| > I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions. There are a TON of actors in SAG (160,000). Sure, that's more than an order of magnitude smaller than the 4.4M SWEs in the US. But the idea that everyone in SAG is a "star" is absurd. Similarly, deep bench players in the NBA - sure they are really good - but they are far from stars. And yet, most of them make substantially more money than overseas "stars". This is because of the players' union. > A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market. I think you missed my point entirely. SAG and the players' union are good for both stars and non-stars. GP seemed to think that unions by definition are bad for stars. I was merely pointing out that there are examples of unions that are not bad for stars. It just so happens these unions are also examples of unions that are also not bad for non-stars. > When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with company requests — unless you are part of a union that collectively acts in the interests of the workers. Google is not unionized, and there are a million people that would take my job for much lower pay - and a lot of them could probably end up doing my job after a substantially long learning period. Despite that, I have my job. The same is true at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft (and many other companies). Theoretically, since these are global companies with large presences all over the world - this isn't (at least) entirely because I'm a US citizen. I agree with your point for most other professions, though. And maybe this will be truer in the future for "FAANG". But, it's not really true now. > Edit: I did a quick search for "software developer" on https://seek.co.nz job board and about 1% of jobs were for USD140k+ and most of that 1% were not dev jobs. I know zero developers earning >= $200k. AFAIK pay in NZ for developers is significantly below the US. The majority of people working at "FAANG" in NZ should be >$200k - if for no other reason than because of RSU appreciation. Not trying to be rude - but if you want to make more money - just read Cracking the Coding Interview cover to cover and get referrals at FAANG. You honestly might triple your salary. You can DM me on Reddit if you want more feedback / advice / referrals. |