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I worked at Dow Jones (owners of The Wall Street Journal) and was forced into the union there. That particular union at the time at that company was nothing bu

I worked at Dow Jones (owners of The Wall Street Journal) and was forced into the union there. That particular union at the time at that company was nothing but a detriment to me and other software engineers. You paid dues and got nothing but lower wages in return. The union would also protect the jobs of under-performing employees which was just demoralizing. One of the things people would negotiate for was to be made nominally into managers with only 1 direct report so they could get out of the union and individually negotiate their pay packages outside of the union's agreement. Now possibly part of the problem was that it was not a union for all software engineers but a general union for employees of many different jobs. But the experience left me skeptical of unions in this profession. I think something like employees pooling their equity to get representation on the board or something like that might be more effective.

runako 3y ago
> But the experience left me skeptical of unions in this profession. I think something like employees pooling their equity to get representation on the board or something like that might be more effective. This wildly overstates the amount of equity that non-exec employees have at the vast majority of firms. It also ignores that fact that companies are able to issue different classes of stock with differing rights. Further, it overstates the possible influence of a single board member. The Dow Jones board has 14 members; I'm not sure that adding a 15th to represent employees would meaningfully change anything beyond the length of the board meetings.
- m348e912 3y ago
  >This wildly overstates the amount of equity that non-exec employees have at the vast majority of firms... This is a shitty reply, but only because it's true and depressing.
  - clbrmbr 3y ago
    What’s the alternative? How can an employee expect to get paid a salary and own the company?
    - burkaman 3y ago
      Dow Jones has 8000 employees, if they each owned one thousandth of one percent of the company they could pool it all to represent 8%, which is pretty substantial. Maybe I misunderstood your question, but it's extremely common for a person to own equity in a company and earn a salary from that same company.
      - ryandrake 3y ago
        Is owning one thousandth of one percent even close to do-able for a median employee, at any company? I get what I consider a generous RSU package from my employer, but I currently own 0.00000011 of, or (if my math doesn't fail me) 1/90,000th of a percent of the company. Truly a minuscule amount.
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      > What’s the alternative? How can an employee expect to get paid a salary and own the company? The fact that this question is posed almost like it's an impossibility goes to show how much we've been subtly brainwashed into thinking it's unreasonable. For example, before the private-equity-in-healthcare boom that did nothing but siphon off profits to the Wall Street class, in Texas all doctors groups were physician-owned (I believe they must still be by law, but PE has largely gotten around the bulk of that). It's really a great environment when the people who do the work are also the owners. Most groups, like other professional organizations (e.g. lawyers), hire people on a partnership track, where they become owners after a number of years. There are also employee-owned companies, like Publix supermarkets.
      - Jensson 3y ago
        He is probably thinking about venture capital backed firms or high risk ventures like movies or games, there it you can't have it be worker owned and workers getting paid since there is no revenue until later, worker pay comes from the owners pocket. In a business with stable income it makes perfect sense though, like doctors or consulting firms.
  - EGG_CREAM 3y ago
    Here's an alternative: some portion of the board is employee representatives. Meaning, they are elected representatives of the employees, probably should be employees themselves. And how can an employee expect this? By expecting it!
    - runako 3y ago
      The employees would have to form some kind of self-governance group to get the board to make the change to require employee representation. Then, that group would have to decide who are the employee representatives to the board. We call those groups "unions."
    - marssaxman 3y ago
      Sounds like the "codetermination" concept in Germany: for corporations over a certain size, the workers elect some significant fraction of the board of directors.
deweller 3y ago
How were you forced into the union? Was it manipulation or did you literally have to join or face consequences?
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  In some States, if it's a union shop you have to be in the union. In others, you don't. (https://www.nber.org/digest/202208/impacts-right-work-laws-unionization-and-wages https://www.nber.org/digest/202208/impacts-right-work-laws-u...) New York is highly unionized. I used to know a woman who set up trade shows there and would laugh that they required two different unions to move a desk with a computer on it that she herself could have moved if it were allowed.
