Comment by zdragnar
6 hours ago
You're comparing unions that cover short-term contracts (film production, MLB) with "blue-collar unions" that represent hourly or salaried long-term employment contracts.
Is it any surprise that people who work as salaried employees would presume a union at their workplace would be structured and behave more like a "blue collar" union than not?
> Is it any surprise that people who work as salaried employees would presume a union at their workplace would be structured and behave more like a "blue collar" union than not?
Yes, it is a surprise! Because we're talking about very educated technical workers.
It seems like top tech programmers are closer to pro athletes than factory floor workers from the perspective of their value to owners.
> It seems like top tech programmers are closer to pro athletes than factory floor workers from the perspective of their value to owners.
To me, the question is whether that will continue to remain the case in the absence of unions. It doesn't seem at all implausible to me that 50 years from now, tech programming might much more closely resemble factory work if there's no mechanism for pushing back against it.
MLB players routinely have contracts for multiple season, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here. How many salaried engineers in the US do you think have multi-year contracts compared to "at-will" employment?
Also, I'd argue that establishing a union when a profession has relatively high social standing and pay if it seems likely that things will get worse is exactly the mechanism for fighting back against that decline. It's a lot harder to get management to agree to your terms if you've already lost most of your influence.