[coldbrewed]

Reasonable working hours where employees aren't pressured to work more than 40 hours per week, actual PTO rather than "unlimited time off," limits to on-call rotations, protection against layoffs masquerading as PIPs, reasonable release schedules, protections that prevent junior engineers from getting screwed on salary, etc cetera. While all of these things don't strictly require a union, all of these things become much easier when there's a unified front advocating for change rather than individual engineers trying to advocate for change with their managers.

[dopylitty]

In addition to unionizing people in the US need to fight for an update to the FLSA to remove the ridiculous exceptions to overtime rules that exist for any person who might be working with a computer.

[atonse]

Yeah I could definitely see that something should be done about IT people having to work overtime without compensation, and that is company specific. So unless there's a larger push to change that culture, some companies (like what EA used to be) will happily exploit their workers.

[bdcravens]

Good points, but most calls to unionize are based on times like these: companies going on massive hiring surges, with the salaries to match, and then times dry up everyone wonders what happened to the party.

[erik_seaberg]

Every price that’s good for somebody is bad for somebody else, and markets have to go down as well as up. Making hiring into a punitive commitment just prevents taking advantage of boom times.