  - gosub100 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    That is not what I read from your link. Your link state that in some states every worker benefits from collective agreements (which are set by bargaining with the unions) regardless the workers are part of the union or not. Despite being mostly pro union I would find it totally baffling that a worker would be forced into a union and I doubt the OP was.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Read the definition of right to work: "the term "right-to-work laws" refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions which require employees who are not union members to contribute to the costs of union representation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law In EU this is already a thing, we see this is as a natural right to workers. In USA this is a hot topic, liberal states have unions forcing you to pay for membership even if you aren't a member.
      - 3y ago
pjc50 3y ago
Did you engage with intra-union politics at all?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
teddyh 3y ago
Sounds like unions should be exposed to market competition; the effects you describe is what happens in a monopoly.
- echelon 3y ago
  This is interesting, but what would that look like?
  - teddyh 3y ago
    I don’t know. Do unions themselves preclude the possibility of people being a member of more than one union?
- adam_arthur 3y ago
  A union is effectively a monopoly on labor supply. With all the same ramifications that a corporate monopoly has. In some cases union labor can be circumvented (hiring non-union labor), but for some industries/businesses this is not possible on a short timeframe
  - teddyh 3y ago
    > A union is effectively a monopoly on labor supply. I can see how you could see it that way, but it’s actually the reverse. A union is actually a force capable of denying labor to an employer. Viewed in this way, there is nothing precluding another union to also withhold the same employees from working. Employees could, theoretically, be members of more than one union. Employers would then have to satisfy the requirements of all extant unions. (I have no idea why this is being downvoted. I can only guess that people think I am implying something again.)
    - adam_arthur 3y ago
      Theoretically if you have many unions competing for work, this would be the case. Practically that's not how it tends to work in the US. In most cases there is one industry wide or company specific union, without competing alternatives.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
I've always disliked the monopolization aspect of unions. I think something like guilds would work much better where there are 5 or so that have to compete for employees. That way if the guild isn't working for you you can move to a different one or opt out all together.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  I wish I could give this move upvotes. Unions are labor monopolies, so there are a lot of missing positive incentives, while offering incentives for corruption. In the case of the UAW, it puts auto makers at a disadvantage because there's a single labor supplier they all buy from, so the supplier can play the automakers off each other. In the moment labor is currently having, you might argue that giving labor more power than business is good, but it's not; it's toxic to those businesses in the long term. You need balance between business and labor, and competing unions is a good way to solve this.
  - vkou 3y ago
    > Unions are labor monopolies, so there are a lot of missing positive incentives, while offering incentives for corruption My employer has a monopoly on providing me with a paycheck, with tons of incentives for mistreatment and corruption. I'm told that if I dislike this, I should go find another job, or start my own company. Perhaps that could be the solution for someone who doesn't like their current job's union..?
    - dehrmann 3y ago
      > My employer has a monopoly on providing me with a paycheck Unless you're an astronaut or something, no, they don't. Go interview somewhere else. Go drive an uber. There are lots of other places to get a paycheck.
      - vkou 3y ago
        Anyone unhappy with their union could take that same advice.
bwestergard 3y ago
Unions are just groups of organized workers. How much did you invest in making the union democratic and effective for yourself and your peers? The onus is not entirely on you but you do bear some responsibility. That said, I get where you are coming from. It's terrible when a peer gets elected to union office and decides to prioritize their relationship with management over their relationship with the people who elected them. And it's true, some unions in the U.S. have really degenerated after decades of hostility from employers and their political representatives in all branches of government (most notably, the judiciary and National Labor Relations Board). But constructive solution is to get involved in the union, rather than waiting for someone else to bargain a contract that will benefit you. Attend a training, become a steward, volunteer to bargain, consider running for union office. The alternative is to live under the petty tyranny of employers, hopping from job to job in the hope that market conditions for your labor don't deteriorate. If you're organizing a non-union employer, which I have done, you and your peers need to investigate how capable and committed to union democracy the officers are.
