union".
Reading through this interview and thread, I notice how often this debate comes down to a sense of agency. You write about programmers being "burned out by their employer". But I would say that people experience burnout when they fail to set boundaries. Working to the point where your mental health suffers is your fault: it's your responsbility to establish healthy boundaries or, failing at that, quit.
- lapcat 3y ago> Working to the point where your mental health suffers is your fault: it's your responsbility to establish healthy boundaries or, failing at that, quit. It's interesting that the manager and/or employer has no apparent agency here.
- zaphar 3y agoSure they do. But their agency doesn't eliminate yours. You can't control what your employer does. You can control what you do. So the correct thing is to exercise your own agency in response to theirs.
- lapcat 3y ago> You can't control what your employer does. That's precisely the point of unions, though. Individually, you have no control over your employer, but via collective bargaining you do.
- Jensson 3y agoSo once the collective agrees they want something they will form a union to bargain collectively. But so far developers don't agree about anything so they don't, because the collective feels that they get enough from their individual contracts.
- Kye 3y agoA union is like insurance in a situation like this. By the time you need it, it's too late. You needed it to keep things from degrading to that point.
- Jensson 3y ago> By the time you need it, it's too late. Why? Unions work the best when they are formed around a cause everyone cares about, that is how we got workers right in the first case, there is nothing that says you need to form a union when things are good.
- mplewis 3y agoBecause at the time you want to form a union due to things being bad, your employer already has the workers in a position of fear and control, and they have reasonably free reign to do whatever they want and toe the line of illegality when it comes to intimidating workers who are discussing unionization. Talk to a union organizer about this. They'll help you understand how this type of monopsony looks to a worker when they're trying to organize.
- peteradio 3y agoWhat mechanism is there to impact unethical work laid across your back? You walk away so someone in more of a desperate situation will do the work instead?