9 ms·

Collective bargaining rights was developed to counter exactly this power imbalance with minimum government involvement. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any progr

by wyuenho 14y ago

Collective bargaining rights was developed to counter exactly this power imbalance with minimum government involvement. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any programmer unions.

mistercow 14y ago
What's odd to me is that in many cases people who purport to be "pro free market" are also anti-union. As far as I can see, unions are the free market.
- pretoriusB 14y ago
  Well, "pro free market" is usually (and silently) taken to mean "whatever benefit me as an employeer and screw the workers". As in: "if I want to have people working 20 hours per day, with no overtime for less than minimum wage, I should be FREE to do so, and people are FREE not to work for me". That's the kind of "FREE" the free market stands for usually. Of course, when all employers follow the same idea, or when people are desperate to find any work to survive (e.g because of a lack of jobs in their city), the latter point about "choice" becomes moot.
  - lostlogin 14y ago
    A fellow cynic! I see FREE MARKET and straight away re-read the paragraph to see who is getting screwed. I'm rarely disappointed.
    - ansgri 14y ago
      As kylebrown noted the distinction between 'free from' and 'free to', your interpretation suggests that the free market is the freedom to screw everyone you could manage to. I like this description, but the question is: is it net negative for people / production / indvidual? -- a fellow cynic.
  - kylebrown 14y ago
    This train of thought leads to the philosophy of freedom: positive freedom (free to) and negative freedom (free from). I think the best way to think about freedom is not as a binary relationship (X is free from/to Y), but as a ternary relationship (X is free from Y to Z).
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  I've thought that too. The difference seems to be that in general, an entire workforce in a company is either 'union' or 'non-union'. In places I've worked in that had unions, you didn't have a choice as to whether you wanted to join or not - you want the job, you join the union. At the macro-level, perhaps 'the market' for labor has said "union", but the choice is not there for the individual to join or not. I took at job in a grocery store where the union was on strike - the only reason I didn't have to join the union was because they were striking and I was working directly for the corporate HQ. Pay wasn't bad, though I suspect they were having to pay more to get us scabs to come in through the picket lines :) I'd prefer union places where you could elect to join the union or not. If they actually lobbied for better conditions for union members, and got those, there'd be more incentive to join - you'd be making the union mgrs work for their jobs, essentially.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    I guess the problem here is that from a purely selfish point of view it is better to not join the union (thus saving dues money) and let other people pay the union to negotiate on your behalf. Perhaps it would be possible for an employer to offer separate union and non-union contracts with different pay rates (employers can already sort of do this by outsourcing) but the issue here is that not all union issues are about contracts. For example , a union might negotiate for a factory to provide extra safety measures at the employers cost. All employees union or not would get the advantages provided by this unless the employer provided separate more dangerous machines for the non union workers to use.
  - georgefox 14y ago
    The concept you're talking about is the so-called "right-to-work law" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law). The problem seems to be exactly what jiggy mentions: it's much cheaper not to join the union, and you still enjoy at least some of the benefits of the collective bargaining. The reality seems to be that right-to-work states have weaker unions, lower pay, and lousier benefits than non-right-to-work states. Whether this is directly related to right-to-work laws or not is not entirely clear, but there's no evidence to suggest that right-to-work actually makes unions stronger or better for their members. In terms of "making the union managers work for their jobs," is that really a problem right now? I haven't often heard arguments suggesting unions are just collecting dues and doing nothing. Generally the only anti-union argument I've heard is that unions are too powerful and their members have overly generous compensation.
- gabemart 14y ago
  While it's not a position I hold myself, I imagine such people would argue that unions are not the free market because of the legal protections and privileges they enjoy. I'm no expert, but I know that in at least some jurisdictions a union-endorsed strike carries protections against worker dismissal.
  - dalke 14y ago
    It's odd for you to point out one of the legal protections unions have without also pointing out the things they are prohibited from doing, such as sympathy strikes, mass picketing, and (in some states) the ability to require a union shop. And the law gives company owners protection against personal liability, and taxes companies different from personal income, while it also prohibits employers from having an unsafe workplace, child labor, and practicing various types of discrimination. We are far from a free market. I agree with the earlier poster - I think a free market enthusiast should also want unions.
    - georgefox 14y ago
      There's also a fair number of union workers who are not allowed to strike at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_action#In_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_action#In_the_United_Sta....
