Unions do not preclude promotions from merit. Unions do not preclude hiring people at the middle of the pay scale. Don't construct a straw man of the worst things you can think of, and package them up as the average union, because it isn't.
Do SWEs in the US actually have any of these problems? Maybe I'm spoiled by my FAANG job but I find it hard to imagine these kinds of work conditions even at a non-FAANG tech company.
As software is increasingly commoditized over the next 5 decades we'll see a huge degradation in employee compensation even as profits for these companies continue to grow.
It's very well known that people leave FAANGs in general due to stress.
Google seems to be better in some ways, but I met plenty of ex-Googlers complaining about the stress and the competitive environment.
Does that mean a union should be built solely to put pressure to end open offices? No, but it does indicate that there are near-universal issues in the industry that such a union or professional association can address. Because without any organizing, management will just continue the status quo. There’s not even the added competition of some firms deciding to offer personal offices or at least cubicles as an alternative to woo candidates.
It’s an example of something in industry that everyone complains about but no one can successfully challenge.
Depends on the union and how long it's been in operation and their goals. Some unions demand and get ridiculous perks. You may have heard of the "rubber room" - a.k.a. paying employees not to work. That happened.
As long as the employer consents, and the union reps consent, and the majority of the union approves a bargain, then I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with getting paid to not work.
[EDIT] in short, in some situations you get to replace the typical "well, just leave!" response to management trying to fuck you over, with "... don't leave, because they won't be able to fuck you over, and if they try they'll be the ones having a bad day". Which is nice.
In theory maybe but in practice this has always seemed to be the case for me (admittedly a brit). Here there are literally queues to be eligible. There is a list of names and it's sorted by company start date.
I care little about promotions or status, nor does my job mean much to me other than income (it’s what I do with a small part of my life, not who I am), so I’m optimizing for different metrics than others. I have done well enough for a lifetime, and I’d rather spend my energy pulling the rest of folks up (both in comp and quality of life). Don’t wealthy people spend their time on philanthropy when they’re done hustling? I say, “why wait?” and do what you can where you are with what you have.
Compensation has diminishing utility, while I have found compassionate efforts do not. YMMV.
(Onward to legally mandated PTO, fewer day work weeks, wfh, and stronger labor rights for everyone; society grows great when old people plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in)
Edit reply to your edit: Top talent is a small minority. You’re basically asking the majority “Why do you want better for all of yourselves at the detriment to the very few amongst us capturing a majority of the gains?”
- Setting quality standards. Ensuring people are properly trained and so on. E.g. Preventing Boeing from offshoring development of the MCAS to engineers paid $9 an hour.
- Setting ethical standards. E.g. Preventing car pollution "defeat device". Providing legal support for whistleblowers.
- Fighting ageism. It's provably widespread in SV.
- Fighting the no-poaching agreements. Many FAANGs were found to be colluding.
- Sighing exploitative immigration rules like the H1B "leash" that creates a class of underpaid workers.
> We'll switch from nimble meritocracy to a regulated and calcified follower
This is an absurd claim. Any human organization can be calcified or stay nimble. Unions are not different.
Are VW engineers not part of a union/workers' council? If they are, um...
> So my theory of the sequence of events in a nutshell is this:
1. Engineers write code to get around a difficult design problem in order to keep the project moving forward.
2. The design team runs out of time to fix the problem and faces a classic dilemma: delay the program, at a cost of millions, or bury the code to buy time to work on a solution.
3. Once the timeline passes the point at which metal is cut, the die is literally cast and the engines are destined for production, no matter what. At this point, the only career saving option for the engineers involved is to say nothing, and just hope they can get away with it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/business/the-engineering-...
> The two men who have led Volkswagen and shaped its culture much of the past 20 years are Ferdinand Piëch, the chief executive from 1993 until 2002, and Martin Winterkorn, the chief executive from 2007 until his resignation after the scandal became public.
Mr. Piëch, a grandson of Mr. Porsche, is an engineer who made his name shaping Audi to take on BMW and Mercedes-Benz. His tenure came to be defined by his toughness and willingness to demote or dismiss people who were not performing well.
> Some critics argue that after 20 years under Mr. Piëch and Mr. Winterkorn, Volkswagen had become a place where subordinates were fearful of contradicting their superiors and were afraid to admit failure. “There is a self-righteousness which led down this terrible path,” said David Bach, a senior lecturer at the Yale School of Management who has followed the Volkswagen case.
Bernd Osterloh, chairman of the Volkswagen workers council, wrote a letter to the staff suggesting flaws in company culture. “We need in the future a climate in which problems aren’t hidden but can be openly communicated to superiors,” he wrote.
