[daft_pink]

I don’t understand what gives the union power at the end of the day when the company could easily outsource development and license their ip and fire everyone.

Automotive plants have large factories, but when the primary assets are intangible intellectual property, I don’t understand how much power a union really has.

[jandrese]

If you think all developers are interchangeable you're the reason they're forming a union.

[andy99]

Being interchangeable is literally why unions are formed. If you have some unique skill set that is valued, a union is unnecessary and would hold you back. If you’re happy being slotted in to whatever the next available position is based on your seniority with no regard to you as an individual, unions are great.

That’s why they’re mostly autoworkers or longshoremen and whatnot an not professionals, outside a few niches motivated by ideology.

[kleinsch]

NFL players have unique skills, are highly valued, and are represented by a union. Same with most other major sports.

[torginus]

Not necessarily - many games have custom engines underpinned by a decade of arcane tech that you wont find anywhere in the world outside the company.

It sucks both for you and the company if they have to replace you.

In contrast, if you work building SaaS apps on top of k8s, you can both transfer your skills easily, and the company can replace you easier.

It could go both ways, but in practice it usually turns out that if your skills are transferable you make more money.

This thing also popped up in the gaming industry, with Unreal becoming popular, and people using it making much more and jumping between projects, because their skills are transferable.

[pjc50]

If software workers were that replaceable, they wouldn't be paid huge salaries to sit in offices in San Francisco, they'd be outsourced already.

(Mind you, that very individualism is why they're not already unionized)

[Eridrus]

Federal law makes it illegal to retaliate against people for forming a union. Companies still do, and there's no law saying they have to keep hiring in that unit, but if they fire everyone they will probably lose the resulting lawsuit.

[ceejayoz]

> the company could easily outsource development and license their ip and fire everyone…

This turns out to be a lot harder in practice than in theory.

[ericmcer]

It's probably even more effective than other industries. Most industries you have good/bad workers but in software there is a few engineers where you cannot lose them. Who cares about scabs/replacements/etc. like literally no one has their specific domain knowledge.

[ArlenBales]

> I don’t understand what gives the union power at the end of the day when the company could easily outsource development and license their ip and fire everyone.

Gamers are very passionate about their games and the companies behind them. They are also very anti-AI, pro consumer rights, and pro unions. At least the vocal majority of gamers, such as on /r/games, which is where a good portion of gaming journalists get their takes.

It would be the end of id Software from a PR standpoint if they fired union developers responsible for their beloved titles, specifically the recent DOOM titles. The bad PR would also extend to ZeniMax, Bethesda, and Microsoft.

That said, gamers are also the worst at voting with their wallet. Despite all the bad union PR Rockstar North is receiving, pretty much everyone in support of the fired employees will probably still end up buying GTA6 because of FOMO and hype.