5 ms·

That is why software engineers also need unions. (but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand)

by int_19h 9mo ago

futuraperdita 9mo ago
> but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand This is learned helplessness. It's not going to get better for software engineers anytime soon, I'm afraid. The time to organize is like planting a tree: the best time is 20 years ago, and the second best time is now. Especially if you're an early-career SWE, you seem to have little to lose anyhow.
- thedevilslawyer 9mo ago
  There's no unions for H1B workers. If there's any union stepping up for their interest, it would find mass enrollment tomorrow. Unfortunately, there isn't support by non-h1b engineers, let alone unions.
  - Arch-TK 9mo ago
    Not everywhere is in America you know... And non-H1B workers are probably precisely the kinds of workers that should be the ones rocking the boat.
    - nine_k 9mo ago
      Rocking the boat so much as to get fired, fail to find another employer before the visa expires, and be sent back home? A terrifying perspective for many.
      - futuraperdita 9mo ago
        Just to clarify that the parent may have edited, but wrote "non-H1B" workers, so they would be speaking about domestic / citizen employees, not ones on visa.
  - KittenInABox 9mo ago
    I am a non-h1b engineer and I declare it is in my best interest to advocate for h1-b engineers. Otherwise management would simply calculate why would they hire me and treat me well when they can hire a more desperate h1b holder and treat them like trash.
    - readthenotes1 9mo ago
      Have you looked at who brought in the most H1B workers recently?
      - jenadine 9mo ago
        Who?
bpt3 9mo ago
If there was a union in place, the massive over hiring that led to this wouldn't have happened and the competent developers would have made less money. So how exactly does everyone come out ahead there?
- close04 9mo ago
  Despite the downvotes, this is at least partially correct. If unions were ubiquitous in the tech sector, companies would have been a lot more stingy with the hiring during ZIRP or boom eras. Or they would have been more creative with the hiring form - contractors, temporary staff, etc. None of these companies would risk locking in so many employees knowing that they'll be very expensive or impossible to fire. I don't know about how a union would affect the standard salary being offered. I'd say that it could be higher for those essential enough to be "core staff", those that the company hires permanently knowing they'll be hard to get rid of and who drive the company forward because they're motivated with additional means. So a union might drive the salaries and employment conditions up for the "core" team, while driving them down for the "temps". I've been through this as a unionized tech worker in both categories, and this is how it played out.
groundzeros2015 9mo ago
What will the union do? This is a boom and bust industry by nature. Projects finish or cancel, and work winds down. You can always be laid off. Seven years of plenty, seven years of famine.
xienze 9mo ago
Unions are only going to be effective in a domain where the job can’t be done just as well by someone on the other side of the planet. Think plumbers, electricians, etc. The fact that the work has to be done “here and now” is the leverage those workers have. A software engineer’s union would just kick whatever offshoring is happening into overdrive.
- joe_mamba 9mo ago
  Yep this. I think i've lost count of home many US and German companies keep moving their SW positions to my home country because US labor is too expensive and German workers rights and unions too annoying for business. Where I live now in Austria, there's some union of IT workers, but it's small and toothless because they know their work can be offshored and have no leverage especially that the country is already not attractive to investors as-is due to high costs, high taxes and regulations. IT workers giving themselves even more benefits and protections through unions, like the rail workers have for example, would just mean non critical IT work leaves the country ASAP to neighboring Hungary or Slovakia or something. In a globalized free market without trade and regulatory barriers, where the products and the "labor" travels freely over a wire with no borders or tariffs, the best value players win all, and everyone else is stuck in a race to the bottom trying to match that even if their operating costs are higher due to regulations, taxes, etc Unions only worked in jobs where the workers could collectively use the leverage they had all along against their employer but were too afraid to use due to retaliation, but unions can't fix real world economic and trade facts that make your leverage zero to begin with. See the VFX industry for best example.
  - bojan 9mo ago
    If offshoring were that easy, American and European companies would have been doing it already, as it's a great deal on paper, why wouldn't the companies jump at the opportunity to get engineers for 30% of the cost? However, the experienced reality repeatedly doesn't live up to the promise.
    - joe_mamba 9mo ago
4er_transform 9mo ago
[flagged]
- selfawareMammal 9mo ago
  You're entirely relying on a false dichotomy and an unsupported causal chain, assuming (without evidence!) that unions inherently reduce efficiency, slow growth, and lower living standards. The fact is that there's evidence that unions can correct power imbalances, raise wages, reduce inequality, and even support long-term productivity and social stability
  - roenxi 9mo ago
    > The fact is that there's evidence that unions can correct power imbalances, raise wages, reduce inequality, and even support long-term productivity and social stability I suppose there was a time when American manufacturing had a big power/equality/productivity and social stability imbalance over Chinese manufacturing and the US unions did play a role in correcting that and promoting Chinese wealth and power. So in principle I agree. I'm just less sure that AWS employees are going to benefit from doing the same thing in software.
  - 4er_transform 9mo ago
    Unions are everywhere and always a market distortion. Using political power to pull wealth into your union that would otherwise spread to the rest of society via competition (in labor and capital markets) is bad. The only good unions are the ones that serve geopolitical interests of states that are positive for humanity. A steel workers union is subsidized by the rest of society, but if it keeps steel production in the US, making the US more formidable and able to project humanity-advancing policy, then it is good. Unions freeze market forces, which raises wages, but those raised wages come directly from other parts of the economy and do so inefficiently (cost more than a dollar elsewhere to increase the wages by a dollar). This is because it distorts comparative advantages. Inequality can be reduced by unions, but only in short term. By freezing market forces in this pocket you are creating inefficiencies, which come at a cost over time (like competitive and bad actors becoming dominant). Wages and inequality was better in the 1950s/60s US despite of unions. The US was 50% of the global economy, had dollar dominance, just about the only industrial base intact, a skilled workforce with a clear competitive advantage. These are what made wages high and inequality low. Take the long-term perspective and center humanity rather than picking winners and losers. Unions are an emotionally charged topic because labor groups reap power from them and business groups lose power from them. This is noise. We should make decisions like this based on what serves humanity’s long term interests, and unions (and business cartels/lobbies) hold humanity back.
augusto-moura 9mo ago
Not sure about other countries, but there were a few trys in creating unions for software engineers in Brazil, where I live. They all failed for lack of interest from the engineers themselves. Aside from that, you need to contribute with money for something that will not get you anything in the short term. Also the lack of transparency incentives corruption
- wat10000 9mo ago
  Why does there have to be a lack of transparency?
  - augusto-moura 9mo ago
    I'm not saying it has to, I'm saying what happened in Brazil
beanjuiceII 9mo ago
software engineers definitely don't need unions
- ewuhic 9mo ago
  said the devil himself
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
jonehiskey1 9mo ago
but unions are one of the many reasons why it is cheaper just to hire in India instead of the US

