[pm90]

Im not sure that “Unions slow innovation” is true.

As a counter: in tech, its the workers that generate a significant amount of value by writing software and building products. Giving them more control and a seat at the table can be useful in encouraging long term investments in lieu of extreme short term thinking that VCs typically promote.

[erlich]

Google tried putting devs in charge and it didn’t work. It’s obvious too. Devs have such different incentives to owners. They want a nice place to work and play with fun tech and pad their CVs. They can leave at any moment too with zero concern for what happens when they’re gone.

Employee equity is usually not enough to be worth fighting for. It’s just the ability to pay less salary or get good people.

[pm90]

If you’re gonna go with anecdotes, its been going pretty well as Valve with having no hierarchies (aka “devs in charge”).

But that sort of conversation isn’t really useful. Study after study has shown employees’ job satisfaction doesn’t scale infinitely with compensation, other things start to matter after a certain income is reached. With many highly paid software devs, I would wager they are at or beyond that point.

[erlich]

Smart companies will provide conditions that attract and retain talent. Companies can compete on culture. The market will discover the necessary incentives to bring on employees. This has already happened. Look at all the perks companies offer without any union involvement.

If management sucks and cannot listen to their employees then it’s better that they don’t get more capital/talent and their competitors suck up all their talent.

[pm90]

> If management sucks and cannot listen to their employees then it’s better that they don’t get more capital/talent and their competitors suck up all their talent.

Except thats not how it works in practice at all.

Companies can run for a long while by brutally exploiting employees if they have captured the market (look at Amazon). They can exploit immigration laws to squeeze the workers. Unions can help prevent that sort of outcomes.

Theres also that little thing where companies dying due to poor decision making is just an overall loss of value for everyone involved in the short term. Why subject society to the vagaries of laissez faire capitalism when we have the tools to prevent that?

[erlich]

You touch on a common mistake with collective bargaining. It assumes the market and landscape stay static. That the entire industry will not go through huge waves of change and huge levels of innovation will be needed to survive.

If companies suck they should die. We should not have too big to fail. Look at blockbuster vs netflix.

Companies don’t have to fail completely but certain projects should be able to fail. We don’t want huge companies expanding into everything with their sheer sales networks. We don’t want monopolies and oligopolies.

Look at amazon. It has a terrible reputation. And a monopoly. What we want and need is more competition. And it will come.

[pm90]

> It assumes the market and landscape stay static. That the entire industry will not go through huge waves of change and huge levels of innovation will be needed to survive.

Collective bargaining doesn’t assume that though?

You keep saying that “companies that suck should die”. This is just the worst kind of approach to solving any problem: do nothing, let it sort itself out, “trust the market”. Well, we’ve seen what the economy is like with strong labor and without it, and the people that are involved in the economy should get to choose the system that they prefer.

[M2Ys4U]

>Google tried putting devs in charge and it didn’t work.

Putting devs in charge is not the same thing as giving them structured and respected input.

It's a massive jump from "give devs a seat at the table" to "putting devs in charge", and one I frankly find hard to believe is made in good faith.

[erlich]

What has a union got to do with „give devs a seat at the table“?

By „seat at the table“ you mean a way to get what they want by force or against the will of the owners.

You don’t need a union to collect employee feedback. Smart management will do this and if they don’t then employees can jump ship to a competitor that does.

[Apocryphon]

Why do you jump immediately to forcing their way, you’re talking the language of class struggle. A seat to negotiate with would be a good place to start, and it would lead to more cooperation, not necessarily conflict.

All companies collect employee feedback. Much harder to act upon it. Yes, workers can leave- but not always!- but isn’t it easier if they had a mechanism to negotiate with power, to talk it over like adults, instead of having to resort to quitting?