    - gabemart 14y ago
      I don't necessarily disagree with the argument that a free market enthusiast should desire unions. I disagree that a free market enthusiast should desire unions in their current form, which we both agree is far from a free market. In other words, I don't think it's unreasonable to say "Device X would be desirable in ideal situation Y, but as the current situation is far from ideal, device X currently does more harm than good". And again, I don't necessarily personally believe that to be true of unions.
    - yummyfajitas 14y ago
      A union: some sellers of labor merge into a single legal entity, and it becomes illegal for some purchasers of labor to buy from alternate suppliers. To translate to another field: Apple and MS merge, and now consumers can't use Linux. Laws enforcing a requirement to purchase from a cartel are about as far from a free market as you can get. Saying free market supporters should favor unionization is like saying free market supporters should oppose net neutrality. In a free market, net neutrality is certainly something to oppose, but in the world we live in it's necessary to counteract the government granted duopoly held by Verizon/Cable.
- dbecker 14y ago
  Most people claiming to be "pro free market" still oppose cartels. A cartel is the banding together of multiple companies or parties in an agreement to work together to raise prices. A union is a cartel. I don't mean that in as a normative statement. Unions may still be worth having, even if they are a cartel in that they workers band together to raise what they charge for their labor. But, that is the logic by which many "free market" advocates oppose unions.
- wmil 14y ago
  Unions in the US always have specific views that employees often don't share. Everything is about retirement, preservation of existing employees, and supporting other unions. The problem is that most tech workers want incompetent workers fired, since they make other workers lives more difficult. The field also moves fast enough that credentialization is not particularly helpful. In fact, it can be harmful. Unions would call for rules like "10% of new projects must be in COBOL" to help older workers that don't want to re-train. German style unions aren't as opposed to guaranteeing worker performance, I'm not really sure why. That might fly, but keeping it German style would be difficult. The other option is something along the lines of the WGA/SAG. But individual developers are treated well enough that that isn't seen as worthwhile. Also there are the problems unions have with corrupt elections and organized crime. My point is that unions are a mixed bag, and for many tech workers they're a bad deal.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Meeeehhhhh... I'd join a tech union that allowed me to participate in bargaining over working conditions and benefits. I've seen a surprising number of companies (coughAmazoncough) that pay very high base salaries and nice bonuses but completely crap out on health insurance, pension/retirement account, vacation time, work hours, etc.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      What is wrong with employment benefits at Amazon, and besides the 'work hard'. ethic?
      - jrockway 14y ago
        Only two weeks of vacation, no free food, etc.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    Sure, but my point is that a die hard free market advocate should either disagree with what you just said, or swallow that hard pill and say that the problems with unions are just a necessary evil. Instead, many seem to be vehemently anti-union while still holding to a "the free market will solve everything" point of view. I'm not saying that unions are perfect. I'm saying that it's inconsistent to admit that they can be problematic while still holding that the free market is the ideal.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Unions have very little to do with free markets, and they typically do not actually benefit everyone in labor (they benefit some folks who are already in the union). Because of the way our labor laws work unions, in the instances where they are prevalent, tend to end up being a monopoly on labor for a given industry. This creates distortions in the market just as great as monopolies of capital. Also, unions tend to erode meritocratic systems of compensation and advancement and replace them with systems based on seniority and union membership, which tends to disadvantage the business, customers, and most workers except those few at the top of the seniority ladder.
  - pyre 14y ago
    > unions tend to erode meritocratic systems of > compensation and advancement If such meritocratic systems exist, the awards are only dependent on the merits of your corporate politicking skills.
    - InclinedPlane 14y ago
      Let's say you are a tech worker in silicon valley. Your wages and the sorts of jobs you have access to are dependent on the sorts of companies in existence, their needs, and your skillset. If you have a highly sought after skillset then you will be courted by multiple companies who will try to woo you with jobs that you find desirable and competitive compensation packages. Let's say instead you are a dock worker in long beach. In that case your compensation and career opportunities are far more dependent on your union membership and seniority. Certainly playing corporate politics can also have an effect, depending on the company, but that's also true in union shops as well.
      - cdcarter 14y ago
        Very few unions have a mandatory favored nations policy. If you were significantly better at dock workering, such that a company sought you out, they can easily pay you more. That being said, many union labor positions don't have a wild variety of skillsets. They often do need protection.
- philwelch 14y ago
  Unions are actually cartels.

