[xienze]

> If it's going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is.

This sounds like it's going to have exactly zero to do with what a labor union would normally be concerned with -- pay, working conditions, etc. Instead, I have a strong suspicion this is going to be some sort of enumeration of the progressive ideals that all tech workers "should" be concerned with, as dictated by a group of Bay Area tech workers. Namely, LGBT stuff, female and minority representation, immigrant's rights, etc.

[badloginagain]

I don't see what that would really accomplish, though. All companies already publicly advertise the 'moral' beliefs you mentioned, yet continue hiring white male whiteboard challenge mavericks.

[xienze]

No, not all companies. Many still follow the age-old wisdom of staying out of the social commentary business. I think the goal of this endeavor is to change that by convincing the tech workers to create a culture of doing so where it didn't exist before.

[matt4077]

The only age-old wisdom I remember from my great-grandfather is "never trust the British, and kill every French on sight".

Regarding this issue, I'll stop demanding that corporations act morally above and beyond what the law requires when they seize to influence those laws.

[wtvanhest]

This feels like a very political move that has little to nothing to do with tech. If you build a union or trade organization which has influence over the biggest CEOs in the world, you have consolidated a lot of power.

I'm left scratching my head after reading this, and I feel like YC may have lost its way.

[humanrebar]

> yet continue hiring white male whiteboard challenge mavericks.

Is that even true? Are you counting Asians and light-complexioned immigrants the same as American white people in this context?

[webwright]

Here's the kind of thing it could accomplish:

https://www.recode.net/2017/2/2/14490950/travis-kalanick-ube...

If tech workers express collective displeasure about a company, it meaningfully hurts that company's ability to recruit/retain tech workers.

[lazyasciiart]

> Namely, LGBT stuff, female and minority representation, immigrant's rights, etc.

offering parental leave is an excellent example of the kind of thing a union would negotiate, and is also pretty well related to how attractive a company is to women (who are more likely to have childcare responsibilities). Rules against firing someone for being gay or a different religion are a great example of something a union would negotiate, and are definitely going to help increase minority and LGBT representation. Why do you see 'working conditions' as unrelated to these topics?

[xienze]

> Rules against firing someone for being gay or a different religion are a great example of something a union would negotiate

Except they're not, that's what our existing laws are for.

> Why do you see 'working conditions' as unrelated to these topics?

Because in my reading of this it doesn't sound like they're going after things like vacation time, pay, IP rights, you know, day-to-day stuff that a union would really be concerned with.

Instead it sounds like they want to define a shared set of principles that tech workers should believe in and then through sheer numbers said workers would convince their employers to be more socially conscious.

So again, I'd be shocked if the results of this were anything other than "A real tech worker believes in the right to an abortion, a real tech worker believes in gay marriage", etc. instead of, say, "a real tech worker believes in a minimum of four weeks paid leave" and similar statements.

tl;dr it's gonna be a bunch of touchy-freely Bay Area stuff.

[chimeracoder]

> > Rules against firing someone for being gay or a different religion are a great example of something a union would negotiate

> Except they're not, that's what our existing laws are for.

Ironically, unions are allowed to terminate memberships for reasons that would be illegal to use as grounds for firing someone[0]. In a closed shop, terminating a membership is tantamount to firing someone, so that literally means employees covered by a closed-shop union contract have less recourse if the union decides to fire them than they would if they never had a union contract to begin with.

Also, a democratically-elected body will (in theory) represent the majority of people whom it governs. If a majority of people want to target a minority religion or race or ethnicity, a democratically-elected body representing them will do just that. Unions actually have a long history of lobbying for unbelievably racist laws throughout the 20th century in order to protect their majority-white members[1].

I know this is unpopular to say here, but as someone belonging to a group that was explicitly targeted by these unions as a scapegoat, and who had their US citizenships revoked and property seized due to successful, xenophobic lobbying by those unions, I'm really sick of the pervasive assumption that unions will inherently protect minorities, or even minority members.

[0] This includes retaliatory termination

[1] The AFL is the most well-known of these, but they weren't the only ones.

[pseudalopex]

It's legal in 28 states to fire someone for being gay. 32 for being trans. Some have even preempted local nondiscrimination ordinances.

I agree with you that this doesn't seem to have anything to do with working conditions. I don't see why you think they'd want to go anywhere near abortion.

[xapata]

> touchy-freely Bay Area stuff

I don't think those beliefs are exclusive to the Bay Area, nor would I describe those topics as "touchy-freely [sic]".

[damagednoob]

> offering parental leave is an excellent example of the kind of thing a union would negotiate, and is also pretty well related to how attractive a company is to women (who are more likely to have childcare responsibilities).

This is an excellent example of how women make different choices to men driven by the special rights that they are afforded. Giving a women more maternity leave sounds laudable but it creates a perverse incentive where they have to take on those childcare duties.

My wife and I are going through this at the moment and she will be entitled to 5 months of full-paid maternity leave. No employment contract I've ever signed has even come close to that for paternity leave. The only rational decision is for her to take care of the child.

I'm much more in favour of some sort of system where that leave is allocated to a family and how they choose to divide it is up to them.

[lazyasciiart]

I said "parental leave" and not "maternity leave" quite deliberately.

[ocschwar]

Well, if a professional organization of tech workers actually managed to hold some sway in DC, it would be an improvement over the status quo at the moment.