67% of American Tech Workers Interested In Joining a Union (visualcapitalist.com) 218
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.
Yuck (Score:4, Informative)
I've worked in tech my entire career but I also despise unions. I do everything possible to not buy products from companies embedded with unions and it's impossible in some product segments. Yes, executives make too much money, but also unions cause unskilled labor to be overpaid by a large margin. Usually skilled labor is pretty on par for both union and non union jobs, which is a good indicator the wages are fair. But even for skilled positions, unions gum up the works, slow down progress, create massive red tape, require funding stolen from the workers and the worst part is that there is not a union in the world that is not massively corrupt at the top.
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.
UAW doesn't design cars (Score:2)
That said, UAW SUVs and trucks are incredibly rock solid. And there's no reason why the cars can't be if the CEOs stop cutting corners. Hell some of them just gave up on making cars all together and all you can get from them are SUVs and trucks now. But again those are decisions made by CEOs not the guy turning
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They build them. This is a common mistake. The cars are designed by engineers under orders from CEOs. And the CEOs treat the cars like shit so that we all get stuck buying SUVs and pickup trucks.
Compare Ford Edge:
https://www.consumerreports.or... [consumerreports.org]
With Ford Bronco:
https://www.consumerreports.or... [consumerreports.org]
Guess which one is union made and which one isn't?
That said, UAW SUVs and trucks are incredibly rock solid.
They publish their list here:
https://uaw.org/wp-content/upl... [uaw.org]
Every one of those are crap, some, like Jeep Grand Cherokee, are shit with wheels. F-150, while popular, has shit reliability per CR:
https://www.consumerreports.or... [consumerreports.org]
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You'll note that both are in fact union produced. The Edge is just made in Canada and listed on the site you provide on the right side under Unifor (formerly CAW).
Also, the quality of the Bronco is particularly bad because it's still a relatively new model (only 3 years old) and it has some, whereas the Edge has been around for a long time and has worked out the kinks.
i used to be quite anti-union (on libertarian / meritocratic grounds) and i still kind of lean that way (esp. on "mostly seniority" system
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The flaw in this argument is that all the best, most reliable cars are made in union shops. The Japanese and Korean manufacturers have unions, the German manufacturers have unions.
Fords are just shit tier cars no matter what, along with other brands like Jaguar Land Rover who just can't seem to make decent vehicles. It's go nothing to do with unions and everything to do with company management at both the C level and the factory level.
Re:Yuck (Score:5, Insightful)
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 labor is truly unskilled, why are people who have been doing it for a year so much faster at it than someone who just started? Perhaps you should try it for a day and put the video on YouTube, we could use a laugh.
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https://apnews.com/article/lon... [apnews.com]
"Hey we don't need you to do this job any more."
"Oh, in that case, you will not only keep paying me to do it, but give me a raise."
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How excited would you be to put an AI in charge of 40 tons of cargo suspended above your head?
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
Re: Yuck (who are these idiots?) (Score:3)
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Re: Yuck (Score:2)
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unions cause unskilled labor to be overpaid by a large margin
Unskilled labor like programmers?
Re: Yuck (Score:3, 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:3, Insightful)
Hell remember occupy Wall Street? The reason I got broken up is a combination of the news media and the law e
Re:Other countries don't have symbiotic relationsh (Score:5, Interesting)
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 town is guaranteed to become corrupt over time, in much the same way any monopoly does. Without competition any entity will become lazy and exploitative. As we've seen from history, unions are no different.
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That, and at least in a few Nordic countries I know of, you're not forced to collectively bargain if you don't want to. And opting out won't result in anonymous death threats.
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In the Nordics, and in Japan for that matter, even if you aren't a member of a union you still get many of the benefits.
For example, in all those countries the government negotiates base pay increases on a yearly basis on behalf of citizens. That negotiation serves as the basis for everyone's raise, and while some unions and individuals do negotiate more, and some companies in dire financial situations offer less, it's overall a big benefit to all workers.
Also in some of the Nordics the government is the la
You're misunderstanding something (Score:4, Insightful)
Also I think you're just kind of splitting hair is at this point to try and undermine the basic idea of a union. Fundamentally a union is just everybody getting together to negotiate because your boss has more power than you do by yourself. Your intentionally losing side of that.
You've been programmed to hate unions and you'll come up with any excuse you can to hate them. You are immersed in 45 years of non-stop anti-union propaganda. That's what comes from being old. That's why the kids don't have your baggage. They didn't have 30 years of labor shortages in their industries that made them think that they could make it on their own.
