Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize?

[quinequine]

I'm not talking about your Dad or Grandma's union of yesteryear but a new type of union focused on collective bargaining for issues that matter and taking decisive action.

Our new style of union would:

- Encourage corporations to take security and privacy seriously

- Advocate for those affected by automation

- Aide in the creation of standards

- Support free and open source software communities

- Strengthen the efforts of organizations like EFF, Archive.org, Tor, etc

- Advocate for a free and open internet

- Counterbalance corporate interests

Once upon a time, unions did a lot of good for working and middle class people and they failed ultimately in the end.

It seems we as developers have the power to create a new type of union. A new model that disrupts old ideas for collective bargaining and actually does some good in the world.

What will our legacy be? Some things in life are greater than code.

Why don't developers unionize?

[Kalium]

What could I expect to change in my daily working life by joining your "new model union"?

Unions got buy-in from workers because they offered tangible benefits to workers. Shorter days, medical care, better pay, and so on. The items you list are public policy concerns that align well with a variety of advocacy groups. In virtually all cases, a specialist advocacy group seems better-suited to addressing the problem than a union.

[ReedJessen]

This is right. Unions need to be viewed as service providers, just like other kinds of organizations/companies. They need to provide benefits to their customers/members in order for them to be willing to pay membership fees.

[quinequine]

You're right. Most developers could care less about anything that doesn't impact their daily working life.

But I would argue that issues like wage suppression, security, and privacy have a huge impact on our work-life balance, income and the software we write.

An organization of developers dedicated to collective bargaining would be able to support advocacy groups and give them teeth in their dealings with large multinational corporations and even governments.

Would you agree?

[dsacco]

No, I wouldn't agree. Collective bargaining organizations ("unions") are fundamentally designed to advocate for their members, not for peripheral issues in the industry (except where they directly impact members' work life balance, safety or compensation in a tangible way).

Personally, I would not be willing to join a union because I don't see any benefits they could give me in return for my money. I'm quite happy bargaining on my own, and advocating for the issues I care about, without a conglomerate middleman.

[quinequine]

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Developers like most people are motivated by self-interest and have little motivation to see change in the status quo.

With regards to advocacy, it's much easier to cut a check to the EFF (or similar organizations) when your conscience is moved.

We as developers could careless about actually seeing meaningful results outside of the code we write and money we make.

That's what you're saying more or less?

I strongly disagree with your statement that collective bargaining isn't beneficial because at no point are the efforts of individuals more effective than that of a group. Only together is there change. The people's movements of the world have demonstrated that time and time again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_Unit...

[Kalium]

It is perhaps possible that you are misinterpreting dsacco. dsacco is mainly noting that unions are not designed to or particularly good at advancing the causes you have listed.

I may have missed it, but it is also possible that dsacco didn't opine on whether developers care about things that are greater than code.

[Kalium]

You're absolutely right, some things are unquestionably greater than code!

I think most developers, if asked, do in fact care about security, privacy, standards, net neutrality, and open source software. The issue, I have found in my many conversations with developers, is not that developers do not care about the items you have listed. Most do! That the EFF and the FSF and similar groups continue to exist shows this.

The issue I see at hand is that unions need to look like a good deal for people to sign up. People need to expect to gain more for their dues and participation than they could gain on their own. If a union is going to send money to the EFF, and I can send money to the EFF myself without the administrative overhead of a union, what does the union gain me?

Think of it in business terms, as successful unionizers have always done. What unique value does your new model union offer that justifies the costs? You're asking people to make a major financial commitment to group together and advocate for themselves, but you're focusing almost exclusively on secondary issues.

It is not that a union could or could not do all the things you suggest. The issue I see is that a compelling case has not been made that a new model union is the best way to advance the causes we care about. Where's the return on investment in collective bargaining for us?

Also: I see that you created an account solely to have this conversation. Have you come to understand why developers don't unionize, or did you expect to convincingly advocate for unions of software engineering professionals?

[Nomentatus]

The law in the U.S. now prevents sofware developers from getting overtime pay. Start by getting that, which might reduce stress and the suicide rate of developers.

[ThrowawayR2]

> ...security, ...

Who's implementing the security? Developers and operations. I seriously doubt the union is going to be naming and shaming their own membership for shoddy work.

> ...privacy...

If developers cared about that, nobody would be working at all these advertising supported businesses and Google would be a forgotten footnote in history. Here too, such a union would be alienating a large portion of its potential members.

[paulddraper]

Exactly. Emphasis on a variety of advocacy groups.

The scope of this is so diverse no organization, union or otherwise could advocate for all this to the satisfaction of its constituents.

"Counterbalance corporate interests"

What is that? There's really only one unifying corporate interest, and that is to profit, which is generally speaking a Good Idea.

