> I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees"

Also important to note there is a difference between "bad for employees" and "bad for employees because we're going to retaliate".

On average unions work better for the most people. People on the upper end will not stop contributing or trying, people on the lower end don't matter much anyway. It's the middle that provides most of the advancement.

At least two other data points - I have a friend who worked in a govt agency - doing cool and important work - she left because of the unfirable lifers - while the stories are funny you can’t go to work and perform well in that situation.

In high school teacher X was notorious for giving no work and no s*its. He missed lots of his classes so always subs. We thought it was cool (usually easy A). He was there years but my senior year he must have done something way over the line because he was fired midday. Amazingly the gossip never figured out what he did (despite kids w parents on school board)

Meanwhile things like the 8 hour working day was a result of decades of union efforts - much of which was met with open violence.

Unions can go too far in supporting people who should not be protected,but a large part of the reason they do is that they came into existence at a time when employers literally were prepared to see workers die to protect their ability to mistreat people.

Unions tends to take softer stances e.g. in parts of Europe where their level of involvement in decision-making means the hard-line stances are no longer seen as necessary.

Those are nice anecdotes, the data says otherwise. There will always be slackers, they exist in every job and industry.

I'd be interested in that data - I have colleagues with wives / husbands doing union shift work - even if you are 100% gung-ho it seems to be 100% seniority based still or has that changed?

Things like UBI, higher minimum wage, reduce exempt classification loopholes etc all seem like ways that rules could change to benefit everyone.

I would LOVE to see the data that says a seniority based union system results in better retention of high performers and their continued push to perform well.

The union I have experience with (Sound Engineers union in Burbank) was nothing but a complete pain. The union admits members based on nepotism (friends and family only essentially) and the work they did was always second tier in comparison to the non covered studio engineering team.

I was on a systems engineering team at this studio, and our union counter parts were nothing but incompetent pains in the ass.

Unions don’t have to be this way, and I think they serve an important roll, but people should really be careful what they are asking for as the results might not be what are expected.

Unions aren't perfect, so take care to not scrap your car because it has a dent.

https://www.google.com/search?q=do+unions+benefit+employees+...

First two links have loads of commentary with citations. There's plenty of books on the subject, as well, if you're interested. Amazon is a good place to look for them.

I’ll admit there’s always slackers in any workplace, but what data are you referring to?

[citation needed]

Eliminating any motivation to perform well is of course going to discourage people who try harder for rewards. That’s basic economics.

Claiming that the top performers will continue to innovate and lead when they are compensated the same as the bare minimum clock punchers is extraordinary and requires evidence.

About the only place where unions are better (at least the salary negotiating US style ones) are jobs where innovation and efficiency are irrelevant.

With UBI that should remove the lazy ones who are stuck in those type of positions.

Why? When they can pocket the UBI and also get paid to fuck around and be protected from getting fired?

More generally, UBI cannot possibly solve for a scenario where people are being dramatically overpaid and there’s no way to correct it.

Society pays for those who won't work? Nice promo material!

We pay for them in some way or the other... they either are on public assistance or end up in jail. We pay either way.

No, UBI is paying for people who already work and receive nothing. We’re not “paying either way”.

You have a preference?

I prefer a basic income.

Pay criminals not to work? Somehow I don't think this is good PR...

I don't disagree, but I don't know know if this is how the case needs to be made...

Probably better that society pays them to sit on the couch at home than that we force them to pollute workplaces that would otherwise get more and higher quality work done.

There's already no motivation to 'perform well' because promotions don't mean shit nowadays. You can perform better than the rest of your entire company and get a 1% raise as a show of kindness along with maybe a new $50 coffee machine gift.

It's common knowledge in the software industry that the best way to advance is to hop jobs every two or so years. Do you think it's because of the non-existent unions, or because of corporations underpaying employees because they know they can get away with it?

Is this a trolling comment?

Just one quick example for company we are talking about.

https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/

You go from level 3 at $150K to level 6 at $500K.

