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Comment by Clubber | Hacker News Reader

>Unions do things like engage in age discrimination by favoring senior members over all else.

I think you mean unions negotiate for relatively higher pay for people who have been with the company longer, or with more experience, but it would also negotiate higher pay for new hires relative to a non-union shop.

You're also thinking of manufacturing unions. I suspect a tech union would be a little different. Things like The Writer's Guild are also unions.

I'd certainly be willing to try it. I suspect pay would at least double. I mean right now you hear about high demand for tech people, but wages don't reflect that. Unions would help that problem. Unions would also prevent offshoring which drives down wages.

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> I mean right now you hear about high demand for tech people, but wages don't reflect that.

By what metric? Software developers can make $250k+ in SV.

I have a hard time imagining pay doubling broadly. Only a small cohort of employers could sustain paying engineers $500k+, though I suppose it is possible.

Software developers wages have stagnated for at least the last 10 years.

http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread/81424.html

So I'll ask again, since developers are in such high demand, why do you think wages haven't increased?

Pretty much everything that article says about SF is wrong. A "small detached bungalow" in the suburbs will probably go for half what they suggest, and 120K is not subsistence wages. I currently live on less than that, in a nice area, spend money on things I want to, don't budget aggressively, and save a significant portion of my income.

Sure, you probably won't be purchasing a family home on a single (entry level) income, but that's true in pretty much any suburban or urban area.

That's in SV. And the vast, vast majority aren't making that.

I know good people in Europe making 14k - 23k per year.

I am not going to support anyone or any group that plans on putting up barriers to entry or outright discrimination.

If a company wants to hire someone, they deserve that job, and it is ridiculous that an uninvolved group would be able to stop that hire from happen.

Them have different color skin, because they were born in an "off shore" country is no excuse to discriminate against them.

>I am not going to support anyone or any group that plans on putting up barriers to entry or outright discrimination.

You mean like pointless tech quizzes on minutia that only a young college graduate with zero experience (and cheaper) would remember?

>it is ridiculous that an uninvolved group would be able to stop that hire from happen.

I don't believe unions prevent companies from hiring people.

>Them have different color skin,

Looking at tech companies, they don't seem to be bothered by skin tone.

>because they were born in an "off shore" country is no excuse to discriminate against them.

If they aren't citizens, there is absolutely an excuse to discriminate agains them, just like their "offshore" home country discriminates against foreign workers trying to work there. There have been countless articles about TATA and their ilk not only discriminating for positions in their home countries but for positions they've won the US.

And that's called racism. I don't care if other countries discriminate against us. 2 wrongs don't make a right.

I will not ever support an organization that is outright discriminatory like that, whether it is based on skin color or citizenship.

Also, unions DO indeed prevent people from being hired. That's why right to work laws exist.

Right to work is the idea that if a company hires you, it is illegal for a union to force you to join.

There are companies where you are forced to join the union.

Ex, the screen writers and actors guild require people who work at certain companies to join them.

>And that's called racism. I don't care if other countries discriminate against us.

Lol. No it isn't, it's called nationalism. Racism is about the race of a person regardless of citizenship, nationalism is about citizenship regardless of race. You probably should look up words before you throw them around.

>I will not ever support an organization that is outright discriminatory like that, whether it is based on skin color or citizenship.

That's a straw man. No one said anything about discriminating based on skin color except you.

>Also, unions DO indeed prevent people from being hired. That's why right to work laws exist. Right to work is the idea that if a company hires you, it is illegal for a union to force you to join.

So where in that sentence do you explain that a union can force a company not to hire you?

>There are companies where you are forced to join the union. Ex, the screen writers and actors guild require people who work at certain companies to join them.

Yes, the logic being is the union is the reason people get higher wages, so they should pay union dues to support the people (fellow employees) that earned those higher wages. Many states have done away with that though as a direct attempt to weaken unions.

Here's a decent breakdown of the pros and cons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

Nationalism is indirect racism.

IE, if you make a law banning hiring anyone with an African citizenship, that is still racist, even though technically it still effects people from South Africa.

If you make a law that "coincidently" only effects countries that are majority not white, guess what, that's racist.

Any offshoring law would mostly effect non white countries, and wouldn't do much to effect European countries.

If your proposal 90% effects people who are of a different skin color, thats still racist, even if the net is a little wider, and still 10% effects white people.

I don't care what word you use for it. Discrimination is discrimination.

"So where in that sentence do you explain that a union can force a company not to hire you?"

The literal next sentence of your post.

If you don't join the union, you are fired. There is literally a word for this. It is called being a union shop. And it is what right to work laws protect against.

I don't care what justification is used to force people to join them. I do not want them to negotiate for me.

And I will fight all attempts that try to force me to join them.

Fortunately for me, most other people in tech oppose them.

>Any offshoring law would mostly effect non white countries, and wouldn't do much to effect European countries.

Is your argument that since the majority of the world population is not white, anything except wide open free trade with no borders are racist? Give me a break. There is plenty of offshoring to eastern bloc European countries.

Research some of this stuff. It sounds like you read a hugely biased article as the sole source of your information on this topic.

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