- dogman144 3y ago
  > The alternative is to live under the petty tyranny of employers, hopping from job to job I generally understand your point but the reality a union pitch has to provide a better answer for is that job hopping works out pretty well. I went from $28/hr part time to $350k TC, base $200k+ over 5 years of job hops early career and remote LCOL. For one, there’s not a lot of tyranny there and I don’t think a union would have brought me that comp. I know many other similar experiences from individuals who work this route too. For two, I did it via an ethical but transactional relationship with my employers. Unions still work on an old school mentality that a fair long term relationship is worth locking in. I’m aware the music might stop in eng comp at some point, and I’ve planned/risk managed for that too. If all unions can offer tech jobs is banding together and rise up the median conditions for everyone, while as a solo operator I can lock in early retirement, that’s a hard sell. For what it’s worth, I’m quite pro-union for jobs where it makes sense. But there is nothing in your argument that makes sense for a SWE hunting life-changing comp, which is quite doable still. Why put my family at risk to help everyone else go along to get along a bit better than the previous contract, if I can solve our lifetime financial future in a few years?
coding123 3y ago
I think sketch happens in a lot of unions. My father in law was a concrete truck driver in CA. He used to give the union president gifts each year of about ~$1000 or more.
Eumenes 3y ago
[flagged]
Der_Einzige 3y ago
The fact that so few in Silicon Valley have the mentality that "keeping underperformers around means that when layoffs hit, they're first on the chopping block" implies to me that SV engineers are not as smart as they think they are.
- dilyevsky 3y ago
  What are you even on about? it’s super common in sv and tech in general
mc32 3y ago
This is my experience of once being part of a union as well as with working with union folks. If it was that time of day, the thing would be left for the next day, unless you wanted to pay super extra to have someone else come in. Can I just have a non-union guy do this trivial thing? No, that's a humongous violation, no. You will have to wait till Monday, sorry! That said in this case, I hope the NYT goes down. They deserve it. Go union, do your thing that you're so good at.
jedberg 3y ago
> Now possibly part of the problem was that it was not a union for all software engineers but a general union for employees of many different jobs. That was the main problem. There is a reason that the writers and actors have separate unions -- because the have different needs. Heck, even the animation writers have a separate union from the live action writers because they have different needs. I imagine a proper coders union would look a lot like the screenwriters union. Minimum pay and benefits, but without the job protections for underperforms that so many dislike about unions, and the ability for top performers to get incredible pay.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
robswc 3y ago
Yea. Used to work in a warehouse and it was almost a competition to see who could do the least amount of work without getting fired. My manager was partaking in said competition and it lead to me losing my job because she was rarely around and basically caused our shift to become less profitable by encouraging everyone to slack off. This was all during college so not a huge blow but it was a "wtf" moment.
itsoktocry 3y ago
>You paid dues and got nothing but lower wages in return. What exactly did you want in return? The entire purpose is to be a collective with your co-workers. Do assertive, high performers need unionization? No, but that's not the point. >The union would also protect the jobs of under-performing employees which was just demoralizing If the "under-performers" are the people who don't work 50 hours a week and treat their job like a job, I'm all for them being "protected".
silenced_trope 3y ago
Not to mention eventually unions fall to public pressure and "movements", there was a union thread a few weeks ago where I posted this article that stuck with me: > Minneapolis Public Schools defends policy to prioritize retaining educators of color when determining layoffs > Effective in the spring of 2023, the contract provision states that teachers who are members of "populations underrepresented among licensed teachers in the district" may be exempt from district-wide layoffs outside of seniority order, deviating from the traditional "last-in, first-out" system. > The stipulation is a part of a recent collective bargaining agreement between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and MPS, which concluded a weekslong teachers' strike in March. https://abcnews.go.com/US/minneapolis-public-schools-defends-policy-prioritize-retaining-educators/story?id=88491641 https://abcnews.go.com/US/minneapolis-public-schools-defends... If you end up on the wrong side of the movement because you aren't one of the "intersectional" people you could be let go. It's just jarring to me as someone who's mother is a public school teacher and is poor but isn't a woman of color. This union doesn't have all its members backs.

