4 ms·

Have devs at any of the large tech companies ever tried to unionize? If not, why not?

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
Many big tech companies have a software union, but despite substantial efforts invested from CWA none have gotten close to majority support across a whole company. Microsoft has some majority unions in specific segments of their gaming org.
miltonlost 2y ago
Grindr devs did ("large"). Announced intention to unionize in July of 2023. In August 2023, the gay republican CEO then made a RTO requirement to force all of engineering to Chicago, after hiring everyone as remote first for years. But designers and project managers would be forced to move to LA. The union filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB, but that process has dragged for over a year, even after the union successfully won their vote AFTER the purge. Why don't workers unionize? Because management can fire them right away with repurcussions only after years, if that, and even then, the repurcussions aren't to the CEO who broke the law. Breaking labor laws should put executives in prison, but noooo, instead penalties are paid by the company and the CEO's move to another company to do the same illegal shit. The government agencies must move faster if they want to protect workers. Delays only help management, who still get salaries throughout and are never actually punished or face any negative consequences. https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq4y/grindr-unlawfully-purged-staff-at-lgbtq-dating-app-union-says https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq4y/grindr-unlawfully-pur... https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/grindr-workers-united-cwa-one-step-closer-defeating-union-busting-campaign https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/grindr-workers-united-cw...
- miltonlost 2y ago
  Update from today that the NLRB found that a RTO mandate to thwart a union is illegal: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-04/grindr-rto-plan-that-caused-80-terminations-was-illegally-imposed-nlrb-alleges?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczMDc0MTQ3MiwiZXhwIjoxNzMxMzQ2MjcyLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTTUZQNkZUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDQThGQ0Y4NkY1QjY0ODlCODA4ODkwNTFBNjMxRERBRCJ9.jTura-mBfSV_SMOrTsuqbRTdv0XGinUtXoo_9ScQjYo https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-04/grindr-rt...
- Eduard 2y ago
  US-centric
  - biztos 2y ago
    When I worked in tech in Germany, we had no union and my WFH contract explicitly said I could be reassigned to any office at any time. A friend in another industry had this happen: management forced everyone out of Berlin (or you could take a package). He ended up having to move for five days per week.
Manuel_D 2y ago
I think Boeing developers might be part of their engineers union. Tech companies tend not to unionize, because most developers don't see net gain to be had from unionizing. Most unions end up serving the interest of the union instead of the company, and enact things like seniority based pay and promotion. There's just too much incentive to cater towards interest of mediocre employees in a union model. Another big factor in software development is that the jobs are comfortable and pay very well. So lots of people would happily apply to the job. IIRC, it's something like a 40:1 ratio of applicants to offers at big tech companies.
- miltonlost 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    it's not anti union propaganda. The largest union in the United States is the public school teachers union. It has explicitly fought against merit based pay for decades. Other Unions like the electricians unions also sets up seniority base systems. You can proclaim that it's propaganda all you want, but what matters is whether or not it's actually true. I agree that the union has no incentive to look after the benefits of the company, but that's exactly why unions are typically harmful to businesses.
    - miltonlost 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - matrix87 2y ago
      you see "merit based pay", I see corporations incentivizing shitty boundaries if you adjust for hours worked, unionized employees will make more
      - Manuel_D 2y ago
        If one worker is willing to respond to alerts at 3 AM and another only works 9-5, then those two workers are providing different levels of value to the company assuming equal ability. Why shouldn't the worker that contributes more get rewarded? This is why unionized workplaces are > if you adjust for hours worked, unionized employees will make more This is in large part because unions artificially restrict the workforce. A union job at the docks is great... if you can actually get a job. Plenty of unions practice institutionalized nepotism, with friends and family given priority in hiring. Take the LA port union for example: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/02/longshoreman-lottery-results-announced-for-long-beach-la-ports-find-out-if-youre-on-the-list/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/02/longshoreman-lottery-... > This time around, about 80,000 put their names in for the drawing, and 25,000 were picked out and placed in sequential order. The first 2,300 on the list will be eligible for a part-time dockworker position that can lead to full-time employment, PMA officials have previously said. > Negotiated between the ILWU and PMA, the controversial lottery process has been criticized over the years for being a two-tiered system that favors ILWU friends and family. > Anyone can put their name in the drawing by sending in a postcard, but ILWU members get a specially marked postcard for their friends and family. >The two are placed in separate barrels and drawn randomly from alternating piles. The two groups hired an outside party, Moorpark-based InterOptimis, to conduct the drawing behind closed doors, stoking distrust from those outside the process. Institutionalized nepotism to restrict lucrative jobs to friend and family. That's what happens when unions control well paying jobs. Union jobs that actually are accessible are things like public school teachers, electricians, plumbers. They pay okay, but nothing compared to to $150,000 median wage of a longshoremen.
