But is that the end goal? for the union to have power? sometimes it does seem like that is in fact the goal.
I thought the goal was for people to make a good living and have good working conditions - most SV/hi-tech types have those things already, so why should they care that the union doesn't exist or doesn't have power?
The end goal is to balance the power dynamic between capital owners and the labor. As of today especially in US, the labor has little to none bargaining power and capital owners have infinite power to even influence govt.
The only reason we had relatively higher salaries than other fields "till now" is because of lower supply/demand ratio and it's still a relatively new profession than others. This ratio will eventually balance out and when it happens we will be left with no bargaining power.
>> I work in the tech industry, I never worried for one second that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk gets paid more than me.
We're definitely not getting our fair share of the value we produce and that's just theft to me.
This is a reasonable ask. It's easily addressable - build a notice period into the offers (for example, if you've been with the company more than a year, you get at least 4 weeks notice).
The problem with any sort of exclusive guild is that it becomes more difficult to break into, which is bad for a growing industry.
The idea behind organized workforce is to balance the power dynamic between employer and employees. It's harder for employer to ignore the demands of an organized workforce than individual employees.
In other countries the notice periods are written in law. But then again, do we really want to wait(& trust) for the govt which is heavily lobbied by FAANG to legislate this? Isn't it more efficient to organize and demand your terms from the employer.
It's the same. If companies hear loud and clear from both their employees and from people they want to hire, they will do it if they want to compete.
Heck, any smart company might do it voluntarily to make it harder for their employees to be poached by other companies that only offer a fire-at-will employment (the legal default).
A few posts on Medium/Substack might catalyze this change.
Yes definitely they will.."today". Companies don't need to do anything special if supply overtakes demand. We feel we are special today only because IT is still relatively a new field and the demand still outweighs supply.
But the rate at which universities across the world are churning out CS grads and the increasing focus on automation, supply will definitely overtake demand. And when that happens we will end up in the same predicament as other professions. At that point, companies don't have to cave in to the demands from their employees or the people they want to hire.
It’s one of the reasons we see layoffs during a time of record profits. It’s easy to turn humans out to boost the profit margin and the stock value.
The words "middle class" use this slight of hand. Anyone who is not literally burger flipping can be called "middle class" simply by pointing at the people below them. Politicians regularly use it [1]. The proportion doesn't matter if people don't ask. If people knew the proportions, that'd be bad. So please also never talk about your salary with anyone but your closest partner, and never ask how much your executive makes.
The two classes that are important are capital-owning and worker. Even the best paid workers are disposable (see this thread, or Google layoffs) and will never be close to accumulating the wealth someone with generational wealth has. The difference is simply too big. No laying off the avocado toast will fix this. The mobility between those two classes is non-existent, aside from freak accidents.
You always look at the person being paid less than you or working in "relatively" worse conditions and think oh at least I'm not doing that job. All amenities that these companies "treat their workers" with are not out of goodness of there hearts but they are all designed to keep the worker in the office longer and work longer hours. The cost of those amenities are a fraction of profits these workers make for the company.
You have seen how little it takes these companies to layoff employees. "Our profits dipped 5% this year? well too bad you gotta go even if you worked 20 years for this company".
Also don't be under any illusion that the golden era of a high paid dev job is going to last forever. As the supply for skilled tech increases and the automation evolves, the average tech workers are going to be as expendable as any other profession, they already are in fact. In fact the sole reasons these companies promote "teach your kids to code" is not because they care about our kids development, but it's because they want a steady supply of tech workers in future at low cost. The more tech workers there are, the less they have to pay.
In the end, the fact that these companies are making ungodly amounts of profits should be seen as a huge red alert. This is nothing but exploitation of labor no matter which field you are working on. Exploitation doesn't have to be working in poor conditions. If a worker is getting paid only a fraction of value they are producing then it qualifies as exploitation and should be looked with scrutiny.