[ChuckMcM]

Generally unionization is fought fairly hard by companies for the simple reason that it restricts what they can do and takes some control out of the hands of management. In the Bay area in the late 80's there was mumbling about unions after the great semiconductor flame out. A lot of people were laid off without warning and since it was widespread the ability to walk across the street and get rehired was limited. Since you can't really unionize when you aren't working somewhere, and when the people working somewhere are just glad they weren't the ones laid off, its hard to convince them they need to come on board.

As employer abuses, such as the 'no poaching agreement' came to light, or sudden changes in salary compensation etc. That provides incentive but it often isn't enough incentive to start the really vicious knock down drawn out fight that unionizing would entail.

Bottom line I think it would take a perfect storm of events, gross employer abuse, a large group of people who feel they have nothing to lose, and the prospect of a very bleak future unless something radical changes. We saw what happens when those forces align last Noveember, it doesn't happen all that often.

[cam_l]

Fully agree.. but I wonder what would happen if unions started to take a leaf out of the 'no poaching' corporate playbook and simply unionised secretly. Collective bargaining via synchronised individual bargaining, where everyone demands the same conditions on their employment. (Surely this could be appified ;) Perhaps if there were no official union, the vicious knock down would be much more difficult to focus. And it could be much easier for a coordinated and realtime response direct from the employees, rather than an intermediary.

I think the thing that people forget with regard to unions and employers is they are simply about redressing a massive power imbalance in a potentially mutually beneficial relationship.

[slavik81]

Unions are essentially a form of cartel, and they suffer from all the same organizational problems. Workers are faced with a prisoner's dilemma. The best individual choice is always to defect. To keep a unified front you need some sort of centralized force that prevents people from defecting. In traditional unions, it is enforced by law that all employees must join the union if the shop is unionized.

A secret voluntary union would lack that unifying force and would collapse as workers pursue their personal self-interest.

[cam_l]

True. But corporates seems to survive with majority cooperation and occasional defection. Perhaps there does need to be some mechanism to 'tat' the 'tits' who defect.

My take is that the major obstacle workers face in negotiating conditions, pay, and work, is information asymmetry. Having everyone negotiate from an increased negotiating position should help the honest workers as well as the defectors.. and one would hope, the employers.

[rkofman]

If all you're looking for is information symmetry, you don't need unions. You just need to have a representative sample publicly publish their salaries / other comp details.

[specialist]

This book was revelatory for me. I was aware of game theory stuff, but had no idea how it applied to groups.

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

[M2Ys4U]

>In traditional unions, it is enforced by law that all employees must join the union if the shop is unionized.

That very much depends on the jurisdiction. Closed-shops are illegal in Europe.

[MrLeap]

This could be brilliant.

[aerovistae]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I feel like people unionize when they're being taken advantage of and need to fight for better employment conditions....but developers have it pretty nice, all in all, most of us. I don't feel much incentive to unionize when I'm making $50/hr+ and have unlimited vacation.

[goalieca]

Not like that in most of the world I bet. It's not like that where I live.

[kakamba]

I agree with you, that is one side of unionization, but you don't need to suffer to build a union. I am also in the bay area and have a pretty decent working conditions.

However, if a sector creates a substantial value to the economy, their unions affect governing organs, they heavily influence cities or states to work in their favor not against them. If we look at for instance how tech companies are treated in bay area vs the automotive giants over in Detroit, or potato farmers in Idaho we can see the difference.

[NetStrikeForce]

> and have unlimited vacation.

How much of that is paid?

[dlhavema]

unlimited vacation is starting to be more common... the company that is buying the place i currently work at is doing it as well..

they don't have to keep PTO hours on the books, and don't have to pay out for hours not taken when you leave either...

[NetStrikeForce]

So it's unpaid leave? How many paid vacation days do you have per year?

[aerovistae]

For me it was as simple as I said: unlimited paid vacation. What mattered was getting your work done, not being in the office as much as possible.

[mrmaximus]

"Why am I getting reprimanded?" "Because you ran a unit test..." "What is wrong with that?" "It's Brian's job to press that key, not yours. You violated Union rules"

[6t6t6t6]

- "Hi, we decided to change the terms of your contract and you have to sign this document right now... or else."

- "Sorry, I need to talk with he Union first to see what my options."

- "Hi, we decided that you need to come to work all the weekends in March and we still have to decide if we will pay for the overtime and how much".

- "Mmm... Well, let me ask the Union, but I think that this is not going to happen... I actually had lots of plans for the weekends in March."

- "Hi, you are fired. Not because you are a bad professional but because you ask too many questions and because you don't show yourself submissive in front of me".

- "Mmm... I am afraid that you will need to have a long conversation with the lawyers of the Union first".

That's what Unions are for in many countries.

[dozzie]

Apart from US, in which countries:

1. employer is allowed to unilaterally change contract with employee?

2. employer is allowed not to pay for overtime?

3. employer can fire somebody at a whim?

In my country all three are forbidden by law, and I haven't talked about unions yet.