purple_ferret 2y ago
The strength of a union is have a large organization with funds for lawyers and such. Most of those organizations (like the UAW) don't focus on technology positions, so software people are left out in a lurch a bit. NYTimes has savvy, vocal people in it that have someone overcome this.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago
  Or, more accurately, tech positions pay well and have good benefits so rarely benefit from unions.
heraldgeezer 2y ago
I get that this is an american comment. But usually you are focused on each trades. In Sweden we have an "office worker" union. - https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen You can be in finance, hr, it, dev, engineering etc. Because we all want transparency, good salary, protection, 40h work weeks, overtime etc. A union is not going to be involved in specifics like if we use Linux or Microsoft, so why does it need to be tech focused?
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Because software development is a “trade” and like you said most unions are build around trades. “Office worker” is not a trade/profession.
  - heraldgeezer 2y ago
    Just showed it does not have to be based on trade :) Look @ link
- gield 2y ago
  Indeed, I worked at Apple in Spain where the offices and stores are part of general unions. In my office, there were 2 unions present.
MajimasEyepatch 2y ago
Media organizations like the New York Times have had unions for a long time. The Times Tech Guild is part of the New York Times Guild, which is part of the NewsGuild of New York, an umbrella organization for a lot of media unions in New York. There is no tradition of unionization in most tech companies, and tech employees are paid very well and have usually had an easy time moving between companies. If you're unhappy with something, you can probably solve that as an individual without needing collective bargaining. Tech workers at a company that's already unionized would be more likely to unionize in part because their colleagues are unionized, so they look around and say, "Hey, how come I'm not a part of that?" And the unions themselves can evangelize unions and recruit tech workers to unionize, which is good for the union because it gives them more resources and more bargaining partner. It's much harder for a union to come into a non-unionized workplace and start a movement from scratch, especially with a bunch of people who make six figures. There's also a libertarian streak to Silicon Valley and the tech industry more broadly. This makes startup culture vibrant but at the expense of more individualism and less collectivism. It's no coincidence that one of the few areas of tech to have seen a meaningful unionization push in recent years is gaming. Workers in gaming are in much more volatile positions, since it's a hit-driven business with long, expensive development cycles. And there's a constant stream of young, idealistic people who have dreamed of working in games their whole life and are willing to take on terrible working conditions and low pay to live that dream, at least for a while. There's also a lot of roles like art, music, and game design that are hard to parlay into other industries, whereas a software engineer or product manager who works can move between industries with relative ease. So there's an incentive for people in those roles to fix the companies and industries where they are instead of just moving on.
bongodongobob 2y ago
Because there are a half billion people in India ready and willing to take that job.
marcinzm 2y ago
Historically big tech provided amazing compensation and benefits compared to everyone except some finance companies. Why unionize and potentially risk a very good thing? For context, the NY Times does not provide amazing compensation or benefits.
- TylerE 2y ago
  Maybe in the bay area. My experience elsewhere is that both are sliding much more towards white collar norms. As more and more people fall under the “tech” umbrella I expect those trends to accelerate.
  - marcinzm 2y ago
    I said historically and unions do not form overnight. Although even right now outside the Bay Area, the pay from big tech is significantly higher than other software engineer roles.
advisedwang 2y ago
Google workers created a union (Alphabet Workers Union). However for the most part it is a non-contract union (aka solidarity union or minority union) which means that for now it isn't attempting to get a majority vote of the workforce, which is the process to get formal union recognition and start bargaining for a contract. Instead they are pooling resources and using collective action without that. There are a few small units of workers that have run and won elections though (all contractors I think). In the 90s there was also a minority union of field engineers at NCR Corporation. Right now there is a union at blizard.
swed420 2y ago
Bandcamp was a recent one: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bandcamp-union-music-industry/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bandcamp-union-mus...
tibbon 2y ago
ActBlue Technical Services (CWA 1400) unionized and ratified a contract this year.

