Comment by unknownfuture
9 hours ago
I can only assume you aren't paying attention to, and aren't personally experiencing, the impact of AI on the industry.
Power has shifted dramatically in favour of the ownership class in the last couple of years. That's precisely what unions are meant to counterbalance.
What’s a union going to do if (doing a lot of work there) AI significantly reduces the demand for software engineers or tech workers generally?
If employers have the upper hand at the moment, the union contract will be more evenly distributed perhaps, but isn’t likely to be “better” overall.
That combines to have tech workers, who often have an exceptionalist view of themselves, to conclude that a union would cost them all the union overhead and prevent their exceptional talent from being properly rewarded.
>What’s a union going to do if (doing a lot of work there) AI significantly reduces the demand for software engineers or tech workers generally?
Aside from general job protection stuff, the general answer would be that they can ensure that some of the productivity gains go to employees rather than employers. Let's say the company has been so much more efficient thanks to AI that they earn an extra 100 million in revenue with the same level of spending. So, the union goes into contract negotiations asking for a 50 million increase in salaries per annum, and employees get part of that windfall.
In a world where AI heavily disrupts software, a union striking over economics (to get an extra $50M paid out to union members every year) would immediately notice all the replacement tech workers (who were out of work due to AI disruption) streaming in to do the work.
It's really hard for me to imagine the conjunction of significant disruption from AI and effective union bargaining.
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Isn't Wikimedia a non profit? Who exactly are the employers on the other side negotiating with the union here? They're higher on the hierarchical structure, but they're not actually stakeholders the same as there are in private for-profit companies.
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longshoremens' unions made sure that the dock workers didnt lose jobs through the change over to containers.
handling a reduction in work is one of the things a union is for
If employers have the upper hand, you're fucked anyway. Hire 10% to keep the other 90% down. A union gets you solidarity so no one is having to weather the storm alone.
You need to think long and hard about the fact capital reflexively does everything possible to resist or bust unions when these are the same people trying to pound into you that you're supposed to give more for the bottom line, and raises can't do anything but keep up with inflation this year. If they go for the law firm, the money is absolutely there, they just don't want to spend it on you. Heaven forbid.
Look I'm not going to teach you about the entire history of labor relations and the role of unions.
But rest assured that this isn't some new, unique moment in history. The exact same questions could have been raised during the introduction of automation in literally any industry throughout modern history. And yes, unions have, through that same period, acted as a critical bulwark in protecting worker rights.