Re:You're misunderstanding something (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps this is a major reason that not only are a disproportionate number of tech jobs in the US, but Europeans come here to take them. Well, that, and the much higher pay.
No, the union isn't "everybody". The union is itself an organization, just like the corporation. Which means it can have goals that are not the same as those of its members. Which it often does.
I doubt you're any younger than me, and have no more insight into what "the kids" have. As for me, I graduated into a recession before programming became the big thing it is today. "Kids" in the same profession are making a lot more (inflation adjusted) than I made when I started working. Still without unions. Though I have run into union programmers; there's a few around who work for places like the New York MTA. They were interviewing for a non-union job.
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Perhaps this is a major reason that not only are a disproportionate number of tech jobs in the US, but Europeans come here to take them. Well, that, and the much higher pay.
No, it does not make sense because :
1) the difference in the function of Unions (between US and EU) is the same across all professions. Following your rationale there should be A) a "disproportionate number" of jobs in US as compared to EU across all professions and B) an immigration flow across all professions. However:
2) Europeans don't actually "come and take" US jobs.
According to statistics "European Immigrants in the United States" (Jan. 2024) https://www.migrationpolicy.or... [migrationpolicy.org] the trend in number of mi
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You mean like the Ludlow Massacre [wikipedia.org] back in 1914? That time, the violence got so bad that President Wilson had to send the Army in to stop the killing by both sides.
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Why the hell is that voted down into negative numbers?
I have seen photos of my great uncle with a rifle among others inside a plant with national guard troops in machine gun nests outside!
When the bosses had not just federal troops but Pinkertons, of course the obvious step was to involve the mafia . . .
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What psychoactive drugs are you taking?/quote>
There's a really heavy one called "truth" that was on the streets at the time.
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I also wonder that it was diluted as well. The first OWS had specific goals, then people added in their demands, and it wound up becoming, instead of a loud and clear message, a mumble of seemingly random stuff. That, plus people were tired of tents everywhere, pretty much killed the movement.
Had they kept a solid goal and turned away people wanting to digress from it, OWS might have meant something. The movement was also in an off-year, which meant that it was pretty much forgotten about come elections.
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I'm in favour of mowing down strikers with miniguns and I'm willing to help.
And Israelis "mow the lawn" every few years, too, fascist!
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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.
I don't know what it is about American culture that causes everything to atrophy and degenerate into an utterly corrupt and abusive mafia of some sort but (at least that's the feeling I get talking to Americans about just about any institution or industry in the US including churches) but I'm glad my country does not work like that. Over here, even if they did nothing else, unions would be very useful simply because they provide legal aid to employees when they are being abused and cheated by employers and
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Wow must suck to be you! That is not what I was taught.
I blame his parents.
Hey, GP, your parents suck ass!
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Union employees not only earn more than their non-union counterparts, they enjoy better working conditions and better benefits!
Then why can't you get Tesla workers to quit and work for ICE vehicle manufacturers?
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That is the entire problem. Unions only objectives are lining their own pockets and making the employees get as much money as possible.
Nope. Citation needed.
Healthy companies have a shared set of goals that, as much possible, equalize the pressure between making money for the company, sharing that with employees, making a quality product, and making that product at a price that staves off competition in the segment.
Great. How do I find a "healthy company?" What do we all do about the "unhealthy" ones?
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Unions only objectives are lining their own pockets and making the employees get as much money as possible.
And companies only objectives are lining their own pockets and making the owners get as much money as possible?
In the real world of course, most companies (although not necessarily most of world's biggest companies) do actually care at least somewhat about their employees because satisfied employees also provide intangliable long-term benefits to the company. You know, people going the extra mile if needed and such.
And unions are of course interested in the employees being successful as that is after all wh
Re: Yuck (Score:3)
Market share and corruption aren't mutually exclusive. Why can't Iceland's unions be corrupt? (I'm not saying they are or are not, I'm simply saying that your claim neither proves nor disprove corruption in Iceland's unions...
Re: Yuck (Score:2)
Iceland ranks #19 in the Global Corruption Index. Only 18 countries less corrupt, and they're largely Nordics.
Auto Factory (Score:2, Interesting)
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?
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Why don't you ask the guy, or the other two guys. Just because you don't understand what skill is involved doesn't mean there is no skill involved.
Jobs (Score:2)
I didn't have to. I was there with someone who sets up factories for a living. The third guy's entire job was to hand people headliners from a machine designed to hand people headliners. If you can slide a piece of cardboard about 4' square out of a slot, you can do that job.