runako 3y ago

> But the experience left me skeptical of unions in this profession. I think something like employees pooling their equity to get representation on the board or something like that might be more effective. This wildly overstates the amount of equity that non-exec employees have at the vast majority of firms. It also ignores that fact that companies are able to issue different classes of stock with differing rights. Further, it overstates the possible influence of a single board member. The Dow Jones board has 14 members; I'm not sure that adding a 15th to represent employees would meaningfully change anything beyond the length of the board meetings.

m348e912 3y ago
>This wildly overstates the amount of equity that non-exec employees have at the vast majority of firms... This is a shitty reply, but only because it's true and depressing.
- clbrmbr 3y ago
  What’s the alternative? How can an employee expect to get paid a salary and own the company?
  - burkaman 3y ago
    Dow Jones has 8000 employees, if they each owned one thousandth of one percent of the company they could pool it all to represent 8%, which is pretty substantial. Maybe I misunderstood your question, but it's extremely common for a person to own equity in a company and earn a salary from that same company.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      Is owning one thousandth of one percent even close to do-able for a median employee, at any company? I get what I consider a generous RSU package from my employer, but I currently own 0.00000011 of, or (if my math doesn't fail me) 1/90,000th of a percent of the company. Truly a minuscule amount.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    > What’s the alternative? How can an employee expect to get paid a salary and own the company? The fact that this question is posed almost like it's an impossibility goes to show how much we've been subtly brainwashed into thinking it's unreasonable. For example, before the private-equity-in-healthcare boom that did nothing but siphon off profits to the Wall Street class, in Texas all doctors groups were physician-owned (I believe they must still be by law, but PE has largely gotten around the bulk of that). It's really a great environment when the people who do the work are also the owners. Most groups, like other professional organizations (e.g. lawyers), hire people on a partnership track, where they become owners after a number of years. There are also employee-owned companies, like Publix supermarkets.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      He is probably thinking about venture capital backed firms or high risk ventures like movies or games, there it you can't have it be worker owned and workers getting paid since there is no revenue until later, worker pay comes from the owners pocket. In a business with stable income it makes perfect sense though, like doctors or consulting firms.
- EGG_CREAM 3y ago
  Here's an alternative: some portion of the board is employee representatives. Meaning, they are elected representatives of the employees, probably should be employees themselves. And how can an employee expect this? By expecting it!
  - runako 3y ago
    The employees would have to form some kind of self-governance group to get the board to make the change to require employee representation. Then, that group would have to decide who are the employee representatives to the board. We call those groups "unions."
  - marssaxman 3y ago
    Sounds like the "codetermination" concept in Germany: for corporations over a certain size, the workers elect some significant fraction of the board of directors.

deweller 3y ago

How were you forced into the union? Was it manipulation or did you literally have to join or face consequences?

readthenotes1 3y ago
In some States, if it's a union shop you have to be in the union. In others, you don't. (https://www.nber.org/digest/202208/impacts-right-work-laws-unionization-and-wages https://www.nber.org/digest/202208/impacts-right-work-laws-u...) New York is highly unionized. I used to know a woman who set up trade shows there and would laugh that they required two different unions to move a desk with a computer on it that she herself could have moved if it were allowed.
- gosub100 3y ago
  [flagged]
- prmoustache 3y ago
  That is not what I read from your link. Your link state that in some states every worker benefits from collective agreements (which are set by bargaining with the unions) regardless the workers are part of the union or not. Despite being mostly pro union I would find it totally baffling that a worker would be forced into a union and I doubt the OP was.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Read the definition of right to work: "the term "right-to-work laws" refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions which require employees who are not union members to contribute to the costs of union representation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law In EU this is already a thing, we see this is as a natural right to workers. In USA this is a hot topic, liberal states have unions forcing you to pay for membership even if you aren't a member.
    - 3y ago

pjc50 3y ago

Did you engage with intra-union politics at all?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

teddyh 3y ago

Sounds like unions should be exposed to market competition; the effects you describe is what happens in a monopoly.

