Is the ideal model of employment the "job-for-life," or not. If not, how many of a "traditional" union's norms still make sense?
Personally, im not really sure where I stand on tech unions. I suspect that certain things would be better if unions were more present. Work-life balance, unpaid overtime and always-available-on-email problems would probably be better. I suspect on-the job training would be better too. This is an area where our industry is insane. How is it even possible that tech companies do less training than wharehouses?
I was trained to drive a forklift for a part time summer job. 6 days paid training out of a total<60. 13 years in tech, and at best I've been offered "do a MOOC or something in your spare time."
OTOH, I don't think most of us want unions deciding who gets hired/fired/promoted, want seniority systems or a lot of traditional union stuff like that.
The traditional structure of unions is probably outdated in most or even all industries today but it certainly is inappropriate in tech. This doesn't mean worker organising is unnecessary, as you say. Fortunately, many people are already organising in non-traditional ways. Check out tech workers coalition:
On training, in a warehouse you have be fully trained and competent to drive a forklift because your decisions are implemented in real time and you can hurt someone if you mess up. In software you can be given low risk problems to figure out, and your decisions and implementations are (ideally) reviewed before they go live.
I know many people leave because of pay reasons, and maybe a union could address that.
But I also find my self largely wanting to leave out of a desire for a new challenge, learn something new. It would be way to easy to stay stagnant at a company and than find yourself forced to deal with new technology in a new role, that for everyone else is old technology (and there is a limit to how much you can realistically do that for side projects). Not that it does not happen anyways.
I don't see any way a Union could (or should) address this.
I don't know how often unions actually impact what the business does instead of how it operates, but here's an example: "Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant" [0]
> Mosch, who sits on parent VW’s supervisory board, asked top management to provide specific information as to how the growing shift to electric cars and digital services will affect employment at Audi, which has 88,000 workers globally.
Having worked at places where management was deaf to employee concerns about the direction of the business, and seen the consequences of bad management fall upon those employees, I can clearly some sort of leverage would be good for engineers. Perhaps that could involve forcing a company to invest in new technology, thus allowing you to grow as an engineer- and perhaps making your job more secure by making the business more competitive.
Because after 2-3 years you can move for (on the very low end) a $10-20 grand pay increase without much pain at all. A raise you'd be unlikely to get at your original job. I am unsure of how a union could address that problem. It's a sellers market for software developers.
What I'm hearing you say is "Employers are not providing raises commensurate with employee experience and value, leading to churn and a lack of mutual investment".
My understanding is that some leave to get out of shitty working conditions, and many others leave because switching jobs every 2-3 years is the most reliable way to increase your salary.
Pretty easy to see how unions could address both of those issues. This might not work in favor of aggressively job-hopping careerists, but would probably work for everyone else in the International Brotherhood of Codeslingers.
Its employee choice. People get bored, they get tired of processes, and there are plenty of companies willing to hire them that will allow them to try something new, do something different, and deal with different processes.
Please don't move the goalpost. My comment was responding to your comment about average tenure, not unions specifically. You didn't raise any questions on how unions played into average tenure or provide any example of how they could help.
No goalposts were moved. I questioned the premise of OP's comment on whether unions can exist in a world where employees choose to switch jobs every 2-3 years.
You responded with an authoritative answer backed up with zero evidence or supporting data. That it was about unions is an embedded assumption based on that fact that the entire discussion is about unions.
There is no help needed. People are perfectly happy switching employers, and companies are perfectly happy paying to get or retain talent. This ecosystem has made Silicon Valley what it is today.
==This ecosystem has made Silicon Valley what it is today.==
I assume this is referring to the technological innovation and corporate profits of Silicon Valley. I would ask you to consider, from a broader perspective, what Silicon Valley is today. Specifically, in relation to elevated levels of depression [1], suicide [2] and inequality [3].
Isn't it worth exploring whether the same working conditions that benefit the top 10-20% are having a negative effect on the other 80-90%?
I believe it's the result of the system we've created. Frogs leap from boiling water, and there's no sense in calling that "frog choice": obviously, the water is too hot.
That workplaces are universally intolerable after 2-3--as is accepted industry common knowledge--is not a matter of individual preference, but systemic inadequacy of workplace conditions.
Burnout is not a personal problem, it is an institutional pandemic.
> One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution.
-- Carol Hanisch, "The Personal Is Political", in Notes from the Second Year: Women's Liberation
Good point. Employees are often promised very interesting projects, career growth and salary increases. Very often it turns out to be a bunch of lies and people move on and the cycle continues.
Despite all the claims on HN on how good life is for software engineers, our field has very high burnout rates and it's very ageist.
When your only reliable way to get a pay bump is switching jobs adopting any system that ties pay to tenure seems awfully synonymous with pulling up the ladder behind one's self.
Not sure where "tying pay to tenure" came up, unless that's how you view what unions do? A union just means a group of employees negotiating as a unit, what changes they ask for isn't dictated in advance.
Surely a next-gen labor union based in the tech industry could find a new way to fight ageism without mandating a seniority system. Why does tech have to act the same way as before? I thought we were supposed to be innovators?
When there is a proposal that is suggested, there are proponents and detractors. That is tautological. Blankly insisting that things are good enough is just as empty as blankly insisting that things aren't.
Is the ideal model of employment the "job-for-life," or not. If not, how many of a "traditional" union's norms still make sense?
Personally, im not really sure where I stand on tech unions. I suspect that certain things would be better if unions were more present. Work-life balance, unpaid overtime and always-available-on-email problems would probably be better. I suspect on-the job training would be better too. This is an area where our industry is insane. How is it even possible that tech companies do less training than wharehouses?
I was trained to drive a forklift for a part time summer job. 6 days paid training out of a total<60. 13 years in tech, and at best I've been offered "do a MOOC or something in your spare time."
OTOH, I don't think most of us want unions deciding who gets hired/fired/promoted, want seniority systems or a lot of traditional union stuff like that.