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Discussion (15 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
The problem is that the people that DO want them, want to force it on those that don't, usually by labor law.
Yet, ~50% of Americans voted for the party that is diametrically opposed to them; a paradox.
That said, with only about ~10% of Americans being employed in a union role, it's more like the grass is greener on the other side than an actual understanding of the pros and cons of union membership.
Many of us have worked in $MEGACORPS with substantial union representation among the employees, have seen what it does and how it works in practice, and as a result want nothing to do with it. I wasn't represented due to my job classification, but now due to my firsthand exposure to unions I absolutely never will be by choice.
No way, no how, not ever.
Less than half of the US population voted in the last election. ~50% of Americans _who voted_ voted for the party that is diametrically opposed to unions, but that group is only ~23% of _Americans_.
About as unevenly as every other human social tribe.
Was part of SEIU at one point. At least where I worked SEIU reps were fucking useless. My team was stuck in a basement with mold growing in the corners. There are so many other layers of by-laws, local, state, federal laws the union was essentially useless.
But people in SEIU elsewhere said they were great. So as always YMMV
Grocers union members where I live, while on strike, tried to block people going in a grocery store to use the pharmacy which was technically on a different labor contract; the grocers union members were to leave pharmacy customers alone. They hassled them anyway. In the end neighbors and community at large ended up being against the grocers union due to a handful of cringe, edgelord members in utilikits over-stepping with their "uh ackshully" shit.
Unions are just more social tribe bullshit for people to leverage as magical words of power.
Google it; there's union success story's and union members suing unions/reps after members claim they were forced into just acquiescing to the rich ownership class anyway.
So much of the western way of life is just the same old rhetorical tribal bullshit, social darwinism no different than how it works among some random clusters of nomadic groups in Africa. Any sort of differentiation is merely semantics and rhetoric.
Bird song and banner logo, whether they bleed for prophet or prophecy are the only things humans can claim to make them different. Roughly same old human meat suits end of the day.
I am 100% all in on letting the robots, monitored by subject matter experts, make sure shit gets made and ending this forced obligation to kowtow and prostrate ourselves to other clearly normal and ultimately forgettable meat suits like most middle managers and union leaders, etc etc
Collective bargaining vis-a-vis unionization allows workers to more effectively push back against bullshit like RTO mandates and mass layoffs. They help reign in the massive pay packages to executives who directly benefit from laying folks off. And there's a reason why companies monitor internal communications and engage in retaliatory actions against employees for even discussing organizing. Yes, that's technically illegal under US labor law. But corporations do not care and will accept the risk of a non-guaranteed fine to make an example and enforce a chilling effect for other workers.
The fact that unions aren't a perfect solution to the overwhelming might of capitalist interests at each and every workplace does not mean that unions are bad, worthless, or not on the side of the individual worker. They are designed to make the tilt of power more equitable.
I don't know enough about the history and structure to understand if the current tech union movement is more of the same or if there is some reform included.
My fear is that union leadership will just attract someone from another completely different industry, who has no passion for computing, no experience, but wield tremendous power in how employees and employers conduct business. I'm not OK with that. I don't want some 65 year old curmudgeon MBA type politically connected bozo telling everyone what they can and cannot do. These types of committees and decision making are a killjoy and harm creativity.
There's just no way to guarantee that union leaders are regular folks like us who aren't power hungry but want to truly help the people. It rarely ever ends up attracting clean, nice, good personalities and then end up in cahoots with other nefarious players.
Having said all that, I would like to see a few changes in the industry:
- Interviews. The process is a complete mess right now. If we could standardize on a few things, that would go a long way. Guaranteed yes or no feedback immediately after the last step. Capping the process to just 2 days. You phone call, initial screen. Come in, meet the team, problem solve something real. Lunch. Some more team sessions to solve real problems, and then done at 2PM. Feedback at 4PM. No ghosting, no "oh we hired someone internally", no week long writing assignments and coding sessions to reverse a linked list.
- Salary. Just post the exact salary on the listing, without ranges. And then just tell the candidate up front, this is the salary. That's it. Stop with the tremendous waste of time on the back and forth. RSUs, etc. also posted full transparency. And just say "no negotiations, this is it".
- Layoffs. Provide a good cushion for the person to find a new role, health insurance. We're not asking for much here, just give the young folk less time and older folk more time since ageism is real.