echelon 3y ago
This is interesting, but what would that look like?
- teddyh 3y ago
  I don’t know. Do unions themselves preclude the possibility of people being a member of more than one union?
adam_arthur 3y ago
A union is effectively a monopoly on labor supply. With all the same ramifications that a corporate monopoly has. In some cases union labor can be circumvented (hiring non-union labor), but for some industries/businesses this is not possible on a short timeframe
- teddyh 3y ago
  > A union is effectively a monopoly on labor supply. I can see how you could see it that way, but it’s actually the reverse. A union is actually a force capable of denying labor to an employer. Viewed in this way, there is nothing precluding another union to also withhold the same employees from working. Employees could, theoretically, be members of more than one union. Employers would then have to satisfy the requirements of all extant unions. (I have no idea why this is being downvoted. I can only guess that people think I am implying something again.)
  - adam_arthur 3y ago
    Theoretically if you have many unions competing for work, this would be the case. Practically that's not how it tends to work in the US. In most cases there is one industry wide or company specific union, without competing alternatives.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

I've always disliked the monopolization aspect of unions. I think something like guilds would work much better where there are 5 or so that have to compete for employees. That way if the guild isn't working for you you can move to a different one or opt out all together.

dehrmann 3y ago
I wish I could give this move upvotes. Unions are labor monopolies, so there are a lot of missing positive incentives, while offering incentives for corruption. In the case of the UAW, it puts auto makers at a disadvantage because there's a single labor supplier they all buy from, so the supplier can play the automakers off each other. In the moment labor is currently having, you might argue that giving labor more power than business is good, but it's not; it's toxic to those businesses in the long term. You need balance between business and labor, and competing unions is a good way to solve this.
- vkou 3y ago
  > Unions are labor monopolies, so there are a lot of missing positive incentives, while offering incentives for corruption My employer has a monopoly on providing me with a paycheck, with tons of incentives for mistreatment and corruption. I'm told that if I dislike this, I should go find another job, or start my own company. Perhaps that could be the solution for someone who doesn't like their current job's union..?
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    > My employer has a monopoly on providing me with a paycheck Unless you're an astronaut or something, no, they don't. Go interview somewhere else. Go drive an uber. There are lots of other places to get a paycheck.
    - vkou 3y ago
      Anyone unhappy with their union could take that same advice.

bwestergard 3y ago

Unions are just groups of organized workers. How much did you invest in making the union democratic and effective for yourself and your peers? The onus is not entirely on you but you do bear some responsibility. That said, I get where you are coming from. It's terrible when a peer gets elected to union office and decides to prioritize their relationship with management over their relationship with the people who elected them. And it's true, some unions in the U.S. have really degenerated after decades of hostility from employers and their political representatives in all branches of government (most notably, the judiciary and National Labor Relations Board). But constructive solution is to get involved in the union, rather than waiting for someone else to bargain a contract that will benefit you. Attend a training, become a steward, volunteer to bargain, consider running for union office. The alternative is to live under the petty tyranny of employers, hopping from job to job in the hope that market conditions for your labor don't deteriorate. If you're organizing a non-union employer, which I have done, you and your peers need to investigate how capable and committed to union democracy the officers are.

