Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize

Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize by wwweston on Thursday January 24, 2019 @04:49PM (#18993365)

A union is ultimately just labor doing collective bargaining, which is certainly something capital+management does. What is bargained for isn't set in stone; while lots of people are interested in making sure firing isn't arbitrary, labor doesn't have to bargain over making people unfire-able, or even on specific compensation. A well-run union bargains for what its membership wants. If a union of software developers wants competent productive co-workers, then it can leave at-will firings on the table and instead push for limits on hours worked per week, or bonuses based on revenue (with access to the books to double check), or employment agreements that vigorously protect individual IP rights to anything made on their own time, or sane office layouts instead of open plan, or a generous severance package with at-will firing, or provisions for no confidence votes for some management positions, or, well, any number of things.

What else can you imagine beyond compensation or job security that could be improved in the lot of a software developer? Maybe even some things could yield productivity benefits that management would like if they could see their way through it? And if some of these things are more likely with collective bargaining, why would you rule it out as a tool?

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Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize by kodablah on Thursday January 24, 2019 @05:00PM (#18993464)

In the current market, I'd rather bargain for myself. We shouldn't pretend what a union wants is what every one of its members wants. Leaving at-will firings on the table for instance is unlikely to garner popular support. I personally don't want specific severance requirements for those fired, otherwise you end up with defacto unfire-able situations because you've artificially increased the cost to remove a bad employee. I don't want to force them to run their company a certain way by rule, I'll just voice displeasure and leave if necessary. Due to the vast differences in employer packages and the freedom of choice given to the employee in the current demand-heavy market, I find individual bargaining to currently be more beneficial than collective bargaining.

> if some of these things are more likely with collective bargaining, why would you rule it out as a tool?

Because of all the negative externalities that happen to some employees and employers. If it was all upside there would be no reason. It's not ruled out as a tool, just its use in the current dev (general, maybe not game specific) market.

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Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize by wwweston on Thursday January 24, 2019 @06:54PM (#18994263)

> We shouldn't pretend what a union wants is what every one of its members wants.

We shouldn't pretend that what a union wants is arbitrarily disjointed from the individual interests of its members, either.

Every collective has the potential to depart from individual preferences in some way. How much that happens varies in practice.

And it's pretty likely that your employment agreements are not an exception, even if you've arrived at them without any collective work on your side.

> Leaving at-will firings on the table for instance is unlikely to garner popular support.

This assumes the only incentive for joining a union is ultimate job security. That's a popular anti-union conception, but that doesn't make it correct. Any popular benefit that is not commonly conferred could provide a cohesion point for collective bargaining.

> I personally don't want specific severance requirements for those fired, otherwise you end up with defacto unfire-able situations because you've artificially increased the cost to remove a bad employee.

Increasing the cost of something is very different from making it defacto impossible. Though it is one way of providing an incentive against doing something arbitrarily. And it's not clear a negotiated price for firing would be any more "artificial" than any other negotiated price, up to and including your salary.

> I don't want to force them to run their company a certain way by rule, I'll just voice displeasure and leave if necessary.

That's pretty much how unions work. It just turns out to have more leverage if you multiply it by the size of the participating workforce.

> Due to the vast differences in employer packages and the freedom of choice given to the employee in the current demand-heavy market

Again, the freedom of individually negotiated compensation can co-exist with collective bargaining. A sibling comment even points out examples.

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Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize by gamblor956 on Thursday January 24, 2019 @05:25PM (#18993666)

Hollywood unions provide protections on the low-end and the high-end while letting those at the high-end negotiate better pay packages...

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Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize by hoaw on Thursday January 24, 2019 @07:42PM (#18994493)

Doesn't make much sense. Collective bargaining is just that. If you trust the company to do what is best you should have no problem because the company will bargain for what it finds important. Also you seemingly care a lot about what would happen with a union, but essentially nothing about how you are treated by the company. That isn't really a very strong position to make an argument from. If your whole idea is that you don't mind taking other opportunities, presumably it would be worth it for you to move to a company that isn't unionized in the same way you would if you didn't agree with what he company was doing.

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Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize by kmlx on Friday January 25, 2019 @03:24AM (#18996402)

"A well-run union bargains for what its membership wants." how? if it's via democracy then no thanks, as that comes with so many issues it's not even funny.

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