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Most likely they rotate that job. 2/3rds of the time that guy is fitting the headliner, or doing something else in the factory.
In fact the union would probably insist on it, to make sure that gaining skills is a benefit of working there for everyone.
Or you know what, maybe that's his only job, but having the argument about exactly how much money a particular job within the factory is worth is an inevitable race to the bottom and a convenient excuse to cut wages every time some task is made slightly easier,
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There is no such thing as unskilled labor.
There absolutely is such a thing as Unskilled Labor. It is a reference to workers doing a job that requires no special training or experience. While some argue the term is no longer politically correct, it remains a fact that there is work that fits that category. This doesn't mean the people are dumb or they don't have some other skills. It just means it is going to be pretty easy to bring someone in off the street as a replacement. They may need someone to tell them what to do, but not so much teach them
Re: Yuck (Score:2)
If your onboarding training can be completed in an hour, you don't have a skill-based job.
Or are you making the pedantic argument that the ability to perform a task upon request ("bring me the mop") qualifies as a skill? Since this is /., I fear it's the latter...
Age correlation? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:5, Insightful)
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 up 6-8% of their income on a 1.75% raise (if they're lucky).
The boomers who didn't manage to save for retirement figure it out when the layoffs finally hit them, but by then it's too late. Again, survivor bias is a hellf of a drug.
Re: Old farts don't think they need a Union (Score:3)
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:Old farts don't think they need a Union (Score:5, Interesting)
because they grew up during the pre-India labor shortages. Survivor bias is a hell of a drug and every boomer and older Gen Xer I know that made it this far through layoffs thinks..
Ummm, I'm an old fart and I was recently laid off from a tech company, in part of an endless-seeming routine of layoffs every 6-12 months. I don't know anyone who's complacent. Everyone I've talked to (before and after my turn) realizes they could be next, from very senior engineers/managers to new college grads. Everyone has a list of a dozen people they're gobsmacked were let go.
I've been lucky. This is the first time I've been laid off. I'm one of the few who's only been laid off once.
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Oh, and I forgot to add: a union would absolutely not help. I can't think if a single engineer I've talked to with any interest in joining one.
Unions can and will bargain (Score:2)
They have literally programmed you to expect your life to be miserable and stressful. I remember an economist calling it a fragile existence. There is absolutely no reason it has to be that way. The only thing we have to discard is our hero worship of the wealthy and powerful.
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To prevent cyclical layoffs. The problem is you've been programmed for so long to expect getting the shit kicked out of you that you cannot imagine a world where you don't get the shit kicked out of you.
No, I understand the deal. My employer can let me go at any time for pretty much any reason. I can not show up tomorrow for any reason, or no reason at all. I'm fine with that, having used the "I'm outta here" route a number of times. If I wanted a long term contract which neither my employer nor I could break, I'm sure I could find that if I looked hard enough.
Personally, I feel no desire for something as binding as that. I like the freedom and flexibility which comes from being able negotiate different jo
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Not so sure. i did a stint in a gaming company not too long ago which is kind of a tech/entertainment hybrid and much more volatile than normal tech and there's definitely some interest there even among pretty good engineers. But for the most part, i agree that v. few, esp. good engineers, are interested in it, and i _really_ don't know how it would work in various ways. e.g. the first one or two levels of Eng managers are hybrid. Where do they fit ?
if not a union... i'm starting to think that i real
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Higher value employees generally don't favour unions. They'd rather be paid their above average worth. Lower value employees would rather their pay be brought up to the average worth of all the employees.
You're incorrectly assuming that this is about pay. Tech employees have generally resisted unions even at companies that pay well below typical wages for the area. This has nothing to do with pay. This is about companies doing mass layoffs and replacing the fired employees with new employees in lower-cost locations, or with contractors in even lower-cost locations, all without even giving the employees the option of moving to lower-cost locations to keep their jobs. This is about the wealthiest companie
Re: Age correlation? (Score:2)
You're incorrectly assuming that this is about pay.
OK
Tech employees have generally resisted unions even at companies that pay well below typical wages for the area. This has nothing to do with pay. This is about companies doing mass layoffs and replacing the fired employees with new employees in lower-cost locations, or with contractors in even lower-cost locations, all without even giving the employees the option of moving to lower-cost locations to keep their jobs.
So it's not about "pay" it's about keeping your job so you keep getting "paid"?
We call that
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You're incorrectly assuming that this is about pay.
