4 ms·

I think people may be a little worried that a union may be the first step towards regulating an industry.

ryandvm 13y ago
I think the bigger issue is that many see unions as institutionalized mediocrity. I've been in union factories where guys literally sleep at their machines after they've hit their quota. I've watched inferior employees linger at jobs for years simply because making a case for firing them is more trouble than it's worth. People in our industry tend to be self-reliant autodidacts. I suspect this is because the information technology landscape changes so rapidly that the traits are required to be successful. A lot of us therefore appreciate the meritocracy of tech. We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority. The last thing we want is to have "tenured" engineers that don't contribute and can't be fired.
- arethuza 13y ago
  Maybe it's because I'm from the UK but when I think of unions and industry I think of two things: - How bad the situation was with the unions in the UK in the 1970s - How good the situation is in Germany where unions there have a lot of power and seem to use it constructively e.g. I just found this Forbes article: "How Germany Builds Twice As Many Cars As The U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice As Much": http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/german...
- mattgreenrocks 13y ago
  > self-reliant autodidacts What happens when your self-reliance fails you? > meritocracy of tech This is a pleasant lie we tell ourselves. Even open source (which is 100% unpaid labor) is not meritocratic. Witness how quickly employers clamor for credentials. > We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority This is only half true. You generally don't get a massive raise by being a much better developer. You do get to the developer salary ceiling faster than others, of course. But the fact that there is a ceiling (despite the immense value a good dev can generate) is troubling. Casting aspersions about experience (in the guise of seniority) is also troubling. Perhaps the primary reason there's no collective action for developers is that a substantial number of developers are still in their twenties, and lack the perspective + career experience to realize what it could do for them. They're still mentally invincible, striving for the next big thing, and they don't want anyone's help.
  - slavik81 13y ago
    > Even open source (which is 100% unpaid labor) Actually, work on major projects is typically paid labour. For example, if you look at the Qt project, only about 10% of contributions come from individuals. Most of the other 90% of contributions come from people with employers paying for the work. http://www.macieira.org/blog/qt-stats/ http://www.macieira.org/blog/qt-stats/
- acdha 13y ago
  Many unions made a huge strategic mistake in tying themselves to the defense of every member accused of an offense, which hurts their reputation every time it turns out that the allegations were true — particularly since there's a well-funded, concerted effort to widely publicize anything bad as representative of all members. I wonder how much different it'd be if unions had vocally insisted on what's basically due process – support and representation, making sure policies are consistently followed, etc. — but weren't afraid to distance themselves from isolated bad actors.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    Defending their members is the role of a union. Your post makes about as much sense as somebody accusing lawyers of making a huge strategic mistake in agreeing to defend people accused of murder who really do turn out to have committed murder.
    - acdha 13y ago
      You missed the point: there's a difference between demanding that evidence be produced, critically examining it, etc. and saying that someone is completely blameless and being railroaded by management. Both are defending your member but the difference between ensuring that the system works fairly and unqualified partisan support is that the former case allows you to distance yourself from someone who actually has committed an offense. This is particularly important for public sector unions where there's often a highly sympathetic third party involved and the union needs to avoid losing public support. Consider the case of a teacher accused of abusing a student – if the union says “we want the legal process to be followed completely and fairly" that will be remembered very differently than “our member is being railroaded by hostile management” if the evidence shows that they did in fact commit the crime. Lawyers are a special case — they do have something of a bad reputation because of this but most adults understand that this is how the system is supposed to work and don't assume that, say, a criminal defense lawyer personally approves of murder. Unions haven't managed to establish that distinction, in part because a lot of well-monied interests have made a priority of portraying every individual incident as representative of all union members.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  I think the bigger issue is that many see unions as institutionalized mediocrity. Correct. I don't agree with that perception as an inerrant truth, but that is the perception. A lot of us therefore appreciate the meritocracy of tech. No such thing. If you believe tech is a meritocracy, then I have 5,000 Clinkle shares to sell you. We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority. What about the Screen Actors Guild? Or the Writers Guild? They've managed to keep top performers well-paid and the quality of work more than acceptable. The last thing we want is to have "tenured" engineers that don't contribute and can't be fired. You don't need a union for that. In business, they're usually called "architects". One of the arguments I've always made in the basic income debate is that, even if it creates a parasite class at the bottom of society, it's still better than the current arrangement, wherein the need to work (without fair representation) presses wages down and favors capital immensely and creates a class of parasites at the top of society. Analogously, I'd rather have an arrangement that protects engineers against management and might generate a few checked-out, lazy, useless engineers who are paid to do nothing, than have the current arrangement in which there is no protection and the parasites (instead of passively drawing a salary but not bothering anyone) actively interfere with us and our work, by virtue of often being more politically powerful.
oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
What are the downsides of regulation? Who would impose that regulation?
- avz 13y ago
  Example downsides of regulation: - compliance costs and higher barrier to entry which skew the game away from small startups and freelancers and towards large companies with sizable legal departments, - higher incentives for lobbying since there is more to gain from it in highly regulated environment, - reduced predictability of business environment due to the danger of unanticipated regulatory changes, - costs imposed by enforcement due to increased number of hours spent filling forms, undergoing inspections and arguing your case in the courts.
  - avz 13y ago
    Pure curiosity: why the downvote? Did I forget an important downside or have I incorrectly included something that is an upside? Note that I'm not arguing any political point here, just answered a simple question.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      Implying that there could possibly be some upside to regulation is likely to annoy quite a few people. Personally I thought it was a reasonable question, even if I can't actually think of any upsides to regulation in this area, so I upvoted you.