[6t6t6t6]

The fact that the law says that something is forbidden, it does not mean that all the companies comply, having something on your side helps you a lot when you fight the company to make them follow the law. Also, my examples are quite clear, but there are always grays.

[ThrowawayR2]

All of those response are incorrect. The correct answer is "I can call my network and have five offers inside of a month that pay me as much or more than I'm making here."

If you need a union to push back for you, well, sorry but most likely you're not keeping up with the average for your profession.

[giaour]

Imagine that you're on an H1-B visa. If you utter the phrase you've suggested, you could be fired on the spot and have until the end on the day to leave the country.

If, instead, you're engaged in a collective labor action, your employer cannot retaliate by firing you.

[ThrowawayR2]

How about fixing the H1-B law instead?

[giaour]

Sure. Until that happens, developers should unionize. An adequate fix would take years to implement, and congress is unlikely to pass one within the next 4-8 years, so I don't think your suggestion is likely to be relevant within a reasonable timeframe.

[6t6t6t6]

At this moment developers have an unusual power that comes because of the scarcity of good developers. This does not happen in many other professions and will, for sure, not last forever for the programmers. The day you won't be able to just walk to the next company, you will miss to have the power to negotiate with your employer and not just obey him or run away.

Do you remember 2004?

[na85]

You know unions can make and not make whatever rules they want, right?

There's nothing intrinsic about unions that would cause that rule to exist.

[NoPiece]

Yeah, but Brian really wanted that rule.

[quinequine]

Ehh, there's a reason I started the thread off with "not your Dad or Grandma's union". :)

Why can't there be another way than the way our grandparents' unionized?

[DelaneyM]

You seem to be describing donating to the EFF. That's good, I support the EFF.

But an EFF which gets to negotiate my salary for me? No thanks. I'll keep donating to the EFF and just not join the union, thanks.

Without collective bargaining, what you're describing isn't a "new style of union" but an advocacy organization. We probably need more of those, but they're really hard to run effectively.

[mixedCase]

I despise the bullyish behavior of most unions, in fact, the central organization that coordinates them in my country has often been called our "shadow government" due to how they blackmail the state on every issue to take advantage and force them to be wasteful with tax dollars, causing far more damage than what they undo.

I am just a single person, but I wouldn't be caught dead in an union just from what I've seen them do.

[scott_karana]

How are companies themselves any different, except that they lobby publicly, with propagandist PR fanfare?

[el_isma]

Sounds like my country...

It leaves me wondering if it's the same country or it's the same issue

[shams93]

If it wasn't for Steve Jobs we might have agents like Hollywood actors. To me the real question is why don't we have agents like actors and basketball players? We could be like actors and have both a union and our own agents. But thanks to Jobs conspiring to hold back engineer income we have a situation where we are often leveraged into poverty.

[gigatexal]

Leveraged into poverty? Developer salaries range from 50-65k starting to 250k plus. Then there's freelancing.

[quinequine]

Depends on where you're at, right? You'll find tons of developers on Upwork willing to work for less.

Isn't that the future for most of us? We're tomorrow's factory workers. Corporations have already shown that they'll work to suppress wages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

The long game is to promote STEM fields and increase supply - pushing down wages and benefits.

[nightski]

No offense, because this isn't directed at you specifically, but developers on Upwork selling themselves short are doing so because they lack the social skills necessary to thrive in a freelance environment.

There are so many business opportunities to build quality software for a very steep price it's incredible. But developers can have a pretty hard time understanding how to sell themselves.

[gremlinsinc]

Well, what if the union was more of a supplier of Benefits if contract worker (Group healthcare plan, dental, vision), had a lawyer on staff to checkout contracts to make sure they're up and up for freelancers, helped encourage companies to raise incomes for devs across the board, and also had a marketing team/sales team dedicated to helping freelancers who are primarily introvert sell their skills for the top dollar...though -- you could work for an outfit like Topcoders which does do a lot of these types of things..

[madamelic]

You are describing consulting.

[pryelluw]

Could you point to these opportunities? One concrete opportunity. Please and thank you.

[madamelic]

http://meetups.com

Networking.

[gigatexal]

So not teaching more people engineering is a good thing? Are you really advocating ignorance to artificially constrain the supply in the market of competent engineers? Non-competes, no-poaching, etc and illegal acts to constrain salaries are deplorable, yes, but are you going to be able to change the profit motive of business? Nope. What you can change is how you market yourself and seeking other opportunities for income be they freelancing or something similar. Think of a world that is much more educated now. There's untold industries and innovations that can be had and we markets for us to be employed in.

[quinequine]

Good point but you misunderstood my argument. It's in the interests of corporations to push up supply and if you look they are doing just that.

My concern is that without a counterbalance of developers advocating in the interest of the workforce; individuals will always be at a disadvantage.

Why? In a business everything comes second to profits and the accumulation of capital. Anyone who has worked at a startup outside of the US coasts knows this well.

I'm not saying we employ the old methods of unionization, but what am I saying is that we need collective bargaining.