OK
Tech employees have generally resisted unions even at companies that pay well below typical wages for the area. This has nothing to do with pay. This is about companies doing mass layoffs and replacing the fired employees with new employees in lower-cost locations, or with contractors in even lower-cost locations, all without even giving the employees the option of moving to lower-cost locations to keep their jobs.
So it's not about "pay" it's about keeping your job so you keep getting "paid"?
We call that a distinction without a difference.
No, it really isn't. The post I was replying to said that "high value" employees (their words, not mine) don't want a union because it costs money to be in it, so they would make less, and that "lower value" employees do, because they believe that the union will get them better pay.
But in an era of mass layoffs, even top performers are getting laid off, in part so that hiring managers at other companies won't look at the laid off employees and automatically reject them under the assumption that they were l
Re: Age correlation? (Score:2)
Teachers are heavily unionized, and the first thing unions tell employers is they don't want 'merit pay' - you can't reward a teacher for doing an outstanding job, they are paid based on years of service and education level - and the teacher with a mail-order masters degree in basket weaving gets the same pay bump as the Harvard graduate with a masters in education.
In NYC the union fights to keep ineffective teachers on the payroll, to the point NYC public schools have so-called "rubber rooms" filled with t
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:Skilled programmers aren't treated well (Score:5, Insightful)
Also trades get paid well. Look at how much it will cost you to get an electrician or a plumber to look at something and tell me that they're getting paid like shit. The ones that own their own small businesses are making plenty of money whether they're in a union or not.
Re: Skilled programmers aren't treated well (Score:2)
Define what a "trade" is?
Because programming is more or less a trade now and without unions trades get paid like shit because you can train somebody up on it in about a year maybe two at the most.
When someone talks to me about people that work in 'the trades' I think of electricians, plumbers, HVAC workers, road crews and carpenters. I wouldn't consider any of them to be "lesser" or lower-paying jobs than, say, a programmer.
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Well, that's his point. You'll note that these trades you listed tend to traditionally be unionized. Much more so than programmers, anyway.
Also i think all of those are lower paid than programmers on average. Although union electricians make some serious $$ , especially per hour.
Re:Here's how I see it (Score:5, Interesting)
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 super genius with special talents that could never be fired (I think you used a more Muskonian term, "extreme skill"). But just take a look back at what else you said.
>Few were excellent, most were mediocre or worse
No shit, Sherlock. This distribution can be applied to anything. In fact, when you were hired, most people were mediocre or worse. That's what the word mediocre means, "ordinary." There's no way I could convince you of course, that when you were hired there were plenty of people that were simply ordinary (maybe you just didn't notice them).
All that to say that there are plenty of people of mediocre talent that work hard and get treated unfairly by corporations that don't give two shits about serving the society that allows them to become extraordinarily wealthy. Maybe in part because of the attitude expressed in your post. Anyone that is truly talented will be okay. The rest, who cares if they suffer? But should we be surprised that the ambivalence of the wealthy (and if your credentials are what you say they are, there is no way you're not wealthy) towards the working class (and software engineers, particularly with less experience, are white collar working class)?
If you want a union to protect your dignity, it's guys like OP that really present the biggest hurdle. People that say, "well I never needed a union because I was wildly successful" will never understand their own path was a series of fortunate events, and just because they were fortunate not everyone else should be doomed when Microsoft or Google or whoever decides to lay off 10k people. They view it as separating the wheat from the chaff. What you won't see is anyone taking responsibility for over-hiring - ever.
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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.
You're talking as if this is somehow an immoral and/or unethical position to hold. No, that's backwards. What's immoral is the idea that it's your god-given right to hitch yourself to and massively benefit off the superachievers. It is not.
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If to many in society don't have enough and a handful of very wealthy have the "I got mine. Fuck you." attitude, those starving massing eventually bring down the whole pyramid.
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I mostly agree with you, but quibble on a couple of points.
These "tools and frameworks" don't just make mediocre programmers able to churn out mediocre code, they also enable skilled programmers to churn out excellent code faster. What the frameworks have really done, is move the center of difficulty. It used to be that the most difficult part of programming, was correctly telling the computer what to do. Those days are long gone. These days, the hardest part of programming, is *deciding* what you want the
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These days, the hardest part of programming, is *deciding* what you want the computer to do--doing it in a way that is usable enough, fast enough, robust enough, etc.
and which 3 of the 1M frameworks, packages, and hosted services, to use to do so... in light of the things your company already has deployed/contracted and what your know and current other people know how to use or are willing to learn in the next 3 weeks because the project is due in 2 months.