Bonuses for top performers where I am are very high (40% of salary) vs 5% of salary avg.

This story is not about Google. It's about Google's contractors. Please reread the story and the article title.

You said "It's common knowledge in the software industry that the best way to advance is to hop jobs every two or so years".

That works out when you start for startups, but if you want to make more than 250k, you're going to need to get promotions. The companies that pay more than that like google aren't going to hire someone into a L5 or above role that has jobbed hopped every two years without getting any promotions to an L5 or above level role at similar companies who also won't hire you at that level. There are routinely stories about people with 15+ years of experience getting hired as L4s because of this.

There are obviously exceptions especially if you write a really popular open source library but this generally holds.

You know this is about Google right?

No, you're wrong on two accounts.

First, this argument chain is about unions in general. Please read up on the full response chain to understand the context of my response, starting with stjohnswarts.

Second, this thread and story is not about Google. It's about Google's contractors. There's a very important distinction there, because contractors are often treated worse both by the companies they're working under as well as the contracted companies they're working with. Google might treat its own employees better (although the jury is still out on that with many stories alleging discrimination in terms of pay and what not) but this story is obstensibly about the anti-union behavior occurring at companies Google is partnered with.

False.

There are contractors to google making a killing - seriously - if you own your own business or provide a service to google you can make bank.

One example -> some of the employee / teambuilding / staff appreciation stuff. If the google FTE's like doing your teambuilding program google is absolutely happy to pay for it.

I know some other direct contract work with google - generally don't fight on price but their focus was on quality.

I'd like to hear some firsthand experiences of direct contractors working for google (ie, google 1099's) getting badly treated because that wasn't what I saw.

The examples are literally in the article we're discussing, complete with salary information and reason why they're unionizing.

>HCL employee and union organizer Ben Gwin says HCL workers make between $30,000-60,000 a year, and it varies widely. According to Glassdoor, a site that collected salary information from 73 people, Google software engineers in Pittsburgh earn on average $121,000 a year, ranging from $88,000-171,000 a year.

If you're going to make claims like that, please read the actual article we're discussing before jumping into the conversation. I've been a contractor before (albeit in different circumstances and not for google), I am very familiar with how the system can work and how contractors can be generally treated.

Ummm. HCL (google contractor) is making a ton of money... they did 1.4 BILLION in net income. Stock price from 76 to 1,000 INR. They are doing fine working for google.

I'm not aware of almost anyone (network infra contractors / team build soft touch providers) who historically haven't been paid very reasonably for their work working for google.

And Google does business with contractors who have unionized employees. I'm not aware of them caring too much about that either.

Google does thousands of H1bs and has something like a 99% approval rate even under trump so they don't mind working with international folks.

Okay, on your first point: You're comparing two very, very different things. For the sake of assuming you're not the one trolling here: Employee salary is different from company income. A company can be paid very well for their work, and then not properly compensate their workforce for that work. Hence, unionization.

For your second point: The intent of this article, which I hope you have read by now, specifically talks with people who say they are not being paid well working for Google as a contractor. They directly quote people who say they are not being paid reasonably for their work.

For your third point: Yes, I'm sure Google does business with unionized employees. This article is about a contractor, which is working for Google, using anti-union practices to prevent their workforce from unionizing because according to the workers they are underpaid.

And your final point has literally nothing to do with the article we're discussing or the entire argument chain we're in right now.

fzero: I know people who work for google as contractors - they are paid VERY WELL.

This constant insistence that google contractors are being paid $30K to do work that $171K engineers are doing in the same geo area is totally false. That does not happen. I am open to a specific example, but I'm not aware of one.

To be a google contractor you need a contract that has google's name on it (or Google LLC etc). That is the literal definition of being a google contractor. You get a 1099 from google. If this describes you - you are, on average, paid well.

Google flies on US airlines with highly paid and unionized pilots - I don't think they care.

