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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

A lot of HN repliers think that they, out of thousands of other employees, are that One Captain Of Industry that has sufficient bargaining and negotiating power to stand toe to toe with a huge employer. And therefore, a union could never help tech employees as a class.

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My big gripe with unions is the unwavering protection of their worst performing members.

Eg, that they necessitated so called "rubber rooms" like these in the NYC public schools, where teachers got paid to do nothing while waiting on arbitration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reassignment_center

I doubt you'll find many people in favor of how bad cops get protected by police unions either. At least in the US I'd much rather a broad social net so my health care and retirement weren't so directly tied to my job than a union specific to my trade.

A lot of the salary figures I see thrown around for tech employees in the US are pretty wild [1] - $200k, $400k total compensation without even getting 'Senior' in the job title.

That's in a country with a median household income of $84k [2]

I think it's understandable why someone would feel they were doing well at bargaining and negotiating if they were taking home 4.7x as much as their neighbours and loved ones.

Folks in the games industry by all accounts have really shitty pay and working conditions so I can 110% understand why they'd unionise.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Google%2CMeta%2CA... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Salary is only one of many workplace issues that organizing can help with. Those US tech people who make $400k, that's great for them! But how is their mental health / burnout? How good is their health insurance? Are they getting enough vacation time or time with their families? Are they regularly expected to work 12+ hour days? Do they have their weekends? Do they want to Work From Home but can't get it? What about permission to moonlight or work on side projects? Do they have satisfying autonomy at work or are they just churning through JIRA tickets?

Collective negotiation power can help with all of these, if we let it. It doesn't just stop at compensation.

Generally big tech workers have very cushy jobs with excellent insurance and working conditions with many barely working over 30 hours a week, much less 40. It is why many do not see the benefits of a union because what could a union possibly give them?

This is far from the norm. If it's true for a small number of employees at a small number of companies in a small number of regions, that doesn't mean it's true for everyone. I don't know a single employee who thinks absolutely nothing could be made better at work.

Sure, everyone has something they'd want to make better but I'm not sure a union is the tool that can fix them, lots of them are management issues endemic to the company.

I have gotten a lot of mileage asking from these types once we get to the “I can negotiate my own raises” by asking them how many times they’ve actually tried negotiating much less succeeded.

Because generally they can, as software engineers had huge leverage over their employers for the past few decades, so much so that literal parodies like Silicon Valley were made of the cushiness of their jobs. Maybe that is changing now with AI but I doubt it.

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