by wyuenho 14y ago

Collective bargaining rights was developed to counter exactly this power imbalance with minimum government involvement. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any programmer unions.

mistercow 14y ago

What's odd to me is that in many cases people who purport to be "pro free market" are also anti-union. As far as I can see, unions are the free market.

pretoriusB 14y ago
Well, "pro free market" is usually (and silently) taken to mean "whatever benefit me as an employeer and screw the workers". As in: "if I want to have people working 20 hours per day, with no overtime for less than minimum wage, I should be FREE to do so, and people are FREE not to work for me". That's the kind of "FREE" the free market stands for usually. Of course, when all employers follow the same idea, or when people are desperate to find any work to survive (e.g because of a lack of jobs in their city), the latter point about "choice" becomes moot.
- lostlogin 14y ago
  A fellow cynic! I see FREE MARKET and straight away re-read the paragraph to see who is getting screwed. I'm rarely disappointed.
  - ansgri 14y ago
    As kylebrown noted the distinction between 'free from' and 'free to', your interpretation suggests that the free market is the freedom to screw everyone you could manage to. I like this description, but the question is: is it net negative for people / production / indvidual? -- a fellow cynic.
- kylebrown 14y ago
  This train of thought leads to the philosophy of freedom: positive freedom (free to) and negative freedom (free from). I think the best way to think about freedom is not as a binary relationship (X is free from/to Y), but as a ternary relationship (X is free from Y to Z).
mgkimsal 14y ago
I've thought that too. The difference seems to be that in general, an entire workforce in a company is either 'union' or 'non-union'. In places I've worked in that had unions, you didn't have a choice as to whether you wanted to join or not - you want the job, you join the union. At the macro-level, perhaps 'the market' for labor has said "union", but the choice is not there for the individual to join or not. I took at job in a grocery store where the union was on strike - the only reason I didn't have to join the union was because they were striking and I was working directly for the corporate HQ. Pay wasn't bad, though I suspect they were having to pay more to get us scabs to come in through the picket lines :) I'd prefer union places where you could elect to join the union or not. If they actually lobbied for better conditions for union members, and got those, there'd be more incentive to join - you'd be making the union mgrs work for their jobs, essentially.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I guess the problem here is that from a purely selfish point of view it is better to not join the union (thus saving dues money) and let other people pay the union to negotiate on your behalf. Perhaps it would be possible for an employer to offer separate union and non-union contracts with different pay rates (employers can already sort of do this by outsourcing) but the issue here is that not all union issues are about contracts. For example , a union might negotiate for a factory to provide extra safety measures at the employers cost. All employees union or not would get the advantages provided by this unless the employer provided separate more dangerous machines for the non union workers to use.
- georgefox 14y ago
  The concept you're talking about is the so-called "right-to-work law" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law). The problem seems to be exactly what jiggy mentions: it's much cheaper not to join the union, and you still enjoy at least some of the benefits of the collective bargaining. The reality seems to be that right-to-work states have weaker unions, lower pay, and lousier benefits than non-right-to-work states. Whether this is directly related to right-to-work laws or not is not entirely clear, but there's no evidence to suggest that right-to-work actually makes unions stronger or better for their members. In terms of "making the union managers work for their jobs," is that really a problem right now? I haven't often heard arguments suggesting unions are just collecting dues and doing nothing. Generally the only anti-union argument I've heard is that unions are too powerful and their members have overly generous compensation.
gabemart 14y ago
While it's not a position I hold myself, I imagine such people would argue that unions are not the free market because of the legal protections and privileges they enjoy. I'm no expert, but I know that in at least some jurisdictions a union-endorsed strike carries protections against worker dismissal.
- dalke 14y ago
  It's odd for you to point out one of the legal protections unions have without also pointing out the things they are prohibited from doing, such as sympathy strikes, mass picketing, and (in some states) the ability to require a union shop. And the law gives company owners protection against personal liability, and taxes companies different from personal income, while it also prohibits employers from having an unsafe workplace, child labor, and practicing various types of discrimination. We are far from a free market. I agree with the earlier poster - I think a free market enthusiast should also want unions.
  - georgefox 14y ago
    There's also a fair number of union workers who are not allowed to strike at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_action#In_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_action#In_the_United_Sta....
  - gabemart 14y ago