Are you confusing google contractors with employees of a large non-google business?

Regardless of intent, the result is the same... Troll.

> That’s basic economics.

Oh really. Because to me it sounds like a statement about human motivation patterns, and some huge assumptions about it that are, quite often, wrong. Just like cats, humans can be motivated by:

* food (or food-equivalents in the form of flipping some bits in a bank) * social interaction (60% of cats as long as not starved!)

...also, unlike cats (AFAIK), but very frequently (also AFAIK) humans can be motivated by:

* self-expression * perceived benefit to society.

If not for the need for self-expression, there would be barely anyone working in the games industry. And pretty much every company's internal relations spew more-or-less thinly veiled nonsense about how spying on customers is good - or at least acceptable - actually. That's because the last part is an _enormous_ part of motivation for many.

> Claiming that the top performers will continue to innovate and lead when they are compensated the same as the bare minimum clock punchers is extraordinary and requires evidence.

...except non-unionised companies often tolerate bare minimum clock punchers, and, conversely, unions often penalise those. Good relationship with management can easily allow slacking, and unions have more interest in company's survival than some nomadic C-level.

You're making things up and then demanding others to provide evidence. Some of us actually worked in an office for more than a day, you know.

>Because to me it sounds like a statement about human motivation patterns

Lol. I think you need to look up what the study of economics is.

there will be way more slackers in a job-secure environment, where workers have 0 motivation to do anything.

Anecdotes don't gain rhetorical force by calling them "data points"

Cool, you have two stories of slackers on a job. What relevance does that have to the discussion?

I was responding to this claim about seniority based unionized workforces

"People on the upper end will not stop contributing or trying".

I was interested in the citation for this given the anecdotal info I had which involved high performing folks trying to find more rewarding work elsewhere.

The primary mechanism of power used by unions to keep wages high is by reducing the available work force. This is done by lobbying for things like requiring certifications to be legally allowed to perform work and lobbying/negotiating for disallowing non-union members from accepting work. This has the net effect of increasing the wages of the high paid workers while reducing the wages of the low paid workers who could do the higher paid work but aren't allowed to.

Here's Nobel economist Milton Friedman discussing it in more detail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYgiOC9cj4

What about the people who won't be hired at all because of a union? How does the union work out for them?

Source?

> I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees". It is possible that unions are bad for both

It's become clear in the past few years that a lot of people care less about winning than they do about their "enemies" losing. To them, it doesn't matter if you hurt yourself, as long as you hurt the people who disagree with you as well.

"It's become clear", could you please follow up with some examples so that what you are saying become more clear?

It’s how politics in the US currently work. Liberals vote for “anything not conservative” and conservatives vote for “anything not liberal”.

Most of the people I know that voted for Trump don’t even like him. It was just more important to keep Clinton out of office. Most of the people I know that voted for Clinton didn’t even like her, but she wasn’t Trump so she got the vote.

In a system dominated by two parties the only voting choice you have that is worth anything at all is the less-detested one

Well, people voting for republican party are a good example... When you observe their policies, always intended to help corporate interests, you understand their voters are more interested in pissing of black people and the poors than improve their own condition.

Not exactly a recent development, though.

What are you referring to?

> I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees"

What is “good for employees” or “bad for employees” may not be the same for all employees. A policy which favours the interests of one group of employees may disadvantage another. Which group of employees’ interests will a union prioritise?

For example, suppose management has budgeted enough for a 2% across the board pay rise. Management has two basic choices about how to distribute this:

Option 1) Everyone gets 2%

Option 2) Above-average performers get more than 2%, every one else gets 0%

If you are an above-average performer, Option 2 is best for you, whereas if you are not, then you will be better off with Option 1. Which of those two options will the union advocate for?

What if, I know i know this is crazy, but it isn't a zero sum game?

What if both could benefit? What could a modern union look like today?

We think in terms of unions = bad, but union is simply employees organizing and negotiating as a group.

