We have an older, more proven tool to increase salaries and benefits: unions. The only reason US software engineers are so anti-union is 70 years of demonization, propaganda, and exceptionalism. Engineers think they don't need collective bargaining and the power of a union but then they go on sites like HN and complain about their management, salaries, working hours, open office, etc.
The most common reason why developers were against the union is because they couldn't negotiate their own salaries.
They could see the market getting crazy and were tied to the collective agreement.
We paid well and had a solid pension but at the end of the day we couldn't compete with FAANG and that's what a lot of developers wanted.
The majority of union members were not software engineers. OPSEU is a large union covering a bunch of different sectors including the finance sector which also comprised of software developers.
The only choice, AFAIK, would be to break away from OPSEU and join (or form) another union. This would have been a very risky move.
The union environment I am aware of classifies software developers as IT personnel, and every new employee has to start at the same salary grade regardless of previous experience, which is under $60K.
They do indeed negotiate salary increases, as much as 2% a year, and they are tenacious, winning retroactive increases even after going years without a contract.
Why do you think this is at all relevant to the people on HN who say they are making $500K to $1M at a FAANG?
Also, you gloss over (assuming you aren't totally unaware) that during the last "70 years", there have indeed been attempts to unionize highly paid engineers, and what do you think happens when they fail? Early retirement (i.e. blacklisting) for the instigators.
Calling people stupid for buying into "demonization, propaganda, and exceptionalism" is not helpful, it's a cliché, and it doesn't need to be said again.
The example you gave is, of course, not relevant. What you describe is not the model for all unions at all.
> Calling people stupid for buying into "demonization, propaganda, and exceptionalism" is not helpful, it's a cliché, and it doesn't need to be said again.
Nobody said that…
Engineers also could collectively tank the economy; wfh makes a strike a matter of not opening a laptop.
Even just the serious threat would put aristocrats on notice. Look what WSB has done to Wall Street with GME.
The last generation has no information advantage. Just a political one. It can be taken away with little to no violence. I mean for one they’re a gerontocracy.
Go forth. Disrupt.
.. nothing? Well, it's generated a lot of press, but there's no evidence of structural changes. At worst they've managed to make one firm lose money on a trade. We're a long way off a final accounting of how much GME meme investors gained and lost.
Here we are discussing the supposed leverage engineers have, but frankly, in 25 years working in circuit board design and software, engineers are some of the biggest snowflakes who fight over text editors, and libraries that help us produce more effectively for the aristocrats.
Meanwhile, a community of spreadsheet fanatics are showing solidarity.
Highlighting how little leverage engineers really have despite all their big talk and brains. They’re largely just cattle for the status quo.
SOPA blackouts changed things.
Teacher strikes change things.
So long as the masses are happy to be apathetic their is no motivation by aristocrats to do better by their subjects.
Off with their heads (figuratively speaking). I would shed no tears if billionaires were suddenly multi-millionaires of it means other families still have those they would otherwise lose to preventable illness.
So much for gritty and exceptional. Kowtowed and low affect is the power engineers have.
our egos tend to block any imagination...
https://www.nfl.com/news/full-term-sheet-of-proposed-collect...
"NFL–NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement 2020" https://nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net/media/Default/NFLPA/C...
one day, some startups will realize it will be to their advantage to form some association to collectively bargain with a small union pool of software engineers. It will be to their benefit to compete for labor against the big FANG companies... The salaries won't be as high in the beginning but the clarity and transparency will win over new entrants into the labor pool.
Tech workers mistakenly believe that our temporarily status as the high value employees make us permanently safe from bad financial or workplace conditions. Ironically, it is at the height of our collective power when we have the most to gain from organizing and securing our livelihoods.
I am in a union in Germany and the main result is that I earn considerably less the market rate.
This is because there is a single pay grade for every Software Engineer in the company(excluding entry level). There are no performance bonuses. Unless I get promoted into management I can look forward to the union negotiating a slightly above inflation pay rise every so often until I reach retirement.
It's a lot to swap for the workplace protections that Software engineers mostly enjoy anyway.
Is software engineering any more of an individual contributor focused profession than acting or professional soccer. All of those people are in unions. The highest performers in those fields can essentially name their price; their union membership doesn't hold them back in that regard. On the other hand, soccer players that pick up a bad injury and have their career cut short are somewhat taken care of. Not-very-successful actors still get health insurance, if they work a certain amount every year.
A union doesn't have to negotiate your salary. That's just how a lot of labor unions are set up in the US. A union could just negotiate a floor on wages, conditions, or benefits.
Many of your labor protections don’t exist here unless unions agitate for them, and I won’t even broach healthcare. In the US, unionized workers make more on average than non-union workers (link below).
Without a union, you have zero bartering power other than the threat of leaving which is what I argue above to be a very temporary power. Even then, job hopping is nowhere close to an ideal solution for a variety of reasons that I think HN readers are smart enough to fill in.
Support for remote work, resistance to hotdesking (or gasp, even demanding offices), making all on-call requirements non-mandatory, a union rep who can review PIPs to ensure that they aren't deliberately impossible, and more.
What I mean is most FTE don't realize the other relationship is possible and at a certain compensation level preferable... It's the ignorance of our generation when most FTE don't realize instead of some equity vesting over 4 years they might have been better off with a cash balance defined benefit plan or pension plan with the maximum contribution.
We think we know best but fail to realize it could be better. We get caught up on the LC competition but fail to distinguish an optimal plan outside of the ones presented to us.
Would a union help? I think so... Would it take lots of explaining ... yes....
As a hiring manager I can say that finding a good SWE manager is harder than finding a good SWE.
I don't understand how you intend to set up a union without "soft skills" ... or at least one that doesn't collapse in dysfunction and infighting.
> Its correct spelling is RR. H H. With a point after the second R and one after the second point H, and a space between the first point and the first H.
"RRHH" being standard for plural acronyms seems sane to me. A bit verbose, but sensible and clear. This bit about "RR. H H."--with that exact spacing and punctuation--makes no sense at all to me. I'm not curious enough to investigate the logic behind that, though.
"Resources" it sounds at least disrespecting if you think about it
Yes, massive, but because of the unique mentality and system of values of engineers/nerds in general we are focused on solving technical problems and learning new things while the rest (management, RRHH, sales, etc) are focused on status and getting a bigger piece of the pie for themselves, so we get f*cked over by them very easily.
>How could we increase our leverage?
1- The single most powerful tool we have is fully sharing salaries and compensation. That drives prices up (and other benefits such as vacation time or equity).
2- Forming common fronts like low skilled workers do in unions or other associations that set minimal working conditions that avoid races to the bottom and exploitation (60hs work-weeks for example). In my third world country companies do this themselves and group in something called a "technological pole" that is just a gathering to cap salaries and avoid competing among themselves. So, they later threaten you that if you quit you would be black listed. (This resulted on a massive migration of engineers to other countries and to freelancing on the internet, they were short-sighted and not very smart :D ).
3- Tribalism. Start to see the rest of the other roles like they see you (management, RRHH, sales, etc). Other tribes competing for the same pie and act accordingly. Stop going along with the "you should improve your soft skills to make our job easier" and flip the tables and start to demand that they become better at a technical level to make your job easier instead. We are in high demand, they are not, simple. Make them work harder and learn to speak to us and adapt to us instead of the other way around.