Re:Ask HN: Do software engineers have leverage?
by triceratops on Sunday June 20, 2021 @07:40PM
(#27574802)
Why didn't they vote to change the union rules so they could negotiate their own salaries? In the US the screen actors' union, directors' union, and screenwriters' union don't have salary caps, only salary floors. Professional athletes the world over also have unions. Tom Cruise or Cristiano Ronaldo (or whoever else is hot today, I dunno) can demand the sky in his contracts while being a card-carrying union member.
Re:Ask HN: Do software engineers have leverage?
by digianarchist on Sunday June 20, 2021 @11:32PM
(#27576038)
Good question.
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 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.