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> Unions exist primarily to engage with employers, not government.

Labor parties in countries like the UK and Australia specifically exist to act as union-supported (and funded) parties. Unions do exist to help deal with members' employers, but they also exist to allow for collective political action.

An obvious example worldwide is teachers' unions (though you could argue because their employer is the state government, the union is fighting against their employer). Another example would be the strikes in the UK during Thatcher's time in office. Not to mention that basically all workers' rights legislation in most countries came out of battles between unions and governments, hence why they are so "weary" to "permit" unions to take political action -- because collective action works.

> So you'd need workers to unionize (which they have NOT done to deal with their employers) [...]

There's a saying about the second best time to plant a tree being today, and that applies here. This battle is most likely already lost, but actively choosing to not learn a lesson from it (unionise and mobilise for the next time this happens) is simply foolish. Ideally the technology industry would've unionised 30 years ago, but you'll never have any strength if the immediate response to someone saying "we should unionise" is "even if we unionised right now we couldn't solve $current_problem". Even if that is true, maybe having that infrastructure in place will allow you to solve tomorrow's problem?

> I think the real question here is why tech companies (or rather their CEOs, founders etc) are not making a fuss.

I hope by "fuss" you mean "shutting down operations until demands are met". Plenty of CEOs blogged about how insane the aforementioned anti-encryption legislation is (as they have in most of these cases). Looks like that doesn't work, maybe we should stop trying the same tactic?

> Politicians ignore us because 90% of people are not informed and choose not to think about history when these issues come up.

If (hypothetically) Google shut down for a week over this or any other bill, it would not be passed. They ignore us because all of our complaining is petulance -- it's not a substitute for action. That's the entire historic purpose of general strikes.

The last Labour (UK) government launched the Iraq war, started privatising the NHS, brought in student fees and cut benefits for working people. They supported measures far more draconian than this, including detaining people without charge for 28 days.

The party was founded to empower workers and unions. But that was in 1900. Things have changed a lot on the last 120 years.

>If (hypothetically) Google shut down for a week over this or any other bill, it would not be passed.

Assuming that's true, its irrelevant. No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they? A few very rich and powerful people might be able to. I'm happy to agree they should do more. But 99.999% of people can do nothing but complain.

Edit: FYI, I agree they should get on and unionize. But that will be a multi-year (maybe multi decade) process...

> The last Labour (UK) government [...]

I disagree fundamentally with many of the things the last UK Labour government did.

However at the same time, the last Australian Labor government combated the GFC with a stimulus package that allowed us to be the only country that survived the recession effectively unscathed. They developed the NBN which (before the Liberals got their hands on it) was affordable and actually stood a chance to revolutionise Australia's economy. The Labor government before that was responsible for the largest structural change to Australia's economy through floating the dollar.

My point is that just because one Labour government did many reprehensible things doesn't discount the very concept. And even in the UK (where Labour has struggled to get elected for decades), Labour governments have done more than a handful of worthwhile things in the past 120 years.

> No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they?

Right, and I was going to say this in my original comment. But then I thought "if all the engineers who worked for Google striked, would Google function for a week?" and wasn't sure of the answer. This is ultimately the downside of working on self-regulating machines -- strikes become less effective because the machinery stops for no-one. But I still think general strikes by technology workers would be effective.

The most recent U.K. Labour government also reintroduced national minimum wage, raised the zero-tax threshold, and passed the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

I don’t like everything they did, but they did do various things which supported worker rights.

> I think the real question here is why tech companies (or rather their CEOs, founders etc) are not making a fuss.

A heavy compliance burden is a moat for incumbents. This is true in most industries - businesses only squeal about regulations if it's going to severely hurt their bottom line, if it's just an annoyance than they'll publicly claim they don't like it but also point out that it stops cowboys and amateurs (i.e. new competitors) from potentially hurting consumers.

I think stripping this encryption would make competition MORE easy, since now offering encryption is a niche google etc won't compete for (Telegram got started here) and since now you don't have to spend time and energy adding security like before. But who knows.

It's also worth considering more conspiratorial (tin foil hat time, sorry) answers:

* Don't make a fuss and we will keep your Chinese competitor companies out of western markets for another decade.

* Don't make a fuss or we will come down hard on you with taxes and audits, both at the corporate level and for you as individuals. We might even move our lucrative federal contracts elsewhere or brand you "insecure" (yes, they are that hypocritical) and ban your products.

* Don't make a fuss, you gave us access to all that data and it includes you and your families. We will start by outing peoples sexuality and affairs and move on to arresting them for trumped up minor offenses we would never have known about without your help. And they'll blame you for their ruined lives.

Unions must be political because workers rights, healthcare, and pay are already political issues and business is already political. Anything which is a major fight with other powers is political, and if your issues are on the table for the nation to fight over, then it's political.