It's up to us to identify a modern model that addresses your concerns.

[gigatexal]

I don't subscribe to all or nothings. Nobody is "always" a jerk. Nobody is "always" lazy. Neither are companies solely profit motivated. We don't live in a pure capitalist environment. This isn't a Ayn Rand novel. For example why would Google pay for free food for employees, why would other startups invest in so many "perks" to appease their employees.

I just think unions would dilute the market with highly paid developers on average but then average developers. Once you get the title of developer and get to be part of this union all developers regardless of skill would be paid the same. How is that fair? (If that's not how unions work then I cede my point).

[meddlepal]

There is a quota on doctors why not on engineers? We're already OK with the former.

[dpark]

I'm not okay with a quota on doctors. I'm certainly not okay with a quota on engineers, especially since that's a massive incentive to offshoring to somewhere that isn't stupid enough to artificially constrain the number of engineers.

[gigatexal]

Got a link to that quota on doctors?

[solipsism]

Isn't that the future for most of us? We're tomorrow's factory workers.

Speak for yourself. What I do takes a lot more creativity, flexibility, and variety of types of skill than most factory jobs. I intend to continue to develop skills that can't be commoditized.

[gigatexal]

That is just it, too. We have to continue to get better. And wouldn't we want to be the best we can be or if you were a company have the best engineers you could afford creating your software? Why is the interview process at google so tough? They only hire ~1% of the applicants because they want to be the best. Developers are more than just simple assets they can be worth more than the sum of their parts/ their teams and that is why a compentent developer will always be well employed. If you think you're lacking maybe look into learning how to sell yourself better; seek opportunities to develop more confidence in interpersonal settings, get your finances in order to maybe take a risk and turn that side hobby into the next big thing. In an age where anyone can do anything with an API and an idea why stick to thinking the only way to move up is at your next performance interview?

[scarface74]

I'm not competing with people who are willing to work for only $10 an hour on Upwork. There are plenty of opportunities for people who are skilled architects, and real engineers.

Worse case, if I were either just starting in the industry or wanted to learn a new technology, I might take one or two low paying jobs to get practice and build a portfolio but that would be about it.

[q3r3qr3q]

Haven't people been saying that for decades now?

[lap42]

Then there's create your own software company.

[kukac]

Why would developers need agents? Hollywood actors earn orders of magnitude more than your average 10X-er developer.

[scarface74]

Actually, a good recruiter can serve the role of an agent. They will look for opportunities for you because it's in their own best interest. But just like an athlete, you have to be smart enough not to get taken advantage of.

[dexterdog]

Even starving actors typically have agents.

[lappa]

Agents are expensive overhead. Agents are for people who shift between "clients" frequently. The thing that both actors and athletes share (at least the ones with agents) is giant salaries and a frequently changing employer.

[fiedzia]

> Why don't developers unionize?

They don't need to. For any combination of those goals, you can find some company that aligns with them, so just go there. It may not be google or facebook, but you have choice.

[quinequine]

You're right. Most developers don't care about these sort of issues. No need to unionize if you don't care about effecting change. And when you do, just send a donation and call it a day.

[LyndsySimon]

I can only speak for myself, but I will never join a union. It's a political thing for me. I know not everyone feels that way, but I also know that I'm not the only one strongly opposed to unionization.

[quinequine]

I completely understand. How do you feel about collective bargaining in general?

Consider a case where let's say the founder of an extremely successful yet 50 person software company sells the company for an ungodly sum ($250mil+) to Corporation X but as a part of that deal this founder doesn't provide any equity to 80% of his/her employees who helped build the company?

What should they do then?

[LyndsySimon]

> How do you feel about collective bargaining in general?

In a perfect world, where the government doesn't restrain the company from firing everyone and hiring new employees, I'm fine with it. I wouldn't want to participate, but I see no reason why it would be a unfair.

> Consider a case where let's say the founder of an extremely successful yet 50 person software company sells the company for an ungodly sum ($250mil+) to Corporation X but as a part of that deal this founder doesn't provide any equity to 80% of his/her employees who helped build the company?

> What should they do then?

Either continue working for the new owners or find employment elsewhere.

If employees wanted equity, then they should have negotiated that as part of their terms of employment.

[ThrowawayR2]

>How do you feel about collective bargaining in general?

Call collective bargaining what it is, state-sanctioned extortion. "Give us X or we'll walk out. No, you can't hire a replacement either." Imagine if your auto mechanic or doctor or plumber could to this to you.

Not that it isn't necessarily justified; seeing the working conditions at, for example, Amazon's warehouses improved more than warrants it. But let's not pretend it's something it's not.

>...this founder doesn't provide any equity to 80% of his/her employees who helped build the company? What should they do then?

A talented, highly educated workforce of developers somehow collectively failed to read their employment contracts and understand the risks/rewards of their compensation? What they should all do is smack themselves on the forehead.

[scaryspooky]

They should have negotiated their own terms better.

