Can we just unionize against _this one topic_ and not the other baggage that unions bring?
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Nope. I'd much rather unionize for better wages, better conditions (that includes this topic), collective bargaining, and to wrench some of the power back to the people doing the actual work. Not every software developer is making six figures working for FAANG, some of them have to put up with some awful conditions, and the whole "just get another job, it's not that difficult" attitude is a bubble that a lot of HN lives in.
In short, I want democracy to extend to the workplace. The line we've drawn is artificial and one-sided.
The problem people have with unions is that many of them elevate the lower performers by pushing down the higher performers. The higher performers have leverage already without a union. Of course this only works when there are more positions open that benefit from high performers than there is supply of high performing workers. Many tech workers believe this will be the case for some time to come.
What would work better is if a union could allow for varying wages based on skill set. The problem here is demonstrating that skill, as often times it is difficult to objectively measure.
Many unions do exactly that. Every movie star in the US is represented by SAG-AFTRA, which is the same union that represents B-list infomercial actors. The union helps the stars negotiate multi-million dollar contracts, and the same union ensures actors you've never heard of are compensated and treated fairly. Same thing with professional athletes and their unions.
White collar unions usually negotiate a floor that individuals can up-negotiate from. Not only can you negotiate for better compensation, unions will happily represent you and help you get what you're asking for.
"many". No. Very few (in the USA) in fact act in that way. And a union for white collar workers would most certainly not.
A union for white collar workers would be closer to UAW or AFLCIO and would most certainly have fixed compensation packages
You understand unions are democratic, right? You can vote out the leaders if you disagree how they manage it.
Now of course, if you are in the minority, and still feel slighted (and under-appreciated), there is always an option to start your own business with like-minded people.
I do understand that. And it is one of the reason I do not support them. I am an individual, I support individualism not Majoritarianism
Direct democracy normally end badly because simple Majoritarianism is bad
This is way in most democratic nations the will of the majority is balanced by other means or controls.
OK.. You might as well be a solipsist.
Why do we even have the discussion, then? If you don't want to participate in society, just don't. It's not clear to me why I would support you being an individualist (and adopt any of your political positions), when (according to your philosophy) I get nothing back in turn.
You’re leaving out the part where those who come to control the union also import their personal politics/agendas, bully others into silence, and abuse their position far more than company management. Look at any major union like the NEA - the leaders and their acolytes are weaponizing the power intended for collective bargaining to push ideological agendas and propagandize children at schools. Meanwhile they barely do their actual job and resist all accountability. So why is the authoritarian control of unions preferable to that of company management that just advances the company’s financials and leaves the rest out of it?
Regarding developers - you seem to be ignoring that most software developers outside of FAANG are just not very good at their job. They have to put up with conditions in part because of their low value and replaceability, but certainly no one is forcing them into one industry over another. Therefore they must see the compensation as a fair trade if they are choosing to remain in the industry. Given the lower quality of work, I also wonder why you think they’re doing the “actual work” and not their management or other job functions at the company.
It is people like you that drive high earners away from unions. Single issue unionization is a lot more important for upper middle class. If you cannot get enough high income workers to buy-in, then your plan is dead on arrival. Bernie will be proud.
Not everyone cares about the social justice issue du jour, most people just want more money. Ultimately, any union plan must show clear benefits and right now if you are earning more than 6 figures, unions are nothing but a waste of time and money. You have yet to demonstrate that an upper class union can go beyond crabs in a bucket gatekeeping.
> Single issue unionization is a lot more important for upper middle class.
It's just not particularly valuable.
Unions aren't democracy, though. They're seniority.
If you start at a company, it'll be harder to rise through the ranks.
And if you start a company, you'll be forced to go through union processes to remove bad fits.
Our industry and compensation as they exist today don't need the baggage. If Europe and emerging markets put price pressure on our jobs, then maybe we can reevaluate. As it stands, we don't even need pensions when we can FIRE in under a decade on existing comp arrangements.
There isn't one single type of union with one set of rules. Do Hollywood actors get paid by seniority?
