Ask HN: How do we unionize tech?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34616009

by anon-unionist • 3 years ago

19 13 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Using an anon here for obvious reasons.

Given

* We are seeing highly publicized layoffs across many companies in many industries. * These companies are not uniformly underperforming relative to the market. Some are even doing well in absolute terms. * These add weeks of runway to their existing years. * Executive and shareholder compensation is not being cut in correspondence.

How do we, as tech-labor, coordinate in the same way for the conditions we want? Knowing the distaste for union labor in the West, especially in the tech industry, what are the next steps.

* Can we coordinate secretly, without letting management know? * Can we avoid preventative firings of organizers? * Can we do this while providing meaningful material improvement in outcomes for all tech workers without being suborned by leftist-style factionism?

I hope everyone laid off comes back ready to acqui-unionize.

poorbutdebtfree• 3 years ago

There's too many A-players in this market that were literally living on one meal a day less than two decades ago to ever phantom giving away their labor for free.

danrocks• 3 years ago

I am an immigrant from a country with very strong unions. I would never ever join one in the US. I don’t want my labor to go to the union leadership elite caste that inevitably takes power and lives in luxury while salaries get depressed across the board in the name of equality. Imagine having to have a license to be a software engineer, or doing unpaid apprenticeships sucking up to union members for acceptance. No thanks.

FrontierPsych2• 3 years ago

Have rules and regulations in the bylaws as to salary and that you don't want leadership elite caste that inevitably takes power and lives in luxury while salaries get depressed across the board in the name of equality.

throwaway675309• 3 years ago

Disagree. Having seen the wide disparity in skill sets as an interviewer for hundreds of software "engineering" position applicants, I believe that a PE certification along the lines of what mechanical and electrical engineers have to get might be worth instituting in the US.

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

1. Setup a mechanism to talk with coworkers out of band. A Slack team, a Signal or Telegram channel, phone #s or email, doesn’t matter, as long as it’s not Corp owned on Corp equipment. You only talk about this topic outside of Corp comms.

2. Find enough likeminded coworkers who are onboard with organizing.

3. Contact the NLRB to hold a vote. You’ll need a majority. You don’t need unanimous buy in, and likely won’t get it; optimize accordingly.

Organizing is federally protected. If you have suspicion or evidence your employer is retaliating against your organizing efforts, report them to the NLRB.

Unions, like companies, are only as good as the people in charge. Good luck.

https://uniontrack.com/blog/roadmap-for-unionizing-first-ste...

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/olms/regs/compliance/...

FrontierPsych2• 3 years ago

???? I don't get what you're asking.

Start a union. Ask people to join. Don't tell the companies who joins. Wait until you have a critical mass. Then do stuff.

klooney• 3 years ago

Conditions are still too good for the classic, blue collar union strategy where you rally the troops to fight back. People do that when they can't feed their families, not when they are facing the horror of going from upper upper middle class to upper middle class.

You have have a plan to offer something else- job security by pulling up the ladder on new programmers is probably the easiest lift. It worked for the doctors and lawyers.

BerislavLopac• 3 years ago

I don't think the solution is to unionise; instead I see co-ops as a better model for tech company structure.

soueuls• 3 years ago

Do whatever you want but count me out of this mess.

I prefer being a tech mercenary than joining a union.

ccajas• 3 years ago

I'd rather see the increase of job security for developers that are lagging behind, and an increased quantity of accelerator and returnship programs for developers across all sorts of backgrounds and experiences, to get them out of stagnation.

I have worked for less than $25/hr at various web shop LLCs, less than what some tech internships pay. I'm also going through one of my longest unemployment periods ever. Yet, even I don't think unionizing tech jobs is going to prevent these sorts of situations for developers.

tacostakohashi• 3 years ago

I would suggest more of a professional association with rules and a code of ethics. Just some pretty basic stuff, like a modern and detailed Joel test (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...) for tech workers.

That way, the association / members can offer something to employers - they will operate professionally, use approved and best practice tools and processes, and achieve outcomes on company time instead of arguing about tabs vs spaces, emacs vs vim, the need to rewrite everything in rust or clojure, etc., and in exchange they expect better conditions and terms.

The best examples of this kind of thing are the National Association of Realtors, bar associations, FINRA, FASB, etc. Although they don't look and feel like unions, they do function effectively to protect the interests of their members, and to a lesser extent the public and industry.

mikewarot• 3 years ago

Programmers make insane amounts of money compared to those in the trades, that would have to cease before a union could make inroads into the profession.

evilbob93• 3 years ago

"tech work" is more than just programmers. Highly paid programmers might not be the initial target market, but roles like front line tech support, quality assurance roles would benefit from collectively pushing back on management initiatives like surveillance etc. Many times these jobs are deeply ingrained in a bespoke system that doesn't necessarily translate to another position.

When I worked at a UAW shop (GM) in the 1980s, there were salaried engineers and union hourly people building the cars. When the union made a gain by way of a strike, it was automatically applied to the salaried folks. We understood that their work benefitted the rest. This started to break down when GM bought EDS in 1985 and transferred all their IT people over to it and they lost all of those benefits. People who were able to get themselves classed as "engineers" rather than data processing were able to avoid the big transfer.

Ask HN: How do we unionize tech?

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