Yep I agree, and just to be thorough, it's also possible that unions are good for management and bad for employees (let's say the mgt and the union bosses collude to split the difference and shaft the workers), or good for both management and employees (for example better health plan, lower turnover, lower absenteeism, better morale & customer/client service and ultimately greater market success & higher profits).

There's no particular reason to assume out-of-hand without further information that the interests of employees and management are intertwined (basically my earlier point), nor that they're separate & opposed (basically your point). But management by opposing the union so strongly is implicitly asserting that at a minimum they believe it'll be bad for management. They can also be wrong vs. right in that prediction. They may also explicitly assert it'll be bad for workers, and be wrong or right in that. Seems like there's a lot of game theory happening here and I bet there's some concise notation for all this. (Not my strong suit.)

Why reduce it to terms of bad or good of relation, there is also an element of a union of contractors gaining greater degree self determination instead of management being in a stronger position to dictate terms of employment.

well, USPS has an IT union and I can tell you first hand it is no good for employees, the things you mentioned happening absolutely happen and the place is just a disaster

We have a contract with the USPS IT department and let me tell you, it is absolutely awesome for their employees. They do about half the work we do in twice the amount of time, get paid more, have more holidays (2 weeks + every single federal holiday) and have pensions. Every worker there clocks in at 9, and clocks out at exactly 5, not a single minute past. If you want a meeting or them to get you something, it needs to be scheduled before 4 otherwise there's a good chance people have already started leaving the office for the day.

Sometimes I wonder where did I go wrong?

If everyone is happier, less stressed, and as a result less productive, then isn’t that a good trade off? Shouldn’t we all strive to work less hours if it means better mental health? That’s what I would wonder.

There's tons of evidence that for most people working more than 40 hours actually results in a fall in productivity (that's 9-5).

More hours are for show.

As I understand it, it's diminishing returns for a while past 40. Putting in more than 40 hours does get more done, just not as much per hour as the earlier hours.

At a point the negative impact takes a toll on your productivity all week long.

We aren't robots. Having a late night today effects my work tomorrow.

Nope, that's wrong. You get falling OVERALL productivity.

I think mental health is key in this situation.

There's a reason that what we now call "mass shootings" used to be called "going postal."

Those conditions would actually be illegally poor in the UK for a full time employee. Minimum paid holiday is 22 + 8 days (8 are the public holidays) and everyone must have an employer matched contribution pension of at least 2% of gross salary. Hours are not regulated here but generally 8 per day.

> Hours are not regulated here but generally 8 per day

Whilst a lot of employers will have you opt out of the working time directive as part of an employment contract, you can opt back in at any time, limiting your max hours to 48 a week on average:

https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maxim...

In addition you have the right to opt out of working on Sunday - which obviously has its religious roots.

Pension, more then two weeks holiday, and 9am-5pm workdays sounds like a normal working conditions for an employee?

Normal for Europe, well almost. Make it a 4 week vacation and we are almost there.

There was an example from UK, now for Poland:

* 40 hour week (anything above is overtime paid +50% more for first 8 hours during week and day, in weekends or night it is +100%)

* 20 or 26 (depending how many years you have worked in your life, usually after 2 years you get 26) + 13 public holidays.

* women after birth get 52 weeks off (plus their usual vacation), dads get 2 weeks off to be used during 2 years (the 52 weeks can be split between parents, so a mom can go to work and dad can stay with child for 32 weeks)

* on top of that when you are sick and go to doctor he/she can prescribe you a time off (sick off?), which is additional to your normal vacation (this is not limited to any number of days, e.g. when you break your leg you can be a year sick/unable to work), but pays 80% your salary

For many Americans, they are not.

It used to be. There are a ton of popular songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, especially in country music, about "9 to 5" jobs being the gold standard and basically how you had it made if you got one.

I'd never take a job with that little holiday. I'll never understand US attitudes on that matter - on most of Europe only two weeks would be unthinkable.