That is why software engineers also need unions. (but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand)

by int_19h 9mo ago

That is why software engineers also need unions. (but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand)

> but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand This is learned helplessness. It's not going to get better for software engineers anytime soon, I'm afraid. The time to organize is like planting a tree: the best time is 20 years ago, and the second best time is now. Especially if you're an early-career SWE, you seem to have little to lose anyhow.

thedevilslawyer 9mo ago
There's no unions for H1B workers. If there's any union stepping up for their interest, it would find mass enrollment tomorrow. Unfortunately, there isn't support by non-h1b engineers, let alone unions.
- Arch-TK 9mo ago
  Not everywhere is in America you know... And non-H1B workers are probably precisely the kinds of workers that should be the ones rocking the boat.
  - nine_k 9mo ago
    Rocking the boat so much as to get fired, fail to find another employer before the visa expires, and be sent back home? A terrifying perspective for many.
    - futuraperdita 9mo ago
      Just to clarify that the parent may have edited, but wrote "non-H1B" workers, so they would be speaking about domestic / citizen employees, not ones on visa.
- KittenInABox 9mo ago
  I am a non-h1b engineer and I declare it is in my best interest to advocate for h1-b engineers. Otherwise management would simply calculate why would they hire me and treat me well when they can hire a more desperate h1b holder and treat them like trash.
  - readthenotes1 9mo ago
    Have you looked at who brought in the most H1B workers recently?
    - jenadine 9mo ago
      Who?

bpt3 9mo ago

If there was a union in place, the massive over hiring that led to this wouldn't have happened and the competent developers would have made less money. So how exactly does everyone come out ahead there?

close04 9mo ago
Despite the downvotes, this is at least partially correct. If unions were ubiquitous in the tech sector, companies would have been a lot more stingy with the hiring during ZIRP or boom eras. Or they would have been more creative with the hiring form - contractors, temporary staff, etc. None of these companies would risk locking in so many employees knowing that they'll be very expensive or impossible to fire. I don't know about how a union would affect the standard salary being offered. I'd say that it could be higher for those essential enough to be "core staff", those that the company hires permanently knowing they'll be hard to get rid of and who drive the company forward because they're motivated with additional means. So a union might drive the salaries and employment conditions up for the "core" team, while driving them down for the "temps". I've been through this as a unionized tech worker in both categories, and this is how it played out.

