> I think a lot of it is that in-demand, well paid workers don't have patience for the BS work rules that unions are notorious for. It might be unfair characterization, but "you can't change/test that code, that's role X", and other such bureaucracy can be really draining.
Some existing blue-collar unions have work rules like that, but I think it's a fallacy that a tech worker union would necessarily work exactly the same. To say so would be like condemning (say) Apple (as a business) by using examples from Radio Shack.
I think the main reasons for tech workers historical opposition to unions was:
1. Tech workers had rare, in-demand skills which gave them market power not enjoyed by most workers who have unionized. This is by far the biggest reason.
2. The influence of narratives different genres of free market propaganda. I think the concept of a impersonal self-regulating free market has a special intellectual appeal to the kind of people who like to design technical systems, and a lot of the mass-market works that espouse it are written for the benefit of the capitalists that benefit most acutely from that system. This is a secondary reason, but makes the first reason far more effective.
3. The influence of startup culture, which (temporarily!) creates jobs that blend worker and capitalist. Relatively few people find themselves in these kinds of roles, but they've gotten enormous amounts of publicity relative to other tech jobs.
Yes, people always assume that only one type of union exists, and that it can only really work for low-skill interchangeable workers. That this belief is so widespread is actually a testament to the effectiveness of anti-union messaging...
However, not all unions operate on that model. One major example: the Screen Actors Guild
> According to SAG's Mission Statement, the Guild sought to: negotiate and enforce collective bargaining agreements that establish equitable levels of compensation, benefits, and working conditions for its performers; collect compensation for exploitation of recorded performances by its members, and provide protection against unauthorized use of those performances; and preserve and expand work opportunities for its members. (Wikipedia [0])
Actors have a lot of freedom to do what they want... For example: they can work on a big budget movie and make millions, or they can take the minimal fee and do a small low-budget artsy film. They can also write/direct/produce the movies that they act in. The guild's contracts just require that they be treated and compensated certain ways (both up front + residuals) for their acting roles.
I don't find the SAG a convincing example, personally.
Reasonable people might debate what should and shouldn't be a union's responsibilities and powers - would we want closed shops to exist? what about job demarcation rules? should the union set rules around hiring, firing and promotions? - but everyone could agree a union should make sure you don't have to have sex with the producer to get a role.
And yet, the Me Too movement reveals this abhorrent behaviour has gone unchecked for years? Obviously, the blame lies with the perpetrators of the crimes - but it was a damn big oversight by the SAG.
Doesn't it also prevent them from using their real names in their work if anyone already has that name? And don't you have to pay $3k to join + 1.85% of your income (for the majority of actors who make less than $200,000 per year - special rules help the members who make lots of money from having to pay too much)?
Plus you can't work on whatever you want - you are only allowed to work with producers that have an active agreement with the SAG (Global Rule One).
Yeah, but so what? Don't most organization have rules designed to allow them to function as an organization or solve specific problems they encounter? It's not like an Apple employee can freely blog about the unreleased product they're working on or simultaneously work with Samsung on a competing product.
Yeah. And the SAG rules aren't unreasonable IMO. But a union is not replacing the existing rules of your workplace, it's a second group of people who can add rules.
> Yeah. And the SAG rules aren't unreasonable IMO. But a union is not replacing the existing rules of your workplace, it's a second group of people who can add rules.
Yes and no.
1) Rules aren't interchangeable, undifferentiated things. An employer's rules are meant to mostly benefit the employer. Rules a union adds would be to mostly benefit its members.
2) A union can get employer workplace rules changed in its negotiations, if its members objected to them and they have enough negotiating power.
3) That "second group of people" could possible include you as a union member, and if it doesn't, it's a group you would have far more influence over than company management.
You can take the same rules about hollywood union rules forcing lighting technicians and camera crew to have roles, even though the big expensive and hot lights they used to safeguard are long since gone. Last year corridor crew did a video where niko broke down how much money he could save by moving to LED lights and cutting the mandatory crew requirement and run small films at affordable prices.
Everybody thinks they're the actor in the hollywood comparison, and they're not. They're more likely the tech guy holding an outdated lamp under union rules.
> You can take the same rules about hollywood union rules forcing lighting technicians and camera crew to have roles, even though the big expensive and hot lights they used to safeguard are long since gone.
I don't know. That reasoning sounds a bit like saying you don't need software engineers anymore because your application runs on a microcomputer, not a mainframe. I'm sure there's more to a lighting technician's role than "hold lights because they're hot."
> Last year corridor crew did a video where niko broke down how much money he could save by moving to LED lights and cutting the mandatory crew requirement and run small films at affordable prices.
Bosses don't like unions, and if you take the perspective of a boss, you probably won't like them either. What else is new?
> Everybody thinks they're the actor in the hollywood comparison, and they're not. They're more likely the tech guy holding an outdated lamp under union rules.
It beats getting dumped onto the street and pivoting suddenly into burger flipping. The point of unions is to protect its workers, not minimize employer costs. If a job is becoming truly obsolete, then the union could force the employer to retrain their workers (like what happened in this video: https://vimeo.com/127605643) or buy time for a more gradual transition.
Heck, if workers trusted they weren't going to get screwed by labor saving technology, they might not resist it as much.
It was once a useful role and now is not. Sure people can retrain and reapply for jobs, do we need unions for that?
Saying bosses dont like unions therefore dismissal of discussion is missing the point.
My view is too much of unionizing is underpinned by coveting other people's success and wanting to feel good after being burned.
The pareto principle and distribution of wealth isn't going to change, some unions are going to be paid off for how much discontent is felt. Which has some virtue, and not enough virtue.
