Comment by mjevans

Comment by mjevans 16 hours ago

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Another solution might be UNIONS that would have __membership verification__ including things like citizenship (which country(ies) are they a citizen of?), skills tests and training, etc.

Just like competition requires 5+ similarly sized entities for a healthy marketplace of companies, my informal opinion is that unions probably similarly shouldn't have overwhelming market share. However my feeling on contracts between unions and corporations is that the contract should be negotiated between multiple companies and multiple unions to produce the most level playing field possible.

jacob_a_dev 16 hours ago

At least in the US,

I like that software engineering doesnt require/encourage unions, contrary to other big industries.

As unions mature they protect the employment of their members, not prospective members who are unemployed applying for jobs.

One great thing about being a dev in the US, u dont need a degree, learn a lot, can apply and get a great job.

Ive previpusly been in a union for a company and the experience did not encourage a competitive working environment. When layoffs came, Jr employees get sacked before more senior union members (not neccesarily the best technical staff just becuase they worked there long time).

I have family/friends in unions (non software devs) that have had similar experiences to mine.

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  • vitaflo 11 hours ago

    Devs are the factory workers of today. You’re going to be sorry in 10 years when AI is fully mature and all the cheap talent overseas takes every US dev job just like it did to factory workers in the 90s and there’s no unions to even attempt to slow it.

    Reply View 3 replies
    • codedokode 10 hours ago

      And in an unlikely case that there were a union, US would lose competition to China and the union will be involuntarily disbanded.

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    • hackable_sand 10 hours ago

      Factory workers are the factory workers of today.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • const_cast 2 hours ago

        I believe what they mean is that software devs are the lowest of the low of the totem pole for making software. We, manually, put together the software. We're the lowest level part of the chain. In that way, we're the factory workers of software.

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  • giantg2 15 hours ago

    "One great thing about being a dev in the US, u dont need a degree, learn a lot, can apply and get a great job."

    And on the other side, you can have a degree and experience and still not get a job due to the wild criteria and games that get played in various interviews.

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  • Henchman21 15 hours ago

    You trot out all the familiar retorts. None of this is a reason to not organize to better represent the interests of labor.

    Reply View 6 replies
    • appreciatorBus 11 hours ago

      A retort being familiar does not mean it isn't true or real.

      Millions upon millions of ppl at every income level have experienced working in and around unions and not all of them came away with a positive experience.

      Reply View 4 replies
      • antonvs 10 hours ago

        You can say the same thing about democratic governments, or capitalism, etc. etc.

        By itself that's not a meaningful observation.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • nothrabannosir 9 hours ago

          It didn’t come by itself, it came in the wake of a comment that outlined a process whereby unions have a negative effect on new applicants in the job market.

          The disagreement then was “I’ve heard that argument before.” - “ok that doesn’t make it wrong” <— that last sentence is what you’re replying to.

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      • fzeroracer 7 hours ago

        Do these same criticisms also apply to corporations? I've worked for some absolutely shitty corps that have abused and taken advantage of their labor. Should we abolish corporations?

        These criticisms of unions are always pulled out but then never equally applied to corporations.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • vanviegen an hour ago

          Corporations are providing people with jobs and clients with value (or they go out of business).

          Unions, especially failing ones, don't inherently provide any net benefit to society. They may as well be engaged in little more than self-preservation and zero-sum games.

          Therefore, I believe unions deserve a different type of scrutiny than corporations.

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    • fsckboy 10 hours ago

      >None of this is a reason to not organize to better represent the interests of labor.

      unions restrict the supply of labor and this results in (price increase) better wages for the union's members. However, overall the total dollar amount transferred from employers to labor goes down (employment decrease), so the "class" of all workers (employed and unemployed) see their per capita wages go down. and if that's not enough, the industry grows more slowly so the problem only gets worse for everyone in the future (trickle down) this is the underlying reason for europe's lower year over year economic growth compared to the US

      is the reason. it's not a moral or ethical or even income distribution issue, it's just how markets operate.

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  • MangoToupe 15 hours ago

    I've been working in the tech industry for about twenty years now, and I desperately want unions. Sticking your neck out alone sucks to begin with and only sucks harder the more time goes forward.

    Reply View 2 replies
    • vanviegen an hour ago

      Why unions? Why not just more protective labor laws? Why bet on some political organisation to protect you, instead of being able to take your employer to court yourself?

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    • lc9er 10 hours ago

      Same. Back when I first got into IT, I was surrounded by (similar) nerds whose self-esteem was defined by being the smartest person in the room. Compensation was often higher than other white-collar jobs, so they (we) were happy to overlook the long hours and non or poorly compensated on-call shifts.

      Most IT work now, whether dev or admin side, is not rocket science. It’s mostly approachable work and no one should settle for being abused by employers for some outdated, ingrained, cultural baggage.

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  • acdha 13 hours ago

    > As unions mature they protect the employment of their members, not prospective members who are unemployed applying for jobs.

    This is true in the same way that it’s true that all democracies turn into the majority oppressing everyone else, or get captured by oligarchs, or vote to raise taxes to fund social until the economy collapses, etc. – which is to say not at all. Unions CAN fail that way but it’s not a given. We shouldn’t give up on a useful tool because it can be failed, we should talk about how to keep it healthy.

    For example, I’ve seen the no-degree route you talk about made easier by unions because it forced merit hiring rather than hiring more dudes with social ties from certain colleges. Again, that’s not guaranteed – you’d be forgiven for wondering if the Teamsters were a deep cover operation to discredit the concept of unions – but social institutions aren’t magic: they work to the extent that we make them work.

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Aurornis 3 hours ago

These people are using stolen identities of real people in many cases.

Or they’re applying as international remote workers, where you wouldn’t expect them to be members of your country’s union anyway.

Widespread union membership with verifications wouldn’t solve anything.

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Melatonic 5 hours ago

Exactly - it's too bad certain rich assholes back in the day squashed the unions forming for software devs and VFX workers

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Spooky23 6 hours ago

That’s not how unions work.

They are fine, but struggle with remote work in general because fundamentally the leverage the union has is a monopoly on labor, which is compromised by a global labor force.

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billy99k 10 hours ago

Why add more gatekeepers to the industry? It also doesn't really make sense for an IT worker to want to negotiate as a collective when individual salary and benefits are some of the best in the world.

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