[specialist]

Would you join a police officer's union?

[LyndsySimon]

I would not - but then, I would never be a police officer either.

[solipsism]

Scab!

[wattt]

I wish you weren't being downvoted! If you join an organization that is union you should almost certainly join. Otherwise... You're a scab. That's how it goes. Sorry HN doesn't see reality.

[prodigal_erik]

Extortion is the only power a union can wield. We have a name for that kind of organization and it's a hell of a lot more damning than "scab".

[giaour]

Extortion is not the only power a union can wield. They can also engage in collective labor action per the National Labor Relations Act[1].

[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act

[prodigal_erik]

"Collective labor action" is another kind of threat used against managers who might otherwise accept a better offer from other workers. We've surrendered and begin to encourage unions to perform their extortion in open court to reduce the body count.

[LyndsySimon]

I'll wear the title with pride, thanks.

[czep]

There's probably some element of the Prisoner's Dilemma at play here. I'd join a union if I knew that we'd all have normal working conditions, no forced or coerced overtime, guaranteed health care, a pension plan, and a reserve in case of strike (the only thing unions have to negotiate with management). I'd accept a sizable pay cut if all that could be brought to the table.

But unless there's critical mass, it's every code monkey for his or herself. So I contract myself to the highest bidder and wait for the revolution :)

[solipsism]

Why would a pay cut be involved? It's not clear to me the would be a pay cut. And without a pay cut how is the Prisoners Dilemma relevant?

[dsacco]

In principle there is a pay cut if you have to pay dues, if nothing else.

[kardashev]

I was at a conference once setting up a booth for a company I worked for. We ended up borrowing an electric screwdriver from a booth next door, but had to turn it by hand because only union members were allowed to use electric tools to setup a booth.

Unions may have helped once upon a time, but now they just take money from your compensation to pay union managers who work against a company being efficient (which makes pay even less over time).

[cperciva]

What you're describing isn't a union; it's a professional association like the ACM.

[meddlepal]

No thanks. I prefer to negotiate on my own and represent myself. I don't trust unions and I think they lead to massive inefficiency.

I would support a professional organization however that performs some amount of accreditation and peer review especially if it led to better hiring decisions throughout the industry and higher quality software.

[jones1618]

Developers like to think they are above blue collar concerns but I've witnessed or heard first-person accounts of workplace abuses for otherwise "privileged" developers. Although we have marketable skills and relative "career security", that doesn't make switching jobs any less disruptive for our career path, our families, health plans, stress levels, etc.

So, I like your idea of a developer's union with emphasis on professional standards, EFF principles, etc. It would also be a powerful ally for responding to workplace abuses I've seen such as: 1) excessive, mandatory work hours. I know game developers that are required to work 60-80 hour work weeks and sleep at their desks. 2) outsourcing abuse: Having to manage and train offshore "resources" who become your replacement. 3) Keep-a-good-engineer down syndrome. Organizationally suppressing engineers from advancing so they stay in essential, non-executive roles.

And, if you think that your cushy job is immune to these problems, consider that I've seen nearly every one of these conditions arise (usually after a management change) in otherwise humane companies with positive corporate cultures.

While a union might not prevent every individual abuse, it might provide a check on companies who essentially hold your "cushy job" for ransom while they take advantage of the fact that you are salaried (not paid hourly) and can work from home any day or night.

[RangerScience]

I like the line of your thinking, but - seems to me the other commenters have it. Sounds more like a advocacy group, or a professional association.

I think the actual answer to your question is "for many of us, things are pretty good". Unionization happens with wide-spread abuses; when things generally suck. I don't know what wide-spread abuses there are in software, particularly salaried positions.

I don't necessarily need a union, but I do need the information necessary to negotiate better - that sounds like a professional association.

[zubat]

The market is fluid enough - which isn't to say it's in good shape - that developers who are decent can usually find a high enough salary to stay quiet and cooperate.

Unions arise when workers have a reason not to stay quiet and they lack recourse. But in tech the response to not getting what you want tends to be to raise funds and start your own company, or at minimum freelance. This is imperfect and allows vulnerable people to slip through the cracks. But again, it's not enough to make for a turning point, at least yet.

[appleflaxen]

When unions are organized, they are interested in improving the workers' positions. Over time, though, they just become one more entity in the workplace, and advocate for their own power and money over all else. It is a corrosive influence that starts out ok, but degrades to a very low common denominator, and puts a company on the ropes. There is no better example of this than detroit.

[specialist]

Two big reasons.

#1 Abundant labor, meaning buyers market, so developers don't have leverage. This has a pretty good primer on the topic:

Democracy At Work

https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/...

#2 I'm as pinko commie liberal socialist as they come, and I can't imagine how even the most well intentioned (least alt-factual neo-reactionary libertarian) group of developers can coordinate collectively. Said another way, I can't imagine preventing the free-rider, defector problem.

