I'm not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a comment. Unions don't mean you have to vote yourselves a pay limit anymore than Democracy voting in a minimum wage means everyone in the country must earn the minimum wage. Unions don't mean that poor workers cannot be 'punished' with unemployment anymore than Democracy means criminals cannot be punished. A union is employees pooling forces for the benefit of employees, what else even makes sense? How can you on the one hand say your current coworkers are so awful that you don't want to co-negotiate with them, and the reason you don't want to do that is because then you'd have to work with them? If they are awful and not being fired right now, anti-unioning isn't getting them fired, is it?
> The numbers I am throwing around are pretty standard, for people working at top tech companies, and I know this because this is what many of my personal friends, with the same level of experience as me are making. None of them work at "union shops" though.
Dan Luu estimates on his blog that one piece of work he did saved his employer millions, yet he got no extra money for it. How do you know that 300k is as much as you could possibly get if all of you 1% exceptional people worked together? What makes you think that a union of top tier tech workers would get the same results as a union from a steel works? Why do so many people from the "United" States, living under the benefit of a massive combined armed-forces strong-arming the planet, think that combining forces is a dumb idea for dumb people which can't work ... when the people who get paid most (CEOs, board members) act together against lower level employees to keep that being the case?
That's getting into Michael O'Church territory, but you're talking about your salary when you could be inverting the structure of the company putting tech people right on top, or something.
I think it more or less evens it out
It is a very real downside, to me, and many other highly paid software engineers, that forcing us into collective bargaining agreements would result in us making significantly less money.
So thats the downside. It is very clear, and obvious. We would make less money.
So, given that we would make significantly less money, you can expect us to fight and sabotage efforts to force us into collective bargain agreements.
Good luck, you'll need it. Because right now, the anti-union side, in tech, is winning, and unions are not popular at all.
The downside is being forced into a collective bargain agreement, if I wanted to work at whatever company was a union shop.
I would much rather negotiate for my own contract. Which is something that I currently do, right now, regarding my tech job employment contract.
It has worked out pretty work for me. I've received significant pay raises, that I do not think I would get if I were forced into collective bargain agreements.
> As opposed to life in a non-union shop
I work in a "non-union" shop, in tech, and I make significantly more money than any other example of a "union shop" tech job that I have ever been able to find in the industry.
Feel free to let me know about any "union shop" programmer jobs, that will pay me more than the 300k plus that I make right now. Maybe I'll even consider it.
> A seat at the table to bargain with your betters?
I already do bargain with my employers. And it has resulted in me getting a lot of money for my efforts.
Let me know when those union jobs can get me more than 300k, for someone with ~10 years experience, lol.
And, to be perfectly honest, I haven't even been optimizing as much as I could for salary. If I really was doing that, I could probably go work in finance/quant, and get another 50% raise (Yes, really... I have peers and friends, that have gotten to that)
I don't think any "union shop" tech jobs that exist in the world, right now, match up with that.
I am not even trying to brag, or anything here. The numbers I am throwing around are pretty standard, for people working at top tech companies, and I know this because this is what many of my personal friends, with the same level of experience as me are making. None of them work at "union shops" though.