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by lyrr 2317 days ago
I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm. Pitting 'top performers' against the rest, scaremongering about 'lazy workers' etc. just divides the workforce and allows management/owners to exploit/underpay workers as a whole. The company would not be able to function/make as good a profit as it does without ALL workers contributing. If a worker truly is lazy/not pulling their weight, they get fired. A union doesn't stop that. A union is a unified voice for workers that can demand rightfully, better working conditions, better pay, better benefits.

This fiction that somehow tech workers should avoid unions because their pay is so well is utter corporate propaganda. The money won't always be this good people, especially as more and more are told to enter the industry. I know HackerNews is an entrepreneurial haven but it's funny to me how people here, with all their technical wisdom, are so blind to any benefits to workers and aversion to anything seen as 'socialist'.
2 comments
pathseeker 2317 days ago
>I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm.

Because historically it hasn't in the US. Unions end up implementing a seniority-based compensation/benefits scheme and there is nothing given to employees who outperform everyone else. This even fosters an environment where top performers are discouraged by their peers for "making everyone else look bad".

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majormajor 2317 days ago
> This even fosters an environment where top performers are discouraged by their peers for "making everyone else look bad".

You don't need a union for this. Most large companies that do software (not the FAANGs, but the non-tech-first ones) generally don't know what to do with top performers, because consistency and predictability is more valuable to them. Especially a top performer who's bad at politics so they come off as attacking whole other departments or teams.

A union won't fix it, but probably won't make it worse, in those places.

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chillacy 2316 days ago
Someone who comes off as attacking other departments or teams is probably a toxic individual to work with. Even if they crank out good code quickly, at some point senior engineers are expected to influence others, and attacking others is not conducive to that.

As for rewarding top performers, most places have annual or biannual reviews where people are given bonuses based on individual and company performance. The difference between underperforming and overperforming can be a lot of cash.

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castlecrasher2 2317 days ago
>I don't know how you can fail to see how an organised and unified workforce will always benefit all workers in a firm.

I don't know why you assume that unions = organized and unified workforce. It's like claiming that HOAs = organized and unified neighborhood.

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