I am from Denmark where we have strong unions protecting our working class and lower middle class. That is a good thing.
However what is the benefit of ultra high income FAANG employees unionizing?
However what is the benefit of ultra high income FAANG employees unionizing?
They could negotiate higher salaries, more transparency around compensation, more benefits, longer parental leave, bigger budget for travel or education, longer paid vacation, some guarantees and rules for layoffs, etc.
In the end, I don't see why unions (IF done right) could only work for the lower class.
I know that the TikTok videos of FAANG companies make it all seem like there is no more place to grow, but that's just smoke and mirrors. I think anti union efforts in FAANG companies also play to the employees ego and make them believe that they can negotiate better on their own than together.
Same as for any other group that unionizes - maximizing the leverage they have in negotiations with the employer, utilizing this leverage as best they see fit.
For examples of two very-high income groups that are unionized, see the Writer's Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA. Just because you make a lot, doesn't mean that having a union is not in your interest.
For one thing, unionization is nearly guaranteed to raise salaries.
For another, it will get them better benefits and working conditions.
Overall, it reduces inequality, which is one of the major structural problems in our society and economy today.
Having labor be more powerful can also help when execs push for morally questionable projects.
Lastly, FAANG employees are working class.
Incredibly well-paid working class, but working class all the same.
At least a migrant has the option of returning to their home country with a network of family and old friends; natives are stuck jobless and with high cost of living or choosing to uproot and migrate to a new country with lower cost of living, becoming migrants themselves. There is no stress-free ride for anyone.
Everything else is an implementation detail.
No you can’t argue that because it’s stupid. A typical google software engineer will have made enough that in their early 30s they can quit/retire and live the rest of their life at at least the same standard of living as that cleaning lady (almost none of them find that an acceptable standard but that’s far beyond food and a place to sleep)
These are not similar circumstances by any means.
Of course, that affects the cleaning lady more, but the core theft and the exploitative power dynamics they both are affected by are the same.
One of the tricks capital uses to keep control is to pit us against each other. Only through solidarity throughout the entire working class we can affect real change.
Unions can ensure that the employees get a fair share of the revenue in proportion to the upper mgmt. They also can remove artificial promotion hurdles, that at Google happens according to destructive internal dynamics.
Such dynamics result in deprecating useful and loved products and instead promoting parasitic internal interest groups that can stranglehold growth and innovation in the company.
Ultimately, unions give the employees a voice in shaping the company. Now they can walk out, write posts on internal mailing lists, but at the end of the day they're still in a dictatorship, and they have to accept the decisions of the higher ups, and they won't be asked about their opinion.
What is a fair share of revenue? Is a google SE earning 300K an exploited worker because Pichai earns many times that?
> They also can remove artificial promotion hurdles, that at Google happens according to destructive internal dynamics.
What is the correct (non-artificial) way to handle promotions? Union workplaces tend to overvalue seniority which isn't a great situation.
Live in Copenhagen and you can more than get by without knowing the language, although obviously you start picking up some functional words.