This book covers the sociology of collective action:

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

Maybe, just maybe, there's a unifying issue or policy, like protecting privacy rights, that could motivate most developers to pull in the same direction... Just to throw out an idea as an example.

[wattt]

Wow you and I live in alternate universes. In my experience, and having been without work at various times, and freelancing... I believe developers are scarce. You need an aptitude and some (self?) training to take part and a lot of people can't be bothered.

That being said, I see you describe yourself as a "pinko commie" and as a business owner who was at one time a union administrator in a past life I would never hire you, so perhaps that explains the bubble you are living in.

[NoPiece]

Good developers are scarce, bad ones aren't.

[tacostakohashi]

I think this is probably the crux of why organizing isn't appealing for developers / tech workers.

There is huge disparity and in worker skill levels, productivity and salaries. Lots of mediocre developers on, say $60,000, but also lots of guys on $150,000 and up, with pretty different concerns (e.g., maybe the guy on $200,000 can live with a few late nights).

Pretty different from, say, auto workers or bus drivers where you have thousands of staff at the same skill and salary level, with the same interests and concerns.

[wattt]

I guess if you aren't good you start calling yourself a "pinko commie" as if it was a virtue!

[specialist]

"as a business owner ... I would never hire you"

Darn.

[gremlinsinc]

One thing I would like is a specifically 'contractor' umbrella corp/union hybrid--you work for the corporation... but you VOTE on how much the CEO/Board can take home - and you pay dues/etc.. to be officially an employee on paper only -- so that the umbrella corp can collectively bargain for decent healthcare/dental/etc --and other benefits AND -- say you just started contracting 6 months ago...well you have to wait 2 years to get a mortgage.. if you're an employee that wait time is only 6 months.. and probably other benefits of being an 'employee'...

You could sync it up w/ your bank account so it'll have a paystub record that takes your contractor earnings and puts all that as payments..or something not sure on legalities or specifics but having just started working from as a self-employed contractor and my wife just getting laid off finding getting mortgages and healthcare is a PAIN IN THE ASS!

[russelluresti]

Historically speaking, unions do not form until the workers are in a crunch/threatened with losing their jobs. During these times, things are good for most developers so they don't see the need to unionize.

Unions are also only effective because they are generally location-based. If you want to build a building in New York, you have to get a construction crew that can work in New York. That makes it very easy for a group to unionize New York workers - because their tools for bargaining (e.g. strikes) are easy to carry out when centralized. But on the web, this is much more difficult. If you unionized all U.S. developers, companies would simply outsource to other countries where the union doesn't exist. And while there are a few international unions, AFAIK none of them are very effective at organizing. In short, digital work is very easy to outsource and makes unions completely ineffectual.

[tacostakohashi]

What you're talking about sounds more like professionalizing than unionizing (although, outside the U.S., the contrast is less profound).

For the reasons you cite, it's a nice idea. The immediate answer is because nobody would agree on what a developer is (do front end developers count? web designers? excel macros?).

[solipsism]

I think a key component to unions is a marked class dichotomy. Blue collar on one side, white on the other. This leads to strong "us vs them" tribal instincts to prevail. I don't think that dichotomy is as strong in tech industries, if it exists at all.

[specialist]

Very interesting observation.

I had always seen the fight as between capital and labor. But then again, I'm an elitist white urbanite.

The book Democracy at Work (linked upthread) attempts to find a third way. Worker owned democratically run organizations. My personal interest comes from when I used democratic decision making on my own teams, to great effect. Alas, we didn't control the capital, so our efforts had limited broader success.

[WorldMaker]

Part of it is that unions are associated with blue-collar work and developers feel that they are "too white-collar" for that sort of thing.

There's no collar boundary to unionization, of course, but there is a perception that there is.

[rileymat2]

Many professionals like lawyers and doctors may not have Unions, but have strong professional oranizations.

[WorldMaker]

Right, just about every sort of engineers except "software engineer" (the way SV throws the title around) has ABET accreditation requirements, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, the Professional Engineering exam in their field of work, the Engineer in Training work apprenticeship steps, and finally the Professional Engineer certification and the organization involvements and professional learning requirements to keep that certification current.

I've considered trying for a PE certification (now that there finally is a software engineering PE, which was not the case when I graduated) to get the "engineer" back into my title at my current job (which as a broader engineering firm that serves multiple disciplines has an absolute requirement for a PE to claim the title), but getting the certification wouldn't really help me much in the industry anywhere else, so it doesn't seem worth it.

[ThrowawayR2]

Lawyers and doctors require a extensive examination and continuing education requirements in order to get and keep their accreditation in their professional organizations. Developers, as a group, are unlikely to support such a professional organization because many of them got their expertise in non-traditional / unconventional ways and would fear being excluded.

[WorldMaker]

Which leads back to unions as the next best fit. If developers and the software industry don't want to deal with professional organizations and professional certifications then unions are the next best option for collective action.