Many big tech companies have a software union, but despite substantial efforts invested from CWA none have gotten close to majority support across a whole company. Microsoft has some majority unions in specific segments of their gaming org.

miltonlost 2y ago

Grindr devs did ("large"). Announced intention to unionize in July of 2023. In August 2023, the gay republican CEO then made a RTO requirement to force all of engineering to Chicago, after hiring everyone as remote first for years. But designers and project managers would be forced to move to LA. The union filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB, but that process has dragged for over a year, even after the union successfully won their vote AFTER the purge. Why don't workers unionize? Because management can fire them right away with repurcussions only after years, if that, and even then, the repurcussions aren't to the CEO who broke the law. Breaking labor laws should put executives in prison, but noooo, instead penalties are paid by the company and the CEO's move to another company to do the same illegal shit. The government agencies must move faster if they want to protect workers. Delays only help management, who still get salaries throughout and are never actually punished or face any negative consequences. https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq4y/grindr-unlawfully-purged-staff-at-lgbtq-dating-app-union-says https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq4y/grindr-unlawfully-pur... https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/grindr-workers-united-cwa-one-step-closer-defeating-union-busting-campaign https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/grindr-workers-united-cw...

miltonlost 2y ago
Update from today that the NLRB found that a RTO mandate to thwart a union is illegal: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-04/grindr-rto-plan-that-caused-80-terminations-was-illegally-imposed-nlrb-alleges?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczMDc0MTQ3MiwiZXhwIjoxNzMxMzQ2MjcyLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTTUZQNkZUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDQThGQ0Y4NkY1QjY0ODlCODA4ODkwNTFBNjMxRERBRCJ9.jTura-mBfSV_SMOrTsuqbRTdv0XGinUtXoo_9ScQjYo https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-04/grindr-rt...
Eduard 2y ago
US-centric
- biztos 2y ago
  When I worked in tech in Germany, we had no union and my WFH contract explicitly said I could be reassigned to any office at any time. A friend in another industry had this happen: management forced everyone out of Berlin (or you could take a package). He ended up having to move for five days per week.

Manuel_D 2y ago

I think Boeing developers might be part of their engineers union. Tech companies tend not to unionize, because most developers don't see net gain to be had from unionizing. Most unions end up serving the interest of the union instead of the company, and enact things like seniority based pay and promotion. There's just too much incentive to cater towards interest of mediocre employees in a union model. Another big factor in software development is that the jobs are comfortable and pay very well. So lots of people would happily apply to the job. IIRC, it's something like a 40:1 ratio of applicants to offers at big tech companies.

miltonlost 2y ago
[flagged]
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  it's not anti union propaganda. The largest union in the United States is the public school teachers union. It has explicitly fought against merit based pay for decades. Other Unions like the electricians unions also sets up seniority base systems. You can proclaim that it's propaganda all you want, but what matters is whether or not it's actually true. I agree that the union has no incentive to look after the benefits of the company, but that's exactly why unions are typically harmful to businesses.
  - miltonlost 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - matrix87 2y ago
    you see "merit based pay", I see corporations incentivizing shitty boundaries if you adjust for hours worked, unionized employees will make more
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      If one worker is willing to respond to alerts at 3 AM and another only works 9-5, then those two workers are providing different levels of value to the company assuming equal ability. Why shouldn't the worker that contributes more get rewarded? This is why unionized workplaces are > if you adjust for hours worked, unionized employees will make more This is in large part because unions artificially restrict the workforce. A union job at the docks is great... if you can actually get a job. Plenty of unions practice institutionalized nepotism, with friends and family given priority in hiring. Take the LA port union for example: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/02/longshoreman-lottery-results-announced-for-long-beach-la-ports-find-out-if-youre-on-the-list/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/02/longshoreman-lottery-... > This time around, about 80,000 put their names in for the drawing, and 25,000 were picked out and placed in sequential order. The first 2,300 on the list will be eligible for a part-time dockworker position that can lead to full-time employment, PMA officials have previously said. > Negotiated between the ILWU and PMA, the controversial lottery process has been criticized over the years for being a two-tiered system that favors ILWU friends and family. > Anyone can put their name in the drawing by sending in a postcard, but ILWU members get a specially marked postcard for their friends and family. >The two are placed in separate barrels and drawn randomly from alternating piles. The two groups hired an outside party, Moorpark-based InterOptimis, to conduct the drawing behind closed doors, stoking distrust from those outside the process. Institutionalized nepotism to restrict lucrative jobs to friend and family. That's what happens when unions control well paying jobs. Union jobs that actually are accessible are things like public school teachers, electricians, plumbers. They pay okay, but nothing compared to to $150,000 median wage of a longshoremen.