dogman144 3y ago
> The alternative is to live under the petty tyranny of employers, hopping from job to job I generally understand your point but the reality a union pitch has to provide a better answer for is that job hopping works out pretty well. I went from $28/hr part time to $350k TC, base $200k+ over 5 years of job hops early career and remote LCOL. For one, there’s not a lot of tyranny there and I don’t think a union would have brought me that comp. I know many other similar experiences from individuals who work this route too. For two, I did it via an ethical but transactional relationship with my employers. Unions still work on an old school mentality that a fair long term relationship is worth locking in. I’m aware the music might stop in eng comp at some point, and I’ve planned/risk managed for that too. If all unions can offer tech jobs is banding together and rise up the median conditions for everyone, while as a solo operator I can lock in early retirement, that’s a hard sell. For what it’s worth, I’m quite pro-union for jobs where it makes sense. But there is nothing in your argument that makes sense for a SWE hunting life-changing comp, which is quite doable still. Why put my family at risk to help everyone else go along to get along a bit better than the previous contract, if I can solve our lifetime financial future in a few years?

coding123 3y ago

I think sketch happens in a lot of unions. My father in law was a concrete truck driver in CA. He used to give the union president gifts each year of about ~$1000 or more.

Eumenes 3y ago

[flagged]

Der_Einzige 3y ago

The fact that so few in Silicon Valley have the mentality that "keeping underperformers around means that when layoffs hit, they're first on the chopping block" implies to me that SV engineers are not as smart as they think they are.

dilyevsky 3y ago
What are you even on about? it’s super common in sv and tech in general

mc32 3y ago

This is my experience of once being part of a union as well as with working with union folks. If it was that time of day, the thing would be left for the next day, unless you wanted to pay super extra to have someone else come in. Can I just have a non-union guy do this trivial thing? No, that's a humongous violation, no. You will have to wait till Monday, sorry! That said in this case, I hope the NYT goes down. They deserve it. Go union, do your thing that you're so good at.

jedberg 3y ago

> Now possibly part of the problem was that it was not a union for all software engineers but a general union for employees of many different jobs. That was the main problem. There is a reason that the writers and actors have separate unions -- because the have different needs. Heck, even the animation writers have a separate union from the live action writers because they have different needs. I imagine a proper coders union would look a lot like the screenwriters union. Minimum pay and benefits, but without the job protections for underperforms that so many dislike about unions, and the ability for top performers to get incredible pay.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

robswc 3y ago

Yea. Used to work in a warehouse and it was almost a competition to see who could do the least amount of work without getting fired. My manager was partaking in said competition and it lead to me losing my job because she was rarely around and basically caused our shift to become less profitable by encouraging everyone to slack off. This was all during college so not a huge blow but it was a "wtf" moment.

itsoktocry 3y ago

>You paid dues and got nothing but lower wages in return. What exactly did you want in return? The entire purpose is to be a collective with your co-workers. Do assertive, high performers need unionization? No, but that's not the point. >The union would also protect the jobs of under-performing employees which was just demoralizing If the "under-performers" are the people who don't work 50 hours a week and treat their job like a job, I'm all for them being "protected".

silenced_trope 3y ago

Not to mention eventually unions fall to public pressure and "movements", there was a union thread a few weeks ago where I posted this article that stuck with me: > Minneapolis Public Schools defends policy to prioritize retaining educators of color when determining layoffs > Effective in the spring of 2023, the contract provision states that teachers who are members of "populations underrepresented among licensed teachers in the district" may be exempt from district-wide layoffs outside of seniority order, deviating from the traditional "last-in, first-out" system. > The stipulation is a part of a recent collective bargaining agreement between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and MPS, which concluded a weekslong teachers' strike in March. https://abcnews.go.com/US/minneapolis-public-schools-defends-policy-prioritize-retaining-educators/story?id=88491641 https://abcnews.go.com/US/minneapolis-public-schools-defends... If you end up on the wrong side of the movement because you aren't one of the "intersectional" people you could be let go. It's just jarring to me as someone who's mother is a public school teacher and is poor but isn't a woman of color. This union doesn't have all its members backs.