Just when I was going to chime in that IATSE had seniority rules [1], I found that SAG-AFTRA does too!
[1] https://iatse99.org/job-referral-rules/
[2] https://www.opeiu537.org/Portals/local537/cbas/.SAG-AFTRA%20...
You can't escape it.
I think you'll find that unions are defined as democratic organizations of workers and so they will be whatever you and your colleagues want them to be. There is also a legal framework established to keep labor peace, but you don't have to be peaceful (in the sense of not resisting) if you don't want to.
Something that gets lost in the US is that the Union is made up of members. Many Americans appear to have the idea that the Union is the HR department for the employees. As a result, members often stop attending meetings, advocating for policies, etc. The unions devolve into a corrupt body because the lax democratic oversight allows a populist leader to provide just enough bread and circus to member while lining his or her own pocket.
The problem union advocates in America have is whenever things don't go their way, they immediately resort to calling the workers idiots. The workers aren't idiots. When they perceive that unions aren't listening to them, it's usually because that's true. The union corruption and contempt for workers is the cause, not the consequence, of workers giving up on unions.
lol what do you think the bosses do when things don't go their way?
But union heads are elected by union members, aka workers. If the latter consider the former to be corrupt, they have the power to change that.
Voting in a union like the teamsters might as well be pissing into the wind. The ability of any individual worker to change the way things work is academic at best, particularly in the big unions.
Practically speaking, the most choice a worker has is to vote against the union in their shop, since their shop is much smaller than the union itself. Suppose you've got a shop with a hundred workers, and a union representing a million workers wants you to join. In the initial vote of whether or not to join, each worker has a hundredth of the decision making power. After they join, each worker only has one millionth of the decision making power. The only meaningful choice is whether or not to join that union; after you join you're going along for the ride with no real input into it.
> I think you'll find that unions are... whatever you and your colleagues want them to be
This is not a realistic model at all. The kind of people who tend to accumulate power in unions, especially more white collar unions, do not tend to be the same kind of person or have the same personal or political goals as the people they nominally represent.
Fledgeling tech unions in particular seem terrible here; I don't get the sense that they represent my interests as a tech worker at all, but rather that they come with a ton of political baggage and they only want my membership as a pretense for demanding random crap that I don't care about and doesn't benefit me.
For example, the (unpopular) Alphabet Union "aims to stop Google from allowing its social media platforms such as YouTube to function as a hub for right-wing extremism and white supremacy". It has nothing to do with improving the material working conditions of union members.
I used to be my company's union rep when I worked in Norway. I had zero need to fight for anything my coworkers did not want. Actually, I was very happy to do nothing until my coworkers complained and asked me to talk to management.
Not all unions are the same, if you think those others are bad you can make your own.
Unionization in the US is very different than in Norway.
Anti-Union bias in the US is well founded and rational due to the terrible union laws we have, combined with the terrible track record of US unions
> Not all unions are the same
Which is why I very specifically called out tech unions. Plenty of unions seem to be doing the thing I said unions should do (attempt to improve the material working conditions of their members).
I suspect that you and I disagree on the politics, but it sounds to me that the unions haven't found the right issue yet that is broadly appealing enough. This issue of surveillance might be one.
My non-political normative belief is that unions should represent the interests of their members in their capacity as an employee working under the union.
Stopping employers from spying on employees would definitely fall under this description. Again, I just haven't seen any tech unionization efforts in the US that legitimately seem to care about workers instead of using them as a pretense to accumulate power towards some other end.
Well, I do agree they should represent their members' interests. I will aver that fighting alongside your fellow workers builds class consciousness and progressive values, but that's up to you and your colleagues.
Countries with high union participation rates have not seen nearly the divergence between wage growth and productivity growth over time that the US has. There's tons of data on this. Unions are good, union participation is good.
This statistic isn't enough to say whether unions are good or bad, even if you assume there's causation. How do you know they don't do that by slowing down productivity growth, rather than by speeding up wage growth?