> Since we're overwhelmingly outnumbers, out voted and ignored, what can we do but be outraged, share some articles about self-service-encryption and then move on?

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

If asking nicely isn't getting you anywhere then the only alternative to achieve your goal is to use some kind of force. Economic, social or direct physical force.

I'd think that in this particular case, black-hat hacking would also be in play--to include those untrustworthy black-box voting machines.

To that trope of "four boxes" (soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammunition box) we might add "burner box", for the computer that was purchased with cash and kept off all of one's usual networks.

It's one of the quirks of the modal ethics of the computer person that we'd rather get someone fired, ruin their credit, reassign 20000 orphaned traffic/parking tickets to their name, or send a SWAT team to their home address, than to dirty our own hands with actual blood. You have to account for that in any organized resistance strategy. Nobody around here is going to be beating up scabs.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, to be perfectly honest. Beyond that, the fight is a moving target. A union that forms for this issue would not be the same union as for the next issue, nor would its members uniformly be for or against the next thing in lockstep. This is how political parties splinter, expecting the same members to be mad about whatever the next issue as they were the last, however tenuously related they are.

And beyond the fight itself being so ephemeral, there's no real way to know when it's been won or not. I believe that the FCC's tight-fisted control over what's allowed on what is allowed on network television is gone, and has been for some time. The Supreme Court has shown that they actually value the first amendment pretty strongly in recent years, even when its exercise may have bad side effects, and I think that if the FCC were to try and level fines against a new broadcaster for using the word 'ass' on television or something, it could be fought and the law overturned. But existing broadcasters are relatively complicit in that. The bigger networks don't want their family friendly-mass market television to have to compete with FX, HBO, or whatever other edgier networks are out there on the same spectrum, so they don't make a fuss because the barrier to entry that those broadcasting standards impose is worth paying the occasional small fine for accidental violations.

This is undoubtedly true in some tech arenas as well, and that tech companies - despite their lofty ideals, are finding it hard to find the energy to muster full-throated rebukes of policies that they may dislike ideologically, but maybe derive some small benefit from that their upstart competitors may not.

> "Governments are very weary to permit any union to become politically important for historic reasons. And any wise union thinks twice before getting involved in politics."

An interesting notion, but not at all reflective of the way unions relate to politics in the US or Europe at least.

> Unions exist primarily to engage with employers, not government. Governments are very weary to permit any union to become politically important for historic reasons. And any wise union thinks twice before getting involved in politics.

Wise unions may not, but U.S. unions constantly do. Some governments may not permit politically-active unions, but the U.S. government does, and unions are consistently large contributors (cf. https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/toporgs.php?view=hm&cyc...).

> Unions exist primarily to engage with employers, not government.

Simply not true. Unions engaged in both historically. Workers rights is a political cause after all. Historically, unions primarily engaged the government to gain rights for the workers. Every union is/was a political organization first.

Just because unions did that historically, doesn't mean they can do it today. When was the last time a Union engaged the federal government for something not related to workers rights (like this) and succeeded? My guess is before Reagan. Before I was born, and I am old now.

Don't get me wrong, it would be nice if they could and did. Increased union power would be a boon to workers. But wanting something doesn't make it happen.

I am also happy to agree that unions used to be much more politically powerful. Though even then, they concentrated workers rights, not say freedom of speech issues. Since at least the 70s, Unions have been crippled by changing economic structures and politicians who don't like the competition. In the 1960s, 30% of workers were in a union. Today it's 13% mostly federal or state employees. Unions in private industry barely exist anymore. Simultaneously, the percentage of votes who are workers (and so might be in a union) has fallen. That double-whammy means they can barely keep their members from unemployment. Expecting them to safeguard to constitution and take on the federal government is (sorry) silly.

The UAW notoriously was a huge force in getting Daimler-Chrysler bailed out.

The major unions in the US have some of the biggest lobbying arms there are.

Your example was working with the federal government not opposing it.

Your answer was purely about saving their members jobs, not them going off an engaging politically.

Your union had the support of CEOs and Owners.

I have to ask: do you really, honestly, believe that unions are politically powerful at the federal level and interested in subjects that don't directly affect their members? Really? Despite the dwindling memberships, widespread At Will employment being passed, record gaps between worker and CEO pay? Really?

I think it’s undeniable that union power has decreased over the last 50 years.

But it’s also just untrue that they aren’t political entities. In many ways that’s what they primarily are.

> Just because unions did that historically, doesn't mean they can do it today.

You said Governments, not USA specifically. Unions are very politically active all over Europe, a large number of top politicians have been or were union leaders. So to me USA seems to be the odd one out on this rather than the rule.