    I don't necessarily disagree with the argument that a free market enthusiast should desire unions. I disagree that a free market enthusiast should desire unions in their current form, which we both agree is far from a free market. In other words, I don't think it's unreasonable to say "Device X would be desirable in ideal situation Y, but as the current situation is far from ideal, device X currently does more harm than good". And again, I don't necessarily personally believe that to be true of unions.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    A union: some sellers of labor merge into a single legal entity, and it becomes illegal for some purchasers of labor to buy from alternate suppliers. To translate to another field: Apple and MS merge, and now consumers can't use Linux. Laws enforcing a requirement to purchase from a cartel are about as far from a free market as you can get. Saying free market supporters should favor unionization is like saying free market supporters should oppose net neutrality. In a free market, net neutrality is certainly something to oppose, but in the world we live in it's necessary to counteract the government granted duopoly held by Verizon/Cable.
dbecker 14y ago
Most people claiming to be "pro free market" still oppose cartels. A cartel is the banding together of multiple companies or parties in an agreement to work together to raise prices. A union is a cartel. I don't mean that in as a normative statement. Unions may still be worth having, even if they are a cartel in that they workers band together to raise what they charge for their labor. But, that is the logic by which many "free market" advocates oppose unions.
wmil 14y ago
Unions in the US always have specific views that employees often don't share. Everything is about retirement, preservation of existing employees, and supporting other unions. The problem is that most tech workers want incompetent workers fired, since they make other workers lives more difficult. The field also moves fast enough that credentialization is not particularly helpful. In fact, it can be harmful. Unions would call for rules like "10% of new projects must be in COBOL" to help older workers that don't want to re-train. German style unions aren't as opposed to guaranteeing worker performance, I'm not really sure why. That might fly, but keeping it German style would be difficult. The other option is something along the lines of the WGA/SAG. But individual developers are treated well enough that that isn't seen as worthwhile. Also there are the problems unions have with corrupt elections and organized crime. My point is that unions are a mixed bag, and for many tech workers they're a bad deal.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Meeeehhhhh... I'd join a tech union that allowed me to participate in bargaining over working conditions and benefits. I've seen a surprising number of companies (coughAmazoncough) that pay very high base salaries and nice bonuses but completely crap out on health insurance, pension/retirement account, vacation time, work hours, etc.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    What is wrong with employment benefits at Amazon, and besides the 'work hard'. ethic?
    - jrockway 14y ago
      Only two weeks of vacation, no free food, etc.
- mistercow 14y ago
  Sure, but my point is that a die hard free market advocate should either disagree with what you just said, or swallow that hard pill and say that the problems with unions are just a necessary evil. Instead, many seem to be vehemently anti-union while still holding to a "the free market will solve everything" point of view. I'm not saying that unions are perfect. I'm saying that it's inconsistent to admit that they can be problematic while still holding that the free market is the ideal.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Unions have very little to do with free markets, and they typically do not actually benefit everyone in labor (they benefit some folks who are already in the union). Because of the way our labor laws work unions, in the instances where they are prevalent, tend to end up being a monopoly on labor for a given industry. This creates distortions in the market just as great as monopolies of capital. Also, unions tend to erode meritocratic systems of compensation and advancement and replace them with systems based on seniority and union membership, which tends to disadvantage the business, customers, and most workers except those few at the top of the seniority ladder.
- pyre 14y ago
  > unions tend to erode meritocratic systems of > compensation and advancement If such meritocratic systems exist, the awards are only dependent on the merits of your corporate politicking skills.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    Let's say you are a tech worker in silicon valley. Your wages and the sorts of jobs you have access to are dependent on the sorts of companies in existence, their needs, and your skillset. If you have a highly sought after skillset then you will be courted by multiple companies who will try to woo you with jobs that you find desirable and competitive compensation packages. Let's say instead you are a dock worker in long beach. In that case your compensation and career opportunities are far more dependent on your union membership and seniority. Certainly playing corporate politics can also have an effect, depending on the company, but that's also true in union shops as well.
    - cdcarter 14y ago
      Very few unions have a mandatory favored nations policy. If you were significantly better at dock workering, such that a company sought you out, they can easily pay you more. That being said, many union labor positions don't have a wild variety of skillsets. They often do need protection.
philwelch 14y ago
Unions are actually cartels.