[mikevp]

Unions tend to be for identical-cogs-in-the-machine, no differentiation between individuals, everyone marching in lockstep by strict seniority type careers. Tech types tend to be more like herding cats... not a good fit for unions.

[chris_7]

Tom Brady is in a union... Leonardo DiCaprio is in a union...

[pavanky]

What about actors ? They are unionized.

[booleandilemma]

Because things are good now. Developers are making decent salaries. In most cases far better than their friends who chose other career paths.

But I don't think it will always be this way. With the rise of bootcamps and the influx of new developers we're going to see over the next 15 years, thanks to all of today's kids learning to code, I think developers are at serious risk of becoming commoditized. I see a future where a developer is paid the salary of a retail cashier and it scares me.

[mrmaximus]

> I see a future where a developer is paid the salary of a retail cashier and it scares me.

The only way that will happen is if Point-of-Sale systems become so complex that a developer has to run them, or development becomes as easy as punching buttons on a Point-of-Sale system.

[booleandilemma]

The difficulty of development doesn't have to change, and I'm not saying it will, but the number of people who know how to program will increase.

[dsacco]

That concerns me as well. If you'd like some consolation, make a job post and interview "senior software engineers" sometime. Try fizzbuzz as a first question (yes, even in 2017).

[madamelic]

Yeah.

It was a really sad day when they started teaching English and Math to elementary school kids.

Kids today are just punching out novels and theorems like there is no tomorrow...

[fleitz]

Because developers don't see any advantage in unionizing.

It's like asking why cats don't herd.

Also many of the issues that matter to you don't matter to developers, or aren't convincingly argued.

If you want developers to unionize the first step is consulting them on what changes they'd like to see and then creating an organization to effect those changes, treat the union like a lean startup creating an MVP and I bet you may have success.

[shaftway]

Honestly, I don't understand the role of unions in modern society. At least not in major metropolitan areas.

The original goal of a union was to protect people who had no other realistic employment oppotunities. If you lived in rural Pennsylvania digging in a coal mine, I totally get unionization. More power to you (/me beats his chest in solidarity).

But you're talking about the modern age for a group that has arguably more career mobility than any other career in the history of the world. If I don't like the conditions at a job, I'll pick up and leave. There are hundreds of jobs I can select from; the tech world is literally my oyster. If enough people leave, conditions will change, but frankly I won't care because I won't be there. Protection against mass layoffs? That sounds like you want to drag the company down. I'd rather see 50% of the people continue on with a job indefinitely than see 95% with a job for a few months until the company shuts its doors.

These factors makes unions uninteresting for me. But there are other factors that make me openly hostile to unions.

I think that collective bargaining in pay brings the average salary up, but I'm not an average engineer. I like to think I'm in at least the top 25% (I'd like to say I'm in the 5%, but I don't know if I am), and so my assumption is that unions will bring my salary down. Frankly I don't care about bringing low-end engineers' salaries up at the cost of mine. I assume that the company isn't totally irrational, and it is capable of deciding for itself how important employees are and compensate them accordingly.

Also, my experience with unions in the past had to do with my spouse working in education. The union there was not acting in teachers' best interest. They routinely brought in retirement savings pitches that advocated terrible choices for the teachers, any proposed change was immediately mired in committees where it would languish and die, and when you did have an issue the union was outright hostile (spouse was laid off over summer break for the crime of being pregnant, union abruptly stopped discussing the issue with us after a cutoff date until we'd paid the next year's dues, when we paid union said "thank you, we're not going to pursue this, the school's decision stands").

[AnimalMuppet]

Why don't developers unionize? Because they don't want, to, and nobody can make them.

Next question: Why don't they want to? Because they detest bureaucracy, and they see unions as another bureaucracy that they would have to put up with, and they don't want the headaches. They get enough of pointy-haired bosses; they don't want another one, even if the new one is supposed to be on their side.

[flyby]

Ignoring administrative details, a union is simply enough usually self-interested people becoming sufficiently one in purpose for long enough for it to be in an industry's best interests to cooperate with that union of people - instead of self-interested individuals - in order to enlist the labor that industry needs to achieve its goals.

The reason it hasn't happened is there isn't sufficient denial of self-interest for unionized interest to achieve critical mass to become a singular force to be reckoned with.

[MrLeap]

Advocate for those affected by automation? That's like the teamsters advocating for bicycle couriers who lost their jobs to UPS. I don't understand how that would work. Good luck though.

[robin-berjon]

It's only a small subset of what you describe, and I wouldn't call it a union as such, but the WICG (https://wicg.io/) was created as a means to help developers organise and produce the Web standards they need, to somewhat counterbalance some of the influence of browser vendors.

[wattt]

Scarcity. Once you know how to program, and others know that, everyone wants to hire you. There are simply not enough developers yet for all the things people want to do right now.

[kahnpro]

Unfortunately so many developers are making enough money that it goes to their heads. The demand for our skills gives us a very rare luxury that we can actually negotiate employment contracts somewhat fairly, and so many developers just cannot conceive of other professions where it's the company's way or the highway.