groundzeros2015 9mo ago

What will the union do? This is a boom and bust industry by nature. Projects finish or cancel, and work winds down. You can always be laid off. Seven years of plenty, seven years of famine.

xienze 9mo ago

Unions are only going to be effective in a domain where the job can’t be done just as well by someone on the other side of the planet. Think plumbers, electricians, etc. The fact that the work has to be done “here and now” is the leverage those workers have. A software engineer’s union would just kick whatever offshoring is happening into overdrive.

joe_mamba 9mo ago
Yep this. I think i've lost count of home many US and German companies keep moving their SW positions to my home country because US labor is too expensive and German workers rights and unions too annoying for business. Where I live now in Austria, there's some union of IT workers, but it's small and toothless because they know their work can be offshored and have no leverage especially that the country is already not attractive to investors as-is due to high costs, high taxes and regulations. IT workers giving themselves even more benefits and protections through unions, like the rail workers have for example, would just mean non critical IT work leaves the country ASAP to neighboring Hungary or Slovakia or something. In a globalized free market without trade and regulatory barriers, where the products and the "labor" travels freely over a wire with no borders or tariffs, the best value players win all, and everyone else is stuck in a race to the bottom trying to match that even if their operating costs are higher due to regulations, taxes, etc Unions only worked in jobs where the workers could collectively use the leverage they had all along against their employer but were too afraid to use due to retaliation, but unions can't fix real world economic and trade facts that make your leverage zero to begin with. See the VFX industry for best example.
- bojan 9mo ago
  If offshoring were that easy, American and European companies would have been doing it already, as it's a great deal on paper, why wouldn't the companies jump at the opportunity to get engineers for 30% of the cost? However, the experienced reality repeatedly doesn't live up to the promise.
  - joe_mamba 9mo ago

4er_transform 9mo ago

[flagged]

selfawareMammal 9mo ago
You're entirely relying on a false dichotomy and an unsupported causal chain, assuming (without evidence!) that unions inherently reduce efficiency, slow growth, and lower living standards. The fact is that there's evidence that unions can correct power imbalances, raise wages, reduce inequality, and even support long-term productivity and social stability
- roenxi 9mo ago
  > The fact is that there's evidence that unions can correct power imbalances, raise wages, reduce inequality, and even support long-term productivity and social stability I suppose there was a time when American manufacturing had a big power/equality/productivity and social stability imbalance over Chinese manufacturing and the US unions did play a role in correcting that and promoting Chinese wealth and power. So in principle I agree. I'm just less sure that AWS employees are going to benefit from doing the same thing in software.
- 4er_transform 9mo ago
  Unions are everywhere and always a market distortion. Using political power to pull wealth into your union that would otherwise spread to the rest of society via competition (in labor and capital markets) is bad. The only good unions are the ones that serve geopolitical interests of states that are positive for humanity. A steel workers union is subsidized by the rest of society, but if it keeps steel production in the US, making the US more formidable and able to project humanity-advancing policy, then it is good. Unions freeze market forces, which raises wages, but those raised wages come directly from other parts of the economy and do so inefficiently (cost more than a dollar elsewhere to increase the wages by a dollar). This is because it distorts comparative advantages. Inequality can be reduced by unions, but only in short term. By freezing market forces in this pocket you are creating inefficiencies, which come at a cost over time (like competitive and bad actors becoming dominant). Wages and inequality was better in the 1950s/60s US despite of unions. The US was 50% of the global economy, had dollar dominance, just about the only industrial base intact, a skilled workforce with a clear competitive advantage. These are what made wages high and inequality low. Take the long-term perspective and center humanity rather than picking winners and losers. Unions are an emotionally charged topic because labor groups reap power from them and business groups lose power from them. This is noise. We should make decisions like this based on what serves humanity’s long term interests, and unions (and business cartels/lobbies) hold humanity back.

augusto-moura 9mo ago

Not sure about other countries, but there were a few trys in creating unions for software engineers in Brazil, where I live. They all failed for lack of interest from the engineers themselves. Aside from that, you need to contribute with money for something that will not get you anything in the short term. Also the lack of transparency incentives corruption

wat10000 9mo ago
Why does there have to be a lack of transparency?
- augusto-moura 9mo ago
  I'm not saying it has to, I'm saying what happened in Brazil

beanjuiceII 9mo ago

software engineers definitely don't need unions

ewuhic 9mo ago
said the devil himself

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

jonehiskey1 9mo ago

but unions are one of the many reasons why it is cheaper just to hire in India instead of the US