Comment by 0xy
6 years ago
What if the person to fight in my corner is me? Unions drag everyone's wages to an average. Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself.
Look at teachers and police unions for a prime example. Great police get paid the same as the police who racially profile. Great teachers get paid the same as the teachers who phone it in.
Additionally unions protect incompetent employees, which I don't want.
So the value prop for unions seems to be: get paid way less money, we'll make sure your incompetent colleagues never get fired and we'll make a stack of money for union bosses in the process.
I want to negotiate my own pay and benefits, and it's worked out excellent for me. A union only serves to harm my interests.
To me it seems "top performers" are not really recognized and job jumpers are the ones that are paid more.
I'm not the person you replied to and I get where you're coming frorm but...
* Job jumping is what forces employers to actually recognize performance. That's both for the person leaving and for everyone else left behind.
* Not so much for the company a person leaves or joins, but for the economy as a whole, job jumping IS performance. Your job isn't just being good at whatever you do right now, it's finding and moving to roles that are more useful economically (aka pay more).
I agree with that it is not bad the economy that people change jobs, but I believe that the employers overvalue others employees and undervalues their own, a bit.
Not counting the most dull sweat shops, programmers experienced in the company's code and processes just are like X months/years of salary more valuable on average than everyone else in their hiring pool on average.
I worked on my prior workplace for three years and at the end I worked half as hard for twice the result as in year 1-2. In the first 6 months I got sort of nothing done. I think this applied to other hires too. Is anyone agreeing with this, numbers approximately of course?
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If a company isn't meeting your salary expectations then leaving for a better offer is itself a negotiating tactic in a way.
...which only proves the point that people are not rewarded for their skills and efforts.
Instead: being good at doing interviews including "looking the part", being strong negotiators, changing jobs often.
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To me it seems like the scene in Game of Thrones: "Power is a curious thing. Three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man. Between them stands a common sellsword. Each great man bids the sellsword kill the other two. Who lives, who dies? Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall."
Value is what someone will pay, the highest salaries go to those who can get them.
So averaging salaries makes it better?
Seems to me like teachers and police like their unions.
As for the tech industry, remember, your already getting paid less because of companies like Apple and Adobe who had the non-poaching agreement. This stifled salaries for everyone involved.
Unions are so bad, but companies will collectively bargain if they can.
> "Poor performers get paid more, top performers get paid less. No thanks, I can negotiate for myself."
The two retorts to this are: 1) it's selfish arguing. "Fuck you got mine" style, dismisses what happens to everyone else as long as you're OK. Which may be fine for you, but why should the rest of us agree that you being wealthier is the thing we all want?
2) You negotiating against the resources of a multi-million dollar company who can hire any legal or negotiating team of experts against you? Can you, really?
> "Additionally unions protect incompetent employees, which I don't want."
Unions don't have to protect incompetent employees, but they can demand that the employee be proved incompetent and not falsely accused of incompetence and sacked without "trial" - which could happen to you. Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day.
> "I want to negotiate my own pay and benefits, and it's worked out excellent for me. A union only serves to harm my interests."
Voting sure is worse than having me as dictator, isn't it? Democracy only serves to harm my interests. Surely you will agree that's a good reason for FaceBook to suppress talk of Democracy and voting in nation-wide FaceBook chat?
>dismisses what happens to everyone else as long as you're OK
Not really, because it's not like tech low performers are in poverty. Tech salaries bottom out at $60-70k in most places in the US. $60k is far from poverty and far from nothing.
>Which may be fine for you, but why should the rest of us agree that you being wealthier is the thing we all want?
Well, the collective in this case has already agreed that I should be paid the market rate that I successfully negotiate. Unionisation is extremely unpopular in tech.
>You negotiating against the resources of a multi-million dollar company who can hire any legal or negotiating team of experts against you
Negotiating isn't 1:1. If you are an effective negotiator and perform well then you're usually negotiating multiple offers and using them as leverage against each other. In reality, it's less "David vs Goliath" and more like "Goliath vs Goliath vs Goliath". If a company refuses to meet my expectations, I move on. No harm done.
>Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day
I willingly give up those rights. No, really. My current employer can terminate my contract for any reason with minimal notice required. I don't really care, because I know they won't do that as long as I continue to deliver value. In return for those contract stipulations, I am paid more.
But you seem to gloss over the inconvenient facts about police and teachers unions.
In fact, teachers unions regularly protect sexual predators. [1]
Similarly, police unions regularly protect officers who commit heinous abuses of power.
>Democracy only serves to harm my interests
Maybe I just think a bloated organisation that protects incompetent employees shouldn't be the moderator of so-called "democracy".
If I have a problem within an organisation, I make my thoughts clearly heard with management. If management refuses to listen and the issue is serious enough, I leave.
For example, I once worked for an undisclosed company who refused to allocate resources to fix security issues impacting our customer's privacy. I pushed the issue as high as it would go in the chain of command and left when it was clear they refused to do anything.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547...
> "I willingly give up those rights. No, really."
And by so doing, you give them up for others too.
> "the collective in this case has already agreed that I should be paid the market rate that I successfully negotiate."
Is there any reason to think you + (more resources, more experienced people, more leverage) could NOT negotiate a higher rate? That you are the best imaginable negotiator, despite having no specific training and only practising once every few years?
> "I don't really care, because I know they won't do that as long as I continue to deliver value"
/r/LeopardsAteMyFace will be there for when the company decides it's in their interest to eat your face.
> "In reality, it's less "David vs Goliath" and more like "Goliath vs Goliath vs Goliath"."
It's more like (Goliath + Goliath + Goliath) vs you; remember when "the Department of Justice alleged that Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, and Pixar had violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by entering into a series of bilateral "No Cold Call" Agreements to prevent the recruitment of their employees [...] The alleged intent of this conspiracy was "to reduce employee compensation and mobility through eliminating competition for skilled labor.""? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
> "I pushed the issue as high as it would go in the chain of command and left when it was clear they refused to do anything."
I refer back to your claimed excellent negotiating skills, and suggest that a better negotiator - or a large percentage of the employees "united" in some way - would have much more chance at effecting change, and that this is evidence that individual action is weaker than you wish/imply it is. To be clear, when the employer had the power to ignore you until you quit, leaving the injustice to be perpetuated against the customers, you didn't win.
> But you seem to gloss over the inconvenient facts about police and teachers unions.
I think this is an irrelevant diversion; that the courts sometimes lets guilty people go free is not a reason to ditch the legal system, that unions have people who do bad things in them, or that some unions are bad, is not a reason to reject the principal of uniting to make larger negotiating blocks to balance power dynamics which are almost entirely on the employer's side, with tactics like dividing and conquering - setting all employees on individual permanent competition with other employees.
>2) You negotiating against the resources of a multi-million dollar company who can hire any legal or negotiating team of experts against you? Can you, really?
I take it you've never actually gotten an offer with a large tech company. You're negotiating against some HR rep or hiring manager not some blacks ops negotiating team. Teams of lawyers cost a lot of money and paying them $40k to save $20k is stupid for a company.
>Unions protect exploited, abused, unfairly treated employees too, which you might become one day.
At the cost of also protecting the incompetent as they look very similar to those who are abused. Working with incompetent people is something engineers really dislike.
A well paid tech employee can invest their money, spend less, start passive income streams, etc. They have many options to hedge against future issues that don't include having to put up with idiots.
>Voting sure is worse than having me as dictator, isn't it? Democracy only serves to harm my interests. Surely you will agree that's a good reason for FaceBook to suppress talk of Democracy and voting in nation-wide FaceBook chat?
Governments are a necessary evil many would say, Democracy is simply the least bad of many bad options. Unions are not necessary.
