Comment by beebmam
2 years ago
If your leadership is tossing these incredibly valuable engineers aside, then it's time for you to toss that leadership out. You can do that by leaving, or talking to management about this, or unionizing. It's crazy to me tech workers aren't unionizing anyway.
(I am from Europe, so I have a fairly good idea of what Unions can do, also thanks to having lived and worked in two different countries).
I am not against Unionizing "per se" but the role of Unions has never been "tell the management how to run their business". There has been some cases of (smallish) company being "acquired" by their own workforce, and the Unions might have helped with formalizing the deal, but this is rare, and anyway happens only when the company goes bankrupt or decides to shut down.
So I do not understand exactly what you mean here.
Unfortunately union / labor movements in the US suffer from a big problem: due to historical circumstances they’re very combative. The labor movement here never grafted the idea of being business oriented on behalf of workers into the movement (like in Germany) rather, they treat the business as the enemy pretty much from the outset.
Some of that is indeed earned by the businesses reputation, but ultimately this is what I think spurred the decline of union membership in the US because businesses don’t get a lot if any value out of having a union around and the organized workers often find the benefits stagnant after some time
That is because of historical circumstances, but it continues to this day because it's encoded in the law; we don't have codetermination or sectoral bargaining.
Police unions are very business oriented. And they might be the most successful unions
A union would provide the sort of employment protections much of Europe alreadys enjoys.
I know how Unions work. The OP stated: ...it's time for you to toss that leadership out. You can do that by leaving, or talking to management about this, or unionizing.
A Union can organize and sustain a strike. But they cannot "toss leadership out". Not the CEO, the Board or any manager at any level.
They could theorethically "blackmail" a company saying "strike will not end until X is fired" where X is a PM or manager or whatever but I never really heard of anyone trying this tactic, not to say actually succeed...
A union doesn’t have the power to change management, and is just as likely to advocate to retain low performing ICs in the name of “solidarity”
When you can get a bootcamp certificate, and then get two remote jobs and coast at both for 12 months, and then repeat, what could a union do for you?
Are you currently doing this? Living in an expensive region like Western Europe/North America? If this first or second hand, let's hear more about it.
Second hand - but there are subreddits all about it. People are doing it.
I prescribe a viewing of "Carry On at your Convenience" to cure that sentiment:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_at_Your_Convenience
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Unions may be different in your part of the world. In America, it's one of the only ways for blue collar or other production-oriented workers to have any degree of leverage at the negotiation table. We are treated like cattle in the workplace, and though unions come with their fair share of problems (due to it being yet another leadership structure to work within), the idea of workers holding power as a group is essential, because it reflects reality. None of that VC money is getting a return without workers to do the work. Most places in America are not unionized, but the ones that do pay better than other work in the area, even after union dues.
I see it as very much a union-by-union thing, much like you would an employer.
Now, some programmers may be able to negotiate good terms for themselves, but the vast majority of that stage is simply how silver your tongue is. Why should you be paid better because you got a better charisma roll with the interviewer? I would want my coworkers to be paid the same as me for the same experience. A senior with 10 years in the field, naturally, would be paid much more.
It's strange you say developers can negotiate, when there've been quite a few layoffs as of late and we see plenty of stories of people having trouble staying in tech. Which is it? The only thing that can give you credible sway is learning rarer or more in-demand skills, and putting together projects that show you understand how to use them. And for how long will that last? A union is a lot harder to fight than an individual.
But yes, there are bad unions. If they're as bad as your alleged blue collar friends say, let's name them! Sometimes their politics or dues or seniority system sucks. Those systems deserve to be put on blast.
But strangely, no unions listed in your comment as bad.
It’s funny you mention it as a charisma roll, because it’s not really a roll, is it? High charisma is high when it’s with your interviewer, when it’s with your peers, when it’s with your business stakeholders. High charisma is useful in getting a job, in arguing for addressing tech debt, in pushing back on unreasonable timelines. Why would you not consider charisma in a job interview?
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I have seen first-hand the negatives of unions in Italy: there are downsides of powerful union control. But in the US, a strong argument can be made that unions played a very major part (along with the GI Bill of course) in the growth of the the middle class from 1950 to 1980, and their busting, starting with Reagan, likewise was instrumental in the dwindling of the middle class and the dramatic rise in wealth inequality.
71% of Americans support unions - though you may not live there.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...