I think the bigger issue is that many see unions as institutionalized mediocrity. I've been in union factories where guys literally sleep at their machines after they've hit their quota. I've watched inferior employees linger at jobs for years simply because making a case for firing them is more trouble than it's worth. People in our industry tend to be self-reliant autodidacts. I suspect this is because the information technology landscape changes so rapidly that the traits are required to be successful. A lot of us therefore appreciate the meritocracy of tech. We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority. The last thing we want is to have "tenured" engineers that don't contribute and can't be fired.

arethuza 13y ago
Maybe it's because I'm from the UK but when I think of unions and industry I think of two things: - How bad the situation was with the unions in the UK in the 1970s - How good the situation is in Germany where unions there have a lot of power and seem to use it constructively e.g. I just found this Forbes article: "How Germany Builds Twice As Many Cars As The U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice As Much": http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/german...
mattgreenrocks 13y ago
> self-reliant autodidacts What happens when your self-reliance fails you? > meritocracy of tech This is a pleasant lie we tell ourselves. Even open source (which is 100% unpaid labor) is not meritocratic. Witness how quickly employers clamor for credentials. > We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority This is only half true. You generally don't get a massive raise by being a much better developer. You do get to the developer salary ceiling faster than others, of course. But the fact that there is a ceiling (despite the immense value a good dev can generate) is troubling. Casting aspersions about experience (in the guise of seniority) is also troubling. Perhaps the primary reason there's no collective action for developers is that a substantial number of developers are still in their twenties, and lack the perspective + career experience to realize what it could do for them. They're still mentally invincible, striving for the next big thing, and they don't want anyone's help.
- slavik81 13y ago
  > Even open source (which is 100% unpaid labor) Actually, work on major projects is typically paid labour. For example, if you look at the Qt project, only about 10% of contributions come from individuals. Most of the other 90% of contributions come from people with employers paying for the work. http://www.macieira.org/blog/qt-stats/ http://www.macieira.org/blog/qt-stats/
acdha 13y ago
Many unions made a huge strategic mistake in tying themselves to the defense of every member accused of an offense, which hurts their reputation every time it turns out that the allegations were true — particularly since there's a well-funded, concerted effort to widely publicize anything bad as representative of all members. I wonder how much different it'd be if unions had vocally insisted on what's basically due process – support and representation, making sure policies are consistently followed, etc. — but weren't afraid to distance themselves from isolated bad actors.
- anon1385 13y ago
  Defending their members is the role of a union. Your post makes about as much sense as somebody accusing lawyers of making a huge strategic mistake in agreeing to defend people accused of murder who really do turn out to have committed murder.
  - acdha 13y ago
    You missed the point: there's a difference between demanding that evidence be produced, critically examining it, etc. and saying that someone is completely blameless and being railroaded by management. Both are defending your member but the difference between ensuring that the system works fairly and unqualified partisan support is that the former case allows you to distance yourself from someone who actually has committed an offense. This is particularly important for public sector unions where there's often a highly sympathetic third party involved and the union needs to avoid losing public support. Consider the case of a teacher accused of abusing a student – if the union says “we want the legal process to be followed completely and fairly" that will be remembered very differently than “our member is being railroaded by hostile management” if the evidence shows that they did in fact commit the crime. Lawyers are a special case — they do have something of a bad reputation because of this but most adults understand that this is how the system is supposed to work and don't assume that, say, a criminal defense lawyer personally approves of murder. Unions haven't managed to establish that distinction, in part because a lot of well-monied interests have made a priority of portraying every individual incident as representative of all union members.
michaelochurch 13y ago
I think the bigger issue is that many see unions as institutionalized mediocrity. Correct. I don't agree with that perception as an inerrant truth, but that is the perception. A lot of us therefore appreciate the meritocracy of tech. No such thing. If you believe tech is a meritocracy, then I have 5,000 Clinkle shares to sell you. We like the fact that better skills mean higher pay, regardless of seniority. What about the Screen Actors Guild? Or the Writers Guild? They've managed to keep top performers well-paid and the quality of work more than acceptable. The last thing we want is to have "tenured" engineers that don't contribute and can't be fired. You don't need a union for that. In business, they're usually called "architects". One of the arguments I've always made in the basic income debate is that, even if it creates a parasite class at the bottom of society, it's still better than the current arrangement, wherein the need to work (without fair representation) presses wages down and favors capital immensely and creates a class of parasites at the top of society. Analogously, I'd rather have an arrangement that protects engineers against management and might generate a few checked-out, lazy, useless engineers who are paid to do nothing, than have the current arrangement in which there is no protection and the parasites (instead of passively drawing a salary but not bothering anyone) actively interfere with us and our work, by virtue of often being more politically powerful.

oneeyedpigeon 13y ago

What are the downsides of regulation? Who would impose that regulation?

avz 13y ago
Example downsides of regulation: - compliance costs and higher barrier to entry which skew the game away from small startups and freelancers and towards large companies with sizable legal departments, - higher incentives for lobbying since there is more to gain from it in highly regulated environment, - reduced predictability of business environment due to the danger of unanticipated regulatory changes, - costs imposed by enforcement due to increased number of hours spent filling forms, undergoing inspections and arguing your case in the courts.
- avz 13y ago
  Pure curiosity: why the downvote? Did I forget an important downside or have I incorrectly included something that is an upside? Note that I'm not arguing any political point here, just answered a simple question.
  - arethuza 13y ago
    Implying that there could possibly be some upside to regulation is likely to annoy quite a few people. Personally I thought it was a reasonable question, even if I can't actually think of any upsides to regulation in this area, so I upvoted you.