67% of American Tech Workers Interested In Joining a Union (visualcapitalist.com) 27
Long-time Slashdot reader AsylumWraith writes: Visual Capitalist has posted an article and graph showing that, on average, 67% of US tech workers would be interested in joining a union.
The percentage is highest at companies like Intuit, with 94% or respondents indicating they'd be interested in joining a union. On the other end of the scale, fewer than half of the employees at Apple, Tesla, and Google, who were surveyed were interested in such a move.
The percentage is highest at companies like Intuit, with 94% or respondents indicating they'd be interested in joining a union. On the other end of the scale, fewer than half of the employees at Apple, Tesla, and Google, who were surveyed were interested in such a move.
Re: Yuck (Score:2, Interesting)
While I'm known to bash unions a lot, generally I'm just talking about US unions, with very rare exceptions. In most other countries, even ones with a strong work ethic like Japan, unions seem to have a more symbiotic relationship with their employers. Here, they're more like legalized mafias. If you've ever seen that documentary called fear city, it pretty well sums it up.
Other countries don't have symbiotic relationships (Score:2)
Hell remember occupy Wall Street? The reason I got broken up is a combination of the news media and the law e
Re: (Score:2)
Having choice is what makes capitalism most effective and what does more to increase the wealth of workers than unions ever could. Any union that's the only game in
Re: Yuck (Score:3)
While I don't go out of my way to avoid buying from them, some unions in particular produce objectively shitty products, such as UAW. Go look at their own published list of makes and models, then look at their reliability ratings on consumer reports.
And then there's Boeing... Definitely leadership problems there, but what's the point of a union if they don't even do anything about retaliation? Feels like the union is only there to ensure people get longer breaks and more pay.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
There is no such thing as unskilled labor.
Auto Factory (Score:1)
Ever been inside a general assembly plant? Last time I visited one, there were three people installing headliners. Two people actually installed the headliner, which involved shoving the headliner up until it snapped in place. The third person's job was to sit on a stool and hand the other two the headliner from an automatically fed hopper.
That third guy, what was his skill?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Dig deeper and you'll find that every bit of union red tape and 'arbitrary rule' is a patch against some kooky attempt by management to cheat on the previous agreement. Unions wouldn't watch the stove controls so closely if management would quit trying to boil the frog.
As for "overpaid by a large margin" that's easy to say if you're not the one doing that work. They probably think you're overpaid by a large margin considering all you do is sit on your ass and poke at a keyboard all day.
But consider, if the
Re:Yuck (who are these idiots?) (Score:2)
Unions should be avoided from my view. The few unions we have to deal with in a right to work state show that they just collect part of your income, and drive up costs of things that need to be done.
Installing a shelf on a wall in a closet was quoted at $8,000 by the union we are required to use for "construction". That does not include the shelf costs. They said they needed 4 people to do the job. We bought a free standing shelf for a heck of a lot less than that.
You also have to look at what a union s
Age correlation? (Score:3)
I'm curious how much that correlates with age? With age discrimination being a very real thing, and as a just-middle-aged software guy, the thought of some concrete protections for those of us getting up in years is very appealing.
Old farts don't think they need a Union (Score:3)
The kids know better. They go to meetings and see a see of cheap labor they're forced to compete with. They get laid off ever 2-5 years to bump the stock price for another round of buy backs no matter how productive they are. And every year price gouging eats u
Re: Old farts don't think they need a Union (Score:2)
Isn't it always your assertion that Elon treats his employees badly and outsources wherever possible? So why is Tesla at the bottom of this list?
And I don't know what this "pre-India" shit is about. In the aughts I kept hearing not to bother going into tech because you'll just get offshored. Yet ten years later I went into it anyways and haven't seen even the slightest hint of that happening.
Re: (Score:1)
Here's how I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
I started programming in 1972 when there weren't very many of us and even fewer good ones. Those of us who could demonstrate skills and produce good results were treated VERY well
Then the word spread. A job in software is the key to riches. A flood of people with no talent or passion poured into schools and then into industry, believing that they could command the same high pay they read about. Few were excellent, most were mediocre or worse. The software world adapted by inventing tools and frameworks that allowed mediocre programmers to churn out mediocre code. Bosses noticed that extreme skill wasn't required to do this and looked for cheaper alternatives. India provided them
Today there are still a few highly skilled and talented programmers who are treated well, but bosses often prefer to hire cheap people and treat them poorly. These are the people who want a union
Skilled programmers aren't treated well (Score:2)
People with advanced mathematics are the ones getting treated well. Typically people who have a specific niche skill that's needed. And the unemployment line is littered with people who developed those niche skills and technology moved on and they didn't have three or four years to spend obsessively building up a new niche skill set. O
Re: (Score:2)
Also trades get paid well. Look at how muc
Re: (Score:3)
This comes across to me as, "fuck you, I got mine." Maybe you're not like that in person, but that's the impression you're giving. And I think most of that deals with this assumption on your part:
>Then the word spread. A job in software is the key to riches. A flood of people with no talent or passion poured into schools and then into industry
Now, I don't know much about your life, and maybe you've been lucky to avoid the boom and bust cycles of our economy, and maybe you just chalk that up to being a
Yes, please! (Score:2, Troll)
Because I want some union to take a few hundred a month out of my paycheck. And claim that they got me the raise that my employer was more than happy to pay me due to my skills and experience anyway. But then turn around and hand a pretty big chunk of that to some socialist political organization. Who are accusing me of fomenting inequality because of my pay disparity.
Not straightforward (Score:2)
Growing up in 70s Britain, my experience of unions was extremely negative; they nearly ran the country into the ground until Margaret Thatcher beat them down. In 1990 I got a public sector job. A few years later it imposed a 'job evaluation scheme' which tried to equate the level of skills in different departments in order to pay on the basis of skill, not the level of wages necessary to recruit for the job. However one effect of this was to mean some of the employees were expected to take LARGE pay cuts -
Oh, Really???? (Score:2)
After decades doing software, and watching some others be soundly abused, but refusing to consider uniting and speaking with one voice, they're finally wising up? Hooray. If you act like a doormat, you'll get stepped on. Its that simple.
Okay ... (Score:2)
67% of American Tech Workers Interested In Joining a Union
Then those workers have a good metric for their voting this year as one political party is pro-union and the other is not.
Changing times (Score:2)