purple_ferret 2y ago

The strength of a union is have a large organization with funds for lawyers and such. Most of those organizations (like the UAW) don't focus on technology positions, so software people are left out in a lurch a bit. NYTimes has savvy, vocal people in it that have someone overcome this.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tourmalinetaco 2y ago
Or, more accurately, tech positions pay well and have good benefits so rarely benefit from unions.

heraldgeezer 2y ago

I get that this is an american comment. But usually you are focused on each trades. In Sweden we have an "office worker" union. - https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen You can be in finance, hr, it, dev, engineering etc. Because we all want transparency, good salary, protection, 40h work weeks, overtime etc. A union is not going to be involved in specifics like if we use Linux or Microsoft, so why does it need to be tech focused?

insane_dreamer 2y ago
Because software development is a “trade” and like you said most unions are build around trades. “Office worker” is not a trade/profession.
- heraldgeezer 2y ago
  Just showed it does not have to be based on trade :) Look @ link
gield 2y ago
Indeed, I worked at Apple in Spain where the offices and stores are part of general unions. In my office, there were 2 unions present.

MajimasEyepatch 2y ago

Media organizations like the New York Times have had unions for a long time. The Times Tech Guild is part of the New York Times Guild, which is part of the NewsGuild of New York, an umbrella organization for a lot of media unions in New York. There is no tradition of unionization in most tech companies, and tech employees are paid very well and have usually had an easy time moving between companies. If you're unhappy with something, you can probably solve that as an individual without needing collective bargaining. Tech workers at a company that's already unionized would be more likely to unionize in part because their colleagues are unionized, so they look around and say, "Hey, how come I'm not a part of that?" And the unions themselves can evangelize unions and recruit tech workers to unionize, which is good for the union because it gives them more resources and more bargaining partner. It's much harder for a union to come into a non-unionized workplace and start a movement from scratch, especially with a bunch of people who make six figures. There's also a libertarian streak to Silicon Valley and the tech industry more broadly. This makes startup culture vibrant but at the expense of more individualism and less collectivism. It's no coincidence that one of the few areas of tech to have seen a meaningful unionization push in recent years is gaming. Workers in gaming are in much more volatile positions, since it's a hit-driven business with long, expensive development cycles. And there's a constant stream of young, idealistic people who have dreamed of working in games their whole life and are willing to take on terrible working conditions and low pay to live that dream, at least for a while. There's also a lot of roles like art, music, and game design that are hard to parlay into other industries, whereas a software engineer or product manager who works can move between industries with relative ease. So there's an incentive for people in those roles to fix the companies and industries where they are instead of just moving on.

bongodongobob 2y ago

Because there are a half billion people in India ready and willing to take that job.

marcinzm 2y ago

Historically big tech provided amazing compensation and benefits compared to everyone except some finance companies. Why unionize and potentially risk a very good thing? For context, the NY Times does not provide amazing compensation or benefits.

TylerE 2y ago
Maybe in the bay area. My experience elsewhere is that both are sliding much more towards white collar norms. As more and more people fall under the “tech” umbrella I expect those trends to accelerate.
- marcinzm 2y ago
  I said historically and unions do not form overnight. Although even right now outside the Bay Area, the pay from big tech is significantly higher than other software engineer roles.

advisedwang 2y ago

Google workers created a union (Alphabet Workers Union). However for the most part it is a non-contract union (aka solidarity union or minority union) which means that for now it isn't attempting to get a majority vote of the workforce, which is the process to get formal union recognition and start bargaining for a contract. Instead they are pooling resources and using collective action without that. There are a few small units of workers that have run and won elections though (all contractors I think). In the 90s there was also a minority union of field engineers at NCR Corporation. Right now there is a union at blizard.

swed420 2y ago

Bandcamp was a recent one: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bandcamp-union-music-industry/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bandcamp-union-mus...

tibbon 2y ago

ActBlue Technical Services (CWA 1400) unionized and ratified a contract this year.