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Comment by hcho | Hacker News Reader

Let's say, my app is making me $1000 a day. Apple wrongs one of the members, and union decides to strike. That will mean $1000/day in lost revenues. No thanks. I assume anyone with a slightly successful app will say "no thanks" too.

Unions only work when the members are within a narrow bracket of income.

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For me personally, there is a moral code beyond money. I think that when asked "would you rather make more money if you knew you were participating in something unscrupulous?", we tend to be concerned about what it would do to other people. So are we aligned with management or labor in this case? Are we willing to stand up for what we believe in?

I really disagree with this.

1. Lost wages are one of the reason unions maintain a "strike fund" or start collection pools.

2. An injury to one is an injury to all. A company pulling some funny business that costs developer A $1000 could very well do the same thing to developer B. It is, then, worth developer B's temporary loss of income to defend his/her interests in the long term. ALL workers lose when SOME workers decide to trade temporary gain for long-term power.

You'll probably find out that many business owners would rather invest tjeir money in creating alternative revenue streams than paying into a strike fund.

That's why unions are for workers, not employers :-)

App developers are businesses, not workers.

That all depends on what illusions you have about how the market works. I would claim that a single app developer is still subject market concerns. Oftentimes developers are hired by bigger companies to do work, and in that case there is a typical "boss/worker" relationship, wherein they retain the right to fire you for any reason, or no reason whatsoever.

In short, what I would like to see is NOT a "professional association" (like Chamber of Commerce) that advances the interests of business, but rather a union that protects the rights of working people. The union would, ideally, ally itself with other organizations of working people to not just fight for our slice of the pie, but for every worker's slice.

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