>> Pension

>> Normal working conditions for an employee

Basically not anywhere except government-related positions.

I have 28 days of holidays + national holidays in Italy, plus paid sick leave, plus 8 hour of permits a month, plus of course pension, which is a legal obligation.

And I'm thinking of leaving because as a new company in a larger group they still don't give us meal vouchers like the rest of the companies in the group.

I had several like that. They were at tech and defense BigCo's. You don't need a union to be like that.

Are those conditions not normal? 2 weeks vacation plus holidays seems very average.

Is something keeping you back from working for USPS IT?

> Every worker there clocks in at 9, and clocks out at exactly 5

LUL! Those are amateur numbers, buddy. I do 11-6 maybe, and work at a big 5 tech company making big 5 tech company salaries. And frankly, we aren't working a lot of the time during the day either.

And yes, we have the "unlimited" vacation, which usually results in people taking about 4 weeks a year, on average.

I think people underestimate how easy it is to work at some of the big tech companies.

Do you have to go into the office or do you work remote?

I live a couple blocks from the office, so I go in. There are a couple people on the team who work remote, though.

Big 5 tech companies are pretty great.

That's cool, I don't make a lot of money at the moment, but I do have nearly unlimited personal freedom working remotely.

> Big 5 tech companies are pretty great.

Out of curiosity - any downsides to your working conditions? You seem pretty happy about everything.

There is no “Big 5” in tech

You obviously know what I meant.

FANNG?

Those are not the “big 5” in tech by any measure. FANG was an acronym that specifically related to stock returns at the time.

And yet people know exactly what I mean when I say "big 5" tech company.

How is it that everyone that I talk to, knows what I am talking about when I say those words, but apparently you don't?

I don’t know. I don’t see how anybody could know which companies you mean when you say big 5 tech companies. Which ones did you mean?

It is a short hand for the major/prestigious tech companies.

So it would be Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and maybe Netflix depending on who you ask.

And yes, I know that is more than 5 companies. It is a shorthand for "those prestigious, large tech companies that new grads apply to, and hire lots of people, and have large market caps".

If I talk to any new grad who is applying to companies these day, they will know what I mean when I say "big 5 tech companies".

This is a very common term in the interview/tech market and discussions.

Yeah, new grads being confused doesn’t surprise me. We don’t call that big 5 in the real world ;)

Language is defined by how it is used.

The fact that this is how people use these words, makes it the definition.

Lots of people in the real world know exactly what it means when people say "big 5 tech companies".

You'd have to be extremely obtuse to not know what people mean when they say those words.

Then what measure would you propose? I'd definitely say these companies are an outlier in the amount of influence they wield.*

* Admittedly would swap Netflix with Microsoft in the FAANG acronym.

I don't know if I'd like to work in a place like that. Wouldn't you get lazy after a couple of years? Doesn't this create incentives to deliberately work more slowly?

After a couple of more years like that wouldn't you get used to not doing much and then get slaughtered when inevitable change came around?

My friend referred to this kind of situation as "being in an ass" ;) Yeah, from time to time there's a smell but it's always warm, comfy and soft ;P

> Wouldn't you get lazy after a couple of years? Doesn't this create incentives to deliberately work more slowly?

Maybe without unpaid overtime and burnout, developers will finally have the chance to contribute to open source and side projects that recruiters are always looking for.

Whoa whoa I'm not sayin people should be treated like shit. Just that that USPS example didn't really look all that good.

Burnout sucks and being exploited sucks. I'm all for unlimited sick days, being compensated for all the work and time you put in, getting the benefits that you're guaranteed by law etc. In exchange for that I sure would expect the employer to expect me performing well. Quid pro quo. The USPS example didn't imply that imho.

I guess we can test that. How many USPS developers are open source mavens?

EDIT: Did I misunderstand a joke or something? Doesn't seem like I said anything particularly controversial.

Several are unpaid Linux kernel contributors.

