[jasode]

>This will not be true forever.

I noticed you've emphasized this twice. You have to admit that this pro-active idea of "join a union before you _really_ need the union" is not that compelling of a sales pitch to a lot of developers who already have good paying jobs. It's human nature.

>I never understand employees who don't want to unionize.

Do you really want to understand? I think the reasons are obvious: most programmers don't see any economic benefits to paying ~$500 (or whatever amount) annual union dues for very little gain.

If you can prove to developers that paying $X would return tangible benefits in excess of those fees, there would be an unstoppable movement. The proof isn't there yet.

As many programmers have testified, they already get excellent pay, benefits, work hours, etc without union representation. Yes, of course some programmers are suffering in terrible jobs but not enough of them (yet) outnumber the people who don't want to pay for a union.

I can easily understand why some programmers want a union. But it's a mystery why union supporters also can't see why some don't want it.

[zjaffee]

Virtually every other high paying profession has unions by another name, namely professional organizations who often are responsible for things like licensing, ethics enforcement, ect.

Should Software Engineers want to remain a part of the professional class over the long term, it would be ignorant to not push for these things and introduce further supply restrictions around who can and cannot be a software engineer just as how accountants, lawyers, actuaries, ect have all done before them.

[ivl]

The NCEES does offer a software engineering PE exam. But, that's meaningless when anyone can be a dev because there are no limits to who can be hired for what purpose in software, really.

[tracker1]

I'm someone is and has had very senior roles in software development without any formal education past high school, for the past 24 years. I'd rather not have a program that requires such in this area of work. There are already enough businesses that won't hire me for a give role because of their internal requirements for certain positions, I'd rather not.

[ivl]

I sympathize with that, and I was in no way advocating the PE exam for software development (although I could see it being of use in certain areas - it could be useful for roles involving risk similar to the risks that usually lead to other engineering disciplines having that requirement). But with how many CRUD apps are in existence, it's wholly unreasonable to expect all developers to get a 4 year degree and pass the PE exam.

[pseudalopex]

NCEES discontinued the software engineering exam.

[tracker1]

When unions were first starting, people were literally putting their lives on the line to protest and strike. State troops (in various states) were called, protesters were killed. Frankly, today isn't that bad for most people. Personally, I don't have a problem with unions existing as a protected option. But insisting they exist is akin to Communism imho.

[claudiawerner]

>But insisting they exist is akin to Communism imho.

This is funny for me to read, because you probably intended to imply that's a bad thing. I'd also question whether the forms of domination which the founders of the unions of old has decreased or just changed form - and even given that it has decreased, what is an acceptable level of exploitation? I would say none, and many union members would agree with that supposition.

Today not being that bad means that today is still bad.

[tracker1]

It should stop where the liberty eroded for anyone is greater than the good provided to someone else. Also, where is the exploitation? Are people locked into contracts and cannot leave their job? Most of these jobs are in states where non-competes are not enforceable.

It's a trade, one person trades their time, knowledge effort and skill, the other trades money and other compensation. As I said, I'm not even anti union. I would rather see a guild around software development over a union though, based on reputation over protecting the bad performers. It could be considered A union, but wouldn't act like a typical union in practice.

If you are more senior, and submit that a junior is ready to move into a journeyman role, your reputation is also at least partially on the line if they cannot do the work, or put in the effort to get there.

No person's wants should ever infringe on another's rights.

[claudiawerner]

>Also, where is the exploitation?

Some theorists define exploitation in capitalist society as unequal exchange of labour, see John Roemer for instance; other more traditional critiques see it similarly but it may apply individually (such as Marx's theory), and yet others see it as a class issue. Of these, they can be grouped into PECP (Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle) and CECP (Class-exploitation Correspondence Principle). There's a lot of talk and debate as to whether which of these, if any, is a viable or possible way to characterize modern relations of production.

>It's a trade, one person trades their time, knowledge effort and skill, the other trades money and other compensation.

In the employment relationship, this trade is assymetrical, hence the need for either strong labour laws, a rich union culture or both.

>No person's wants should ever infringe on another's rights.

The critique of capitalism begins with a critique of rights-based thinking. In short, some people don't believe that rights are a useful tool to characterise how society ought to look, since it is clear that despite universal rights, some are clearly more able to take advantage of them than others. The propertyless have right to property. So what? Where does that get them most of the time?

[egypturnash]

Try this:

Join a union so your kid doesn't have to direly need a union.

If you don't have kids, substitute an imaginary version of you who's growing up and falling in love with the same craft you did, except right now.

[sosborn]

I believe that the existence of unions is necessary. Without any unions worker rights would degrade pretty significantly. I also strongly believe that unions aren't the right answer in most situations.

One example - teachers. In the public sector, teachers are unionized yet underpaid, and in general terms, have unfavorable work conditions.

In the private sector, teachers get paid much better and have the freedom to actually run their classroom in the way they see fit.

The union isn't the cause of this disparity, but it clearly doesn't overcome it.

[pflats]

>In the private sector, teachers get paid much better and have the freedom to actually run their classroom in the way they see fit.

While this might be true wherever you are from, it is definitely not universal. Every US state I have lived in has been the opposite.

At a private school, the advantages to teachers are the student base is self-selected and can be expelled, and the school can teach things a public school cannot (often religious).

At a public school, pay, benefits, and job protections are much better.

Being able to "run your classroom the way they see fit" is a school-by-school work culture thing, but a teacher with more job protections would always have more leeway in how they ran their classroom. A teacher working at-will could never truly run their classroom the way they saw fit, because "do X or you're fired" is always a possible ultimatum.

[the-pigeon]

Honestly I think unions are redundant when you have properly functioning governments.

Ideally the government should have worker protections in place that do exactly what a union does.

Of course in reality you need groups to represent the workers to put pressure on the government to do that. But I'd rather give money to groups like the EFF who specifically push policy and lawsuits over a group like a union.

[egypturnash]

So in practice unions are never redundant?