(where's the :sob: emoji? )
Re: Here's how I see it (Score:2)
Yes, please! (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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Union employees get far, far, more back than they pay in dues.
my employer was more than happy to pay me due to my skills and experience anyway.
Assuming this story is true, what you don't seem to realize is that you were being underpaid. If you didn't get any push-back, that means you're still underpaid.
There's a reason companies universally try to illegally keep their employees from discussing compensation with one another. A friend of mine once got a $30,000 raise. He was thrilled until he found out that one of people he supervises was making more than he was! He was being dramat
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Union employees get far, far, more back than they pay in dues.
I hope you are not a math teacher.
Re: Yes, please! (Score:2)
Union employees get far, far, more back than they pay in dues.
Please, explain.
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Presumably he means that union membership has a positive ROI.
Something like this:
The average union member contributes $663 in annual dues, fees, and other membership payments in Illinois to labor union locals. ...
Union membership increases the after-tax incomes of workers by $4,060 annually on average.
https://illinoisupdate.com/201... [illinoisupdate.com]
i think it's pretty well accepted that unions tend to increase the share of the pie that goes to labor compared to management and shareholders. (though it can also leads to a smaller pie (larger costs -> lower sales) and to greater capital investment to replace labor. )
Multiple studies show (Score:2)
Now what you can't do if you want unions to be effective is vote with your gut. You can't vote with your feelings. Because unions ultimately need support from the government in order to counteract the almost unimaginable power of a modern international corporation. So yeah if you keep voting
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Unions are also weak because the NLRB kneecaps them. No sympathy strikes, no sit down strikes, certain industries are forbidden to strike altogether or have so many conditions and limitations put on their ability to strike that they might as well be forbidden.
Re: Yes, please! (Score:2)
I want some union to take a few hundred a month out of my paycheck.
Just FYI, here in EU I can choose any of about 5 unions to join. Anywhere, anyplace. I pay under 15â/mo for union membership. And from that, they refund about a half.
For that, they look up and answer all questions I may have regarding (un)employment and negotiate better work conditions.
America has a long way to go before it's great again. How did you guys fuck it up so bad?
Re: Yes, please! (Score:2)
You describe EU unions as if they were employee support groups.
A union can't support itself on 15 euros/month per worker when it gives back about half that money.
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Unions are _literally_ employee support groups; they are the people that have your back when HR is in your face.
Non-corrupt unions can easily support itself on pretty miniscule amounts if the membership is large enough.
The problem isn't unions, it's that your country is a corrupt shithole and most of the workers there are too brainwashed by Capitalism to understand just how badly its. and it is only going to get worse.
Not straightforward (Score:3)
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 - 20% or more. The union went on strike, and I joined in order to do so...
Roll on a few years and the union rep in my area of the company moved elsewhere, and I ended up as the new union rep. It was an interesting job; at its best it provided pastoral care and immediate support to members who were facing difficulties, either work related or otherwise. On a good day we were thus lubricants that meant the organisation worked better. We also sometimes held the management to account for health and safety failings that they should have been addressing. On a bad day you had to try to defend the indefensible; a DBA was employed who really wasn't competent. I lost that - and knew it was the right decision to get rid of him...
But... but... the job evaluation scheme came back to bite them. They ended up having to pay the IT staff in the organisation a 'market supplement' because too many were leaving. They also had to bully me into doing some work as a DBA, which wasn't in my job spec and for which I wasn't getting paid after they evaluated my job without it including DBA. I warned them not to do it again, but as I left soon after that, the point became moot.
So - if your union is doing a good job and you aren't a truly stellar performer, you should probably join up. But don't be too surprised if you discover that your union people are mediocre; after all the true high flyers have better things to do.
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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.
Turns out Thatcher had a good crack at running the country into the ground. The conservative way is is to flog off the country cheap either to their mates or to buy votes. Right to buy has eviscerated public housing causing a crisis. We now pay over the odds for water companies which sold off critical infrastructure (reservoirs) while literally dumping
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Are you 12 ? I lived through the 70s pre-Thatcher and shit doesn't even begin to describe it. Constant strikes, power cuts, rampant inflation and a busted economy.
If Thatcher was so bad why was she constantly re-elected by the working class ?
People saw their lives being ruined and wanted someone who would sort it out.
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Are you 12 ? I lived through the 70s pre-Thatcher and shit doesn't even begin to describe it. Constant strikes, power cuts, rampant inflation and a busted economy.