And many thanks to those guys for their work!

You would get lazy having a 40 hour work week and 2 weeks paid vacation?

No way. Unpaid overtime sucks. Burnout sucks. What I meant was that that USPS job description sounded to me like a cushy, untouchable asshole replying to emails passive aggressively every other day from 1200-1235hrs.

I'm not for exploiting people if that's what you mean. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Assuming someone's job is easy, without knowing much about it, and therefore believing they must lazy isn't a good look.

Well, I'm just drawing from my own experience here. Usually when I worked with people that behaved that way it turned out that that behaviour steemed from their untouchable-ish status.

Is it possible that someone behaving that way has legitimate reasons to do so? Sure. I mean I've been wrong before :P It's that I (personal experience, anecdata) didn't encounter many situations like that is all.

This seems like a masochistic justification for being exploited by employers

Yeah, well, you might be onto something here. I've been told I've not acted in my own self interest a couple of times before :P

Idk about you, but I don’t work hard out of fear of losing my job. I do it for the respect of my coworkers more than anything. It’s totally viable to be lazy in a non-union job too.

Sure thing. It's just that that USPS job performance description didn't really sound all that respectful of your coworkers is what I'm sayin'.

If some employer is taking advantage of you you should quit. I do understand that not everyone is in a position to say 'fuck you' to a person/entity that's taking advantage of him/her and that that's a situation a union can help in.

Don't you guys have families over there? How do you raise your children if you enjoy those crazy hours? Even 40 is too much, I actually want to see, enjoy and teach my children while they grow up. Time goes by incredibly fast.

It enforces the 40 hours a week. That's the job you are paid for. Working 16 hours a day..7 days a week is not lazy. It's a recipe for burn out. Working hard for the 40 is what is expected and should be exactly that.

You pay me for 40 I'll give you 40 You want 80 then you pay me for 80

Facebook and Google certainly pay for 80 then. The average senior engineer there definitely makes at least double what someone at USPS IT does...

I don't think working 80 is either sustainable or even possible for that matter.

My wife was on an assignment in South Korea and she experienced the 16 hour work days there. No one even blinked when you tried calling your colleagues at 11:00pm.

However, what my wife noticed is that most of the people working those hours seemd drousy, unfocused and inattentive. It boggles my mind how either of the sides of that work contract can think that that kind of situation is beneficial for either of the sides in any imaginable way...

You get lazy when you get so tired you can't work anymore.

Even sled dogs owners give them plenty of rest or they stop doing a good job and you think it would hurt human performances?

> it is absolutely awesome for their employees. They do about half the work we do in twice the amount of time

how is that awesome? the productive output of the most productive time of their lives is 4 times less. It would be truly awesome of course if they productively worked only 25% of the time with your efficiency and spent the rest 75% on say education, new tech learning, skills improvement, side projects... Unfortunately, i suspect, their time is simply wasted 4 times less efficiently than yours - may be using less efficient tools, processes, nobody cares about anything in particular because there is no point in improvement, etc...

I myself work in a very similar environment, a non-FAANG BigCo, my effective productivity is order of magnitude less than it was at previous jobs in particular because we're moving with the speed of midday sleeping flies, and moving any faster would create huge impedance mismatch causing systemic structural stress painfully affecting everybody. Such slowdown isn't good even in the short term as it makes your mind into a mushy soup zen-like diffusing through your skull and merging with the swamp around.

> gumming up the negotiating process

The negotiation process is the workers trying to keep more of the wealth they themselves create. "Gumming up" is when the people parasitically appropriating surplus labor time from those workers demand more.

> insulating low performing employees at the expense of high performing employees

Who will insulate us from the heirs expropiating dividend profits from high (and low) performing employees? What hubris that the heirs who do not work want those of us who do work in some Hunger Games competition against one another.

Wow, looks like anti union activity is heating up right here in the comment section

Your just repeating some of the anti union messages the union busters hired to oppose organising campaigns.