> Sure people can retrain and reapply for jobs, do we need unions for that?
Because they could make it easier for those workers. It's not like the business that laid them off is going to do a good job of that, if it's not compelled to, and retraining can be expensive and perhaps unaffordably so for someone who just lost their job.
>>> Last year corridor crew did a video where niko broke down how much money he could save by moving to LED lights and cutting the mandatory crew requirement and run small films at affordable prices.
>> Bosses don't like unions, and if you take the perspective of a boss, you probably won't like them either. What else is new?
> Saying bosses dont like unions therefore dismissal of discussion is missing the point.
No it isn't. I'm sure there prosecutors that have plenty of complaints about defense attorneys. Maybe some guilty people do get off free because of them, but we don't oppose defense attorneys because they make things hard for prosecutors. Unions serve opposing interests to bosses, so bosses' gripes should not be the main focus.
> My view is too much of unionizing is underpinned by coveting other people's success and wanting to feel good after being burned.
My view is that unionization is underpinned by the fundamental imbalance between unorganized workers and organized business.
The point is dismissing anybody/somebody/everybodies' view out of hand or minimizing it down to complaints means you are missing when valid points are being made.
You are not showing a desire to discuss specific, measurable, realistic and timely issues. You and most unionists here have a view of a utopian union that is above criticism and does not need examination.
Which supports my view that this is about feelings and not about the problems people proclaim to want to solve.
What problem of unorganized workers? Healthcare? Retraining? Okay lets campaign for healthcare and lower college fees. Lets pick up the debt jubilee ticket some economists are calling for. Lets make government pay for code bootcamps and have corporations underwrite months of health insurance out of work.
No none of that will work because it does not give totalitarian control of workers to unions. Nor will it allay feelings of jealousy.
> The point is dismissing anybody/somebody/everybodies' view out of hand or minimizing it down to complaints means you are missing when valid points are being made.
I'm not "dismissing anybody/somebody/everybodies' view out of hand," but observing that you can't make everyone happy all the time. Bosses will be unhappy with unions, because oftentimes unions go against their interests and reduce the power differential when they deal with individual employees. However, there's more than just the bosses' interest at play, so it's a mistake to focus on that.
This may not be a win-win situation, and it may be just for shareholders and business owners to lose a little.
> You are not showing a desire to discuss specific, measurable, realistic and timely issues. You and most unionists here have a view of a utopian union that is above criticism and does not need examination.
No, that's not true. I don't have a utopian view of unions, but rather an objection to their out-of-hand rejection based on a couple of cliched complaints about specific instances of the type. That's also a double standard, since if we'd applied a similar standard to corporations, that concept would have been rejected long ago. I think innovation in the area of unionization is possible and welcome, but I don't have all the answers.
At this point, were at the step of merely trying to get the idea of unions put back onto the table. It is not reasonable to insist that an idea (in this case tech worker unions) be fully worked out before the first step toward it is made.
> What problem of unorganized workers?
To be blunt about it: capital is organized. When a worker deals with it, they're almost always dealing with some kind of institution, not an individual, which means they're almost always in a greatly weaker position, with all that implies. Why is it such a problem for workers to have institutions of their own to create some balance?
> No none of that will work because it does not give totalitarian control of workers to unions. Nor will it allay feelings of jealousy.
Attributing desires for worker organization to "jealousy" is a far worse dismissal than anything I did in my comments.
A power imbalance isn't a problem to be solved defacto. We're not stalin-esque egalitarians.
What would you want power for. What problem are you trying to solve. If you say individual vs collective, institute or corp for a third time without introducing an issue to be tackled, there is nothing to talk about.
Attribute the desires to anything other than power and the jealousy tag falls away.
Corporations did not start as they are, they were tiny teams of people off to do one task. How can I say any different about the implications of a new org structure like unions.
Anti union messaging or just they are more common place? Lots of examples of unions with rigid rules, corrupt practices etc. But so far everyone only points to the screen actors guild as a counter example. Are there many other unions like it?
> But so far everyone only points to the screen actors guild as a counter example. Are there many other unions like it?
IIRC, there are in the movie industry. I think writers, directors, etc. all have their own unions. Also given the nature of construction jobs, I'd be curious how construction trade unions compare.
Different companies in different industries can have quite different structures and cultures (e.g. McDonald's vs GM vs Google). The instantiated example of McDonald's didn't mean future companies had to be like it, and I see no reason why the instantiated example of the UAW means that another type of union structure/culture can't be created for another set of circumstances.
Certain what came before doesn't have to be what follows. Just that if the majority of unions people know are "bad" then the general view of unions will be negative too. Also it may be a bit of a hint on which way a particular union is more likely to turn out.
Some existing blue-collar unions have work rules like that, but I think it's a fallacy that a tech worker union would necessarily work exactly the same. To say so would be like condemning (say) Apple (as a business) by using examples from Radio Shack.
I think the main reasons for tech workers historical opposition to unions was:
1. Tech workers had rare, in-demand skills which gave them market power not enjoyed by most workers who have unionized. This is by far the biggest reason.
2. The influence of narratives different genres of free market propaganda. I think the concept of a impersonal self-regulating free market has a special intellectual appeal to the kind of people who like to design technical systems, and a lot of the mass-market works that espouse it are written for the benefit of the capitalists that benefit most acutely from that system. This is a secondary reason, but makes the first reason far more effective.
3. The influence of startup culture, which (temporarily!) creates jobs that blend worker and capitalist. Relatively few people find themselves in these kinds of roles, but they've gotten enormous amounts of publicity relative to other tech jobs.