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Have there been successful general-software unions formed before? I see and hear this idea relatively frequently, but never past that. I sort of feel like mos
by terminalbraid 2y ago
Have there been successful general-software unions formed before? I see and hear this idea relatively frequently, but never past that.
I sort of feel like most people don't stay at a place long enough to get cohesion or see enough they don't want to stay in the first place, good people chase better job offers (and congratulate themselves for doing it on their own), less good may stick around longer because they can't move but also are more focused to just stay employed.
Software is also a broad industry in terms of the type of deliverable work (e.g. think buy-once software vs. SaaS vs. in-house industrial controls), skillsets, and environment. It's also hard for me to even conceive of what a typical fast-moving startup would look like full union. Lines between ownership and management and labor can get very blurred.
Is the best hope to look at things like the entertainment industry which are also extremely fluid, but have been very successful? Do we need a long-term period of dev salaries coming closer to median pay (which we might be entering now)? Do we need to better address the ageism monster?
The games industry recently made some real headway [1], which I applaud. Maybe focusing on smaller sectors is the right approach.
[1] https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/industry-wide-union-uvw-cwa-has-already-welcomed-over-100-new-members https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/industry-wide-union...
- whstl 2y agoI have been part of quite successful unions in Germany and Latin America. Even participated on a strike once.
- stygiansonic 2y agoThe article mentions this union, not sure if it meets your definition of success: https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/our-wins https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/our-wins
- shagie 2y agoElseforum, I've debated this. I consider it to be more of an inside company lobbying group than a union. In particular, they have no ability to collectively bargain for a contract. None of their wins are things that have been able to be put into a contract. Furthermore, some of the issues they've brought up have been things that are... not contractural and rather political. For example https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/press/ceasefire-demand https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/press/ceasefire-demand ... while it is ok for an organization to have opinions, things that are not about the contract that the worker has with the company gets into... well... political issues and that can hinder the ability for the group to get a majority representation and be able to do the things with contracts.
- dubrocks 2y agoAll that union managed to do is get various Google contractors fired for unionizing.
- Muromec 2y agoI work in a union shop and I admit that it doesn't seem to have all the problems I have with the big tech. People seem to care and have passion, but don't pretend to work 80 hours a week, some of them at least. Some of them are decades older then me. Nobody is ever fired, but it somehow pays well above the median pay, but not comparable to the big tech.
- rockemsockem 2y agoWhere is this myth about 80 hour weeks at big tech coming from? Is it all Amazon folks assuming it's the same everywhere else?
- Muromec 2y agoI don't take the 80 hours thingy at face value, I take it as something people bullshit one another about. I would not even buy 16 hours working week at face value. Nobody does that much actual software making day in day out for years.
- VirusNewbie 2y ago>Nobody is ever fired, but it somehow pays well above the median pay, but not comparable to the big tech. So why would good people want to join this union when they could have a better life elsewhere?
- Muromec 2y agoYou can think of it as buying yourself more free time to do things other that dealing with computers. One of the things in the union contract is literally the ability to buy yourself another month of vacation in addition to those twenty something days you get by default. It makes even more sense if you take having children into account. I want to play dark souls with my son more than I want to deal with some css, form validation or api integration bullshit. Once he grows up, I will never have this moment back.