Because that behavior is widespread across the whole industry, across many countries and across 4/5 decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal
Unions, just like any other non-governative organization, are just as powerful as people support them.
No, but don't try to bullshit us that any new union (and it's negotiated contract) isn't going to end up looking a lot like the unions around it. Doubly so when the employees in question are part of a national union.
>Look at union jobs in Europe for a better example of how things can work out.
Cool. And just as soon as you do the work to make the collective bargaining status quo in the US the same as it is in Europe, we can continue this conversation. Until then, I don't care about this tangent.
>Ask yourself this: Why would you voluntarily forgo leverage to be gained on your employer?
Because *I* am not gaining leverage. A bureaucracy that represents me as part of an amalgamation gains leverage. Before I toss my hat in, I need to hear a whole lot more about what that bureaucracy is planning to be, and how it's going to design itself. I don't need to be pitched the possibility this instance could be better than the stereotype. Why not show me the plan on how we're going to make sure this one is a good one?
Let's set goals. Up front and on screen. Then we can decide on the implementation details (such as unionization) needed to get there. When the cart is put before the horse, I don't see how you can tell me with a straight face that the union could ever possibly be anything but exactly the generic stereotypical union that the grandparent poster is afraid of.
Any new organization in human society is going to be the same as previous ones? Does this apply to unions only? Or no progress ever happens in any organization?
Perhaps this isn't the union that will do it, but surely the tech industry can find a way to innovate on unions and labor power. Why everything else and not that?
SWEs have more bargaining power than ever right now (at least in the US, which is the market I'm most familiar with) .
Care to describe what disruption happened and how? Software developers contracts seem pretty similar to any other office worker.
The only big change in employment in the last 15 years happened outside of software development: the gig/sharing economy.
And it's a huge step backwards.
1) Plenty of people in finance, lawyers, and so on have high salary and excellent conditions. Many had highly paid jobs in the same fields 50 years ago. This is nothing close with "disrupting the traditional employer<->employee power dynamic".
2) An this point it's really difficult to assume that you are arguing in good faith.
It's nice to have your role in high demand, but all good things must come to an end.
Because in this case it isn't in Europe?
I like the European tradition a lot more than the frequent outcomes with US unions. I've seen US unions where what the original poster describes is totally accurate.
My main source of leverage comes from my employer's projection of what I'll do for them over the coming year/years. The better picture I paint for them on that point, the more leverage I have.
It's not at all obvious to me that my leverage would be increased by collective bargaining by more than the cost of that outsourcing.
> Poché, [...] lives in Manhattan [...] earning just under $50,000 a year.
That doesn't seem like "extremely well compensated"
EDIT: I googled "median salary" in Manhattan (no age qualifier) and you guessed it...it's $50,000
You presume this sort of compensation is enjoyed throughout our industry. It isn't.
Doctors, psychiatrists, and lawyers have professional associations. Professional athletes and Hollywood actors (as well as other film industry workers) are also unionized.
Read Shopify's CEO speech about being a team and not a "family". Also read Coinbase CEO. These "tech unions" are PACS, not your traditional worker unions.
They can in some cases do, particularly in the US.
It's still a possibility.
edit: Fair points. I still believe that modern labor is a highly dynamical system. Many workers do need additional support and benefits, but our corner of the world is one of the best compensated and least regulated. Solutions for getting low-paid workers better equity shouldn't be used as a hammer -- workers earning six to seven figures do not need unions. Unions in tech will put downward pressure on our mobility, competitiveness, and compensation.
But you enjoy many of the benefits past union members fought and died for.
We owe a debt to those who worked to get us simple humane things like taking children out of coalmines and getting benefits for working beyond 40 hours per week. Those days are gone. Now they fight to keep people who get drunk on the job or try to tell our factories that some people should stand around and do nothing because asking them to help move some parts from one room to another isn’t in their narrowly defined job description.
We're extremely well compensated and are dictating changes like forever WFH. We have generous vacation, perks, 401k contribution, ...
I want to get promoted because I work hard, not because of seniority. I want to be able to switch jobs or positions and not have to start at the bottom of the ladder.
Why would we want this?
Edit:
Unions will put pressure on the United States' ability to compete with Europe and other nations. Labor will be less flexible, and it's likely that top talent will be paid much less. Costs, however, will increase and the entire US tech industry will suffer.
We'll switch from nimble meritocracy to a regulated and calcified follower. The rest of the world will catch up. I don't get how that's good for the US.
Also, seeing all of the Europeans in here commenting about an American issue is odd.