And the result, we got conservatism which is selling off shit for short term gain to let someone else eat the costs later when it's too late. The housing crisis today and sewage infested rivers today stem from those giveaway policies to boost the short term.
If Thatcher was so bad why was she constantly re-elected by the working class ?
She got 43%
Totally wrong about water (Score:2)
The ownership of the sewage removal infrastructure by the state was a disaster, because there was no political gain to be made from investing in new plant compared to schools, hospitals etc. The result was that our rivers were POLLUTED to a degree that most have now forgotten. Privitisation enabled new funding to be raised without the Treasury directing it to its priorities.
Yes, in recent years, climate change - far more intense rain over the UK - has tested the systems and shown them to be inadequate. So n
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.
Changing times (Score:2)
I see software development/myself as blue collar. (Score:2)
For the exty thousandth time: (Score:3)
Yes, unions suck. They take a big bite out of your paycheck every month, and what they give you back never really seems worth it. They subsidize incompetence and encourage indolence. They make complaining a way of life, until dealing with them is like a constant low-grade migraine. They are, unless you watch them like a hawk, forever, corrupt as shit.
But also, management sucks. They are willing, excited even, to savagely exploit the workers in any way they can, while mouthing platitudes about how their employees are family. They don't understand where their money comes from, but they believe they do, and they believe this so strongly that no expert, team of experts, or decades of industrywide consensus can convince them otherwise. They don't make rational decisions about distribution of pay. They elevate even less admirable strawbosses over those of proven value, again and again. What they really want, in their heart of hearts, is slaves, and given enough time, without any countervailing force, that's what they turn you and me and us and our children and their descendants into.
Cleaning the fatbergs out of the sewer is a shitty job, but if nobody does it, something even shittier happens to the whole town.
I would gladly join a union (Score:2)
I'm tired of short term employment with NO healthcare insurance, NO retirement benefits, NO paid holidays, having to work the day after Thanksgiving or on New Years' Eve. I would gladly join a union that would fight for fair pay and benefits. I've been in IT for over 30 years and I'm sick of bosses treating me like crap.
Re: I would gladly join a union (Score:2)
New Year's Eve and Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) aren't holidays, why do you deserve the day off (presumably with pay)?
Having 15-20 jobs over a 30 year career has you perpetually being 'the new guy', and that's not how you get ahead in a company.
In the US? no.. (Score:3)
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It seems that there are three types of people in the US:
Those that have some citizenship or ability to stay in the EU.
Those that know how good the EU is better than the US.
Those who have a low education level and have not see what a country can do to make as close to paradise as it can for its citizens.
There is something nice about not worrying about a gun shoved in your face, easy navigating the country, everyone educated and intelligent and able to speak multiple languages, a social safety net, and a corrections system to bring people back in society, not lock them up forever. Don't forget medical care.
Oh noes!!! Not the socialism!
Shocked (Score:4, Insightful)
Is anyone shocked that in an extremely meritocratic field, the bottom 2/3 want the same pay as the top 1/3?
Grumpy old boomers... (Score:2)
What's a "verified tech professional"? (Score:3)
I've worked at a number of tech firms as a software developer. I doubt more than one in 10 has ever supported the idea of joining a union. In software development, the boundary between worker, management, and executive is so fluid the idea of having a union of workers makes absolutely no sense.
OTOH, companies like Intuit, GM, and Oracle employ thousands of people in production, sales, and service roles, jobs outside product development. Do those count as tech professionals? My guess is yes, for the purpose of this survey. I don't find it as surprising that factory or call center workers might want a union.
I'd love to see that chart broken out by job category to see what we're talking about.
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Why? (Score:2)
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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.
Yeah, well, the supposedly pro-union bunch increased the prices of pretty much everything you buy by about 20%, and the PRO-WORKER guy increased the median family income from $62K to $68K / yr the last time he was President. Choose carefully.
Re: Okay ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny (Score:3)
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I'm curious. What actual specific actions do you think that the "pro-union guys" took to raise prices and what actions do you think that the one you're calling "pro-worker" took to increase median family income?
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I'm curious. What actual specific actions do you think that the "pro-union guys" took to raise prices and what actions do you think that the one you're calling "pro-worker" took to increase median family income?
Nov 2021 - New EPA regs governing methane release costs US taxpayers 1 billion dollars a year.
One of the current administrations first actions after taking office was to halt new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, and has rescinded Endangered Species Act reforms, a move that will increase red tape and allow litigation to slow down energy projects.
In April 2021, without the consent of Congress, the administration rejoined the Paris agreement, which will result