We don't face enough hardships to see the value in unions. Unfortunately it won't last forever.

[substack]

Collective action is hard, particularly when tech companies form and dissolve very quickly and turnover is high. In addition to unions, worker ownership through cooperatives is another avenue for better conditions. In worker cooperatives, workers own the business, so business objectives are much more aligned with labor. Cooperatives don't have to worry about management union-busting or moving production elsewhere.

[sshine]

Developers do unionize. Some developers. In some countries. [Bernie]Take for example Denmark[/Bernie]. In Denmark, PROSA is the union of IT professionals and lives up to several of your ideas of a new style of union.

They have a strict definition (job titles, educational background) that excludes designers but includes front-end developers. But since IT workers, compared to so many other industries, are rather well off, PROSA is not a typical worker's union. I assume the main reason why people are members is to get access to the part-government funded unemployment fund, and the secondary reason is to support its IT politics.

Yes, they've handled large-scale conflict and strikes in the past, and yes, they handle collective agreements for workers in a few larger organisations. But because there's so little conflict in this sector in Denmark, it is mostly handled on a case-by-case basis (where the union membership fee can be seen as a subscription to legal aid) and the union can spend its energy on[1]:

- Lobbying for better IT policy. Unlike like-minded non-profits, the union has a good budget, full-time employees, career lobbyists etc. Still, IT policy is not being taken very serious in Denmark (being just a series of tubes)

- Running citizen-focused campaigns that focus on privacy, use of FOSS, the free internet, TPP, automation, etc.

- Donating, on occasion, to non-profits that really need it. I think EFF were targets at least once.

It does not maintain or create standards. It does not hold companies responsible for privately made security choices. (The media does to some extent, but as you may have read, paying for security is more expensive than screwing up and dealing with the consequences.) It does not support FOSS directly, AFAIK, but since Denmark is such a small place, there are active FOSS players both among union members and employees.

Among other things PROSA does, which you have not mentioned that a new style of union could is: Create a geographically based community. Some meetup groups use their meeting rooms (e.g. Functional Copenhageners; MF#K). And there's a lot of user groups organized within PROSA, so in a sense they've taken over the social aspect of LUGs (Linux User Groups); e.g. makers, roboticists, board gamers, network admins, etc.

If you ask me, unions in IT are useful if you're the hundred-something or thousand-something employee in a large corporation. If you can't simply switch jobs from one month to the next. If you don't get paid so well that you could take months off if you wanted. And IT is large enough to encompass people for whom that makes total sense. And then there's those who probably get paid more without a collective wage agreement. In Denmark, some of those choose to stay for the cozy atmosphere. :)

[1]: Note, I never worked for PROSA. I'm sure they do a hell of a lot more union-related work than I can imagine exists. Also, I know nothing of how IT unions work elsewhere. I just wrote articles for their magazine while I was a student.

[specialist]

I meant to reply to this. Thank you (!) for the PROSA tip. I will be studying it. I'm sure I'll have to update my (world)views accordingly!

[owebmaster]

Digital nomad communities are a new type of union. I'm starting to develop the network around me with this mindset (as I'm a digital nomad myself).

[herbst]

This is all happening on multiple levels. EFF beeing a big one, CCC also well known, next to their many small local branches.

[w_t_payne]

Unions may be the wrong model. I'd prefer to see developers organise along the same lines as the legal profession. I.e. instead of encouraging more people to enter the profession we start to lobby for legislation that erects barriers, requires professional qualifications etc... We should restrict the supply of developers and start to perpetuate memes that normalise a significant increase in societal and economic status.

[slantaclaus]

"Advocate for those affected by automation" -- sounds like a conflict of interest to me.

[rtfm666]

quinequine: Would you please drop me a line via my mail (lukewm AT riseup DOT net). I'd love to start up a dialogue about this. It's been something that is interesting me a lot lately.

[q3r3qr3q]

Nice speech, Tony Robbins.

[itbeho]

"Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization."

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

[dsacco]

Do you have some more commentary to add about this to make it relevant to the discussion? You just threw out a sort of related quote without any connecting context to the question at hand.

[goelevator]

Unionization doesn't provide freedom, it provides more structure. Sure it can benefit you as times are hard, but unlike physical labor or hazardous work conditions, the need that you seem to be wanting is not a union. You are looking for ways for the status quo of employees to change from their employers. The ownership and lack of respect many companies have on their employees can create issues.

What if instead you fought for a different system that would put more control in the hands of groups of developers without unions? What if you solidified what it meant to create teams that can stand up for what they believe inside the organizations?

I think teams will end up running most organizations, if many are not already. I read everyday about some team leaving and forming an entire product for another company. Why is this so hard on a massive scale?

Why not create a movement for teams inside companies to change the relation vs external structures like unions.

Forget unions. Build your teams and stand up for what the team believes in, regardless of what company you work for.