> You're negotiating against some HR rep or hiring manager not some blacks ops negotiating team.
"some HR rep", you say dismissively. Are they not an extremely competent professional negotiator? They can't out-negotiate a (typically young, inexperienced, antisocial) programmer? Perhaps they should be fired and replaced with someone who can? Someone who will quietly make a no-poach agreement with competing companies, say.
> "Teams of lawyers cost a lot of money and paying them $40k to save $20k is stupid for a company."
The teams of lawyers have already been there, drafting the employment contracts in favour of the company, rewriting the hiring policies in favour of the company, adding the terms and conditions which say "anything you do on your own time on your own equipment belongs to us" and "you can't work anywhere we think is a competitor for years after leaving us" and so on.
> "Unions are not necessary."
Unions came as a response to employer abuse. "many would say" they are very necessary. Either way it's a step from "not necessary" to "they shouldn't be allowed".
ok, but hear me out on this:
how do you know you are earning as much as you should?
I mean if we take facebook as an example, you can't negotiate pay. You're slapped on a scale and thats it. You might be able to up your share offer, but actual pay is fixed on a scale.
Which is the same as what it would be if it was unionised.
Also, you have chosen two professions that are run by public organisations, so pay is always going to be low[1] However in other countries, teachers unions are very effective at settling compensation. (The UK for example has reasonably well paid teachers)
I think the problem is that you seem to be labouring under the pretence that you are special, and earn a specially high wage. Statistics say that in practice your probably earning close to median for tech. Make of that what you will...
[1] well yes and no, depending on country, but lets assume the USA
>I mean if we take facebook as an example, you can't negotiate pay
Stocks basically are pay, because anyone who doesn't immediately sell them as they vest is fiscally irresponsible.
>Which is the same as what it would be if it was unionised
Firstly, no. The scale is wide and you are placed somewhere between the low and high points of the scale for your level. Not every L5 engineer earns the same thing. Secondly, total compensation is what matters.
>Also, you have chosen two professions that are run by public organisations, so pay is always going to be low
Tech contractors for public organisations in my area are paid more or less market rate.
>However in other countries, teachers unions are very effective at settling compensation
Not for top performers, they are paid the same as low performers.
>The UK for example has reasonably well paid teachers
If you are the best teacher in the country, you get severely underpaid.
>Statistics say that in practice your probably earning close to median for tech
I earn 110% more than the median wage for my particular level, according to Glassdoor/Levels/etc. I don't think I'm special, but I think I perform highly and are paid in kind for that. Given I'm capable of analysing my own impact, it's pretty clear I'm paid a fraction of the value I provide to the company too.
Regarding stock units, if I had sold my AMZN RSUs as soon as they vested, I would have missed out by a lot of pay.
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> Stocks basically are pay, because anyone who doesn't immediately sell them as they vest is fiscally irresponsible.
I got stock 10 years ago at $13/share and now it's worth $201/share. I don't feel irresponsible for still holding it.
> Stocks basically are pay, because anyone who doesn't immediately sell them as they vest is fiscally irresponsible.
citation needed
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Obviously, I have no idea how unions work in the US. But there was the example of Dwayne Johnson, earning 90 Million and being a union member. The collective bargaining I am used to, has the effect in some cases of maybe overpaying certain individuals. IMHO that always happens. It doesn't drag salaries anywhere but up so. And there is a cap on salary levels and job levels being covered by unions collective bargaining. Above these levels, it is what you negotiate with your employer.
>Above these levels, it is what you negotiate with your employer
Teachers cannot negotiate salary, thanks to unions. The best teacher in America is paid the same as the worst teacher.
In most parts of Europe teachers are public servants / state / government employeed. As such, they are bound to predefined salary ranges. Upside, they are employeed for life.
And no every union is about teachers, which are by defenition not comparable to white collar tech employees (coming back to the FB example).
And how would an individual teacher negotiate salary ?
How do you reliably measure teacher quality?
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