4 ms·

All the more reason to have a union.

wahnfrieden 2y ago
These employers are certainly coordinating on wages, RTO policy, etc. They do it via third party compensation research firms. It's suspicious that people downvote your suggestion that workers also coordinate.
- _oai_amil 2y ago
  It is suspicious only if you ignore the fact that YC exists to support the interests of capital, not labor.
- olliej 2y ago
  I don’t think the anti-union is suspicious: HN has a super libertarian bent and libertarians hate unions because .. reasons?
  - wahnfrieden 2y ago
    libertarians are highly sus on the face of it, it sounds like a flavor of anarchism, along that spectrum and with some similar appealing points. but then there comes all this state and state police stuff, and endless domination and role based subjugation in a variety of legalized ways that rely on state violence to preserve. I can't understand the coherency so the results are suspicious (also, unions are not the only way for labor to organize. there are lots of ways to do this.)
- dgellow 2y ago
  Just in case people don’t take that claim seriously: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jobs-settlement-20150903-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jo...
  - wahnfrieden 2y ago
    This stuff is in plain daylight. It's not hard to see it from inside the companies that people here work at. I think most people just don't connect the dots or something, since execs and HR certainly don't do that for them in how they talk about it and why. I'm talking about the legal ways it happens, too. It's not only some "isolated cases of bad actors" as some put it.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Qualified yes. Unions are one leg to ensure fair treatment of workers in the long-term, but are ultimately a half-measure to address the perpetual conflict with unreasonable adversaries, e.g., corporate owners. What is needed for knowledge workers like SWEs, SREs, etc. is to band together as worker-owned co-ops to ensure the stability of morale and products/services, vigilant ethics and excellence in products/services, and fairness in profit sharing based on a thoughtful characterization of and measurement of total performance. It should look something like: hiring should be slow, retention should be longer-than-average, morale should be excellent (inc. devoid of toxic negativity and toxic positivity), and the burden of leadership undertaken by preselection coupled with sortition and a governance body comprised of representative workers.
tonoto 2y ago
No.
- stuff4ben 2y ago
  Yes
  - tonoto 2y ago
    I don't know about you, but I've been working in three workplaces where union had the power - no more. From my experience, the union staff consists of people that work in their own interest and who don't really have any interest at all to do work related tasks. They may have a role in factories, but not in the tech areas where us, users of Hacker News, belong.

These employers are certainly coordinating on wages, RTO policy, etc. They do it via third party compensation research firms. It's suspicious that people downvote your suggestion that workers also coordinate.

_oai_amil 2y ago
It is suspicious only if you ignore the fact that YC exists to support the interests of capital, not labor.
olliej 2y ago
I don’t think the anti-union is suspicious: HN has a super libertarian bent and libertarians hate unions because .. reasons?
- wahnfrieden 2y ago
  libertarians are highly sus on the face of it, it sounds like a flavor of anarchism, along that spectrum and with some similar appealing points. but then there comes all this state and state police stuff, and endless domination and role based subjugation in a variety of legalized ways that rely on state violence to preserve. I can't understand the coherency so the results are suspicious (also, unions are not the only way for labor to organize. there are lots of ways to do this.)
dgellow 2y ago
Just in case people don’t take that claim seriously: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jobs-settlement-20150903-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jo...
- wahnfrieden 2y ago
  This stuff is in plain daylight. It's not hard to see it from inside the companies that people here work at. I think most people just don't connect the dots or something, since execs and HR certainly don't do that for them in how they talk about it and why. I'm talking about the legal ways it happens, too. It's not only some "isolated cases of bad actors" as some put it.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

Qualified yes. Unions are one leg to ensure fair treatment of workers in the long-term, but are ultimately a half-measure to address the perpetual conflict with unreasonable adversaries, e.g., corporate owners. What is needed for knowledge workers like SWEs, SREs, etc. is to band together as worker-owned co-ops to ensure the stability of morale and products/services, vigilant ethics and excellence in products/services, and fairness in profit sharing based on a thoughtful characterization of and measurement of total performance. It should look something like: hiring should be slow, retention should be longer-than-average, morale should be excellent (inc. devoid of toxic negativity and toxic positivity), and the burden of leadership undertaken by preselection coupled with sortition and a governance body comprised of representative workers.

tonoto 2y ago

No.

stuff4ben 2y ago
Yes
- tonoto 2y ago
  I don't know about you, but I've been working in three workplaces where union had the power - no more. From my experience, the union staff consists of people that work in their own interest and who don't really have any interest at all to do work related tasks. They may have a role in factories, but not in the tech areas where us, users of Hacker News, belong.