To Fight Business 'Enshittification', Cory Doctorow Urges Tech Workers: Join Unions (acm.org) 136
Cory Doctorow has always warned that companies "enshittify" their services — shifting "as much as they can from users, workers, suppliers, and business customers to themselves." But this week Doctorow writes in Communications of the ACM that enshittification "would be much, much worse if not for tech workers," who have "the power to tell their bosses to go to hell..."
When your skills are in such high demand that you can quit your job, walk across the street, and get a better one later that same day, your boss has a real incentive to make you feel like you are their social equal, empowered to say and do whatever feels technically right... The per-worker revenue for successful tech companies is unfathomable — tens or even hundreds of times their wages and stock compensation packages.
"No wonder tech bosses are so excited about AI coding tools," Doctorow adds, "which promise to turn skilled programmers from creative problem-solvers to mere code reviewers for AI as it produces tech debt at scale. Code reviewers never tell their bosses to go to hell, and they are a lot easier to replace."
So how should tech workers respond in a world where tech workers are now "as disposable as Amazon warehouse workers and drivers...?" Throughout the entire history of human civilization, there has only ever been one way to guarantee fair wages and decent conditions for workers: unions. Even non-union workers benefit from unions, because strong unions are the force that causes labor protection laws to be passed, which protect all workers. Tech workers have historically been monumentally uninterested in unionization, and it's not hard to see why. Why go to all those meetings and pay those dues when you could tell your boss to go to hell on Tuesday and have a new job by Wednesday? That's not the case anymore. It will likely never be the case again.
Interest in tech unions is at an all-time high. Groups such as Tech Solidarity and the Tech Workers Coalition are doing a land-office business, and copies of Ethan Marcotte's You Deserve a Tech Union are flying off the shelves. Now is the time to get organized. Your boss has made it clear how you'd be treated if they had their way. They're about to get it.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader theodp for sharing the article.
"No wonder tech bosses are so excited about AI coding tools," Doctorow adds, "which promise to turn skilled programmers from creative problem-solvers to mere code reviewers for AI as it produces tech debt at scale. Code reviewers never tell their bosses to go to hell, and they are a lot easier to replace."
So how should tech workers respond in a world where tech workers are now "as disposable as Amazon warehouse workers and drivers...?" Throughout the entire history of human civilization, there has only ever been one way to guarantee fair wages and decent conditions for workers: unions. Even non-union workers benefit from unions, because strong unions are the force that causes labor protection laws to be passed, which protect all workers. Tech workers have historically been monumentally uninterested in unionization, and it's not hard to see why. Why go to all those meetings and pay those dues when you could tell your boss to go to hell on Tuesday and have a new job by Wednesday? That's not the case anymore. It will likely never be the case again.
Interest in tech unions is at an all-time high. Groups such as Tech Solidarity and the Tech Workers Coalition are doing a land-office business, and copies of Ethan Marcotte's You Deserve a Tech Union are flying off the shelves. Now is the time to get organized. Your boss has made it clear how you'd be treated if they had their way. They're about to get it.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader theodp for sharing the article.
Unions (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose this is the cue for a Slashdot weigh in on capitalism vs socialism.
You know, I don't see why unions should be so triggering. In economic terms, "production" produces "economic rent". Firms use whatever power they have to maximise this (e.g. they may have a certain amount of monopoly power). This economic rent can be taken entirely by the firm, or be shared with the workers. When workers exercise power in their control (collective bargaining through a union), they can receive a bit more of this rent.
It sounds like a reasonable, and reasonably democratic set up.
Sure, you can dig up all the sins of unions, or for that matter the sins of firms exploiting workers, but the basic framework doesn't seem unfair to me. Perhaps gut-feel opposition comes with a instinctive personality type. Are you the sort of person who likes to work in a group, or are you the sort of person that prefers to be self-reliant.
more workers rights are needed! (Score:4, Insightful)
more workers rights are needed!
Re: Unions (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm the sort of person who doesn't like words being put in his mouth by an arm of a large political organization that is has declared itself to legally be my voice.
If unions had stayed in their lane and stuck to *only* representing their members' interests in the workplace, the above would sound like mindless paranoia. But in the real world, in the US at least, unions long-ago branched out into broader political advocacy and have established all kinds of mutual relationships with all kinds of left-wing establishments.
Here in Massachusetts, for instance, the teachers unions are mouthing off on globalizing the intifada and have advocated for ballot measures to dumb down statewide graduation requirements, raise the minimum wage to something like 20+ per hour (no teachers make minimim wage) and establish higher state income tax brackets.
The place where I went to grad school, the grad students unionized in the last couple of years, and the union began to mouth off on strapping on bombs and riding the bus...I mean "Palestinian rights" shortly after establishing itself.
I recall reading a story a few years ago about a unionized professor at CUNY who tried to sue his union for the above kind of nonsense and having his case dismissed on the grounds that union stuff is a workplace issue and he as an individual couldn't have standing in court about it since the union is his legal representative about workplace issues as far as the state is concerned.
The wife did residence training at a place that was unionized. Did the union do anything about the hazing ritual that is medical residency in the United States (30 hour call, 6 day work weeks for months on end, etc)? Nope. They just collected a cut of her paycheck and had their rep (whom she considered a friend) call her up one day and read off a script about supporting some Democrat-aligned horseshit that had nothing to do with her job.
Parasites. With left-radical characteristics. Plain and simple.
Re: Unions (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand your points.
I suppose it is much like a political party. If you join, you are to some extent announcing that you subscribe to the views of the party. In reality you are likely to agree with most of them, but take issue with some of them. If your views stray too far from those of the party, then you leave that party. With a union, that can mean having to leave your job. It can even mean having to leave the industry. Similar to how it is in politics, if you are seriously concerned about leaders going astray, you have to get involved.
But I sympathise with situations you mention, including that of your wife, and agree that unions are certainly not incapable of poor representation.
Re: (Score:3)
I suppose it is much like a political party. If you join, you are to some extent announcing that you subscribe to the views of the party. In reality you are likely to agree with most of them, but take issue with some of them. If your views stray too far from those of the party, then you leave that party. With a union, that can mean having to leave your job. It can even mean having to leave the industry.
I have never seen this. Every job I have worked in has had union and non-union workers side by side. No pressure to join the union either, unless you count something along the lines of "free donuts in the break room once a year" as pressure. Most of my experience is outside the USA though. Can anyone weigh in on this? Has anyone experienced jobs with compulsory union membership?
Re: (Score:3)
The US has banned compulsory union membership (as part of the employment contract) in about half of the states. This is referred to as "right to work" legislation.
Compuslory union membership is now illegal in the UK (from some time in the late 1980s).
But although they are not as common these days, "closed shops" still exist.
Re: Unions (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I imagine you are perfectly fine with corporations making political donations that may be contrary to their shareholders' or workers' politics.
Criticizing one without the other ("but money is speech unless a union does it") is just the mark of a sycophant.
We've heard it before.
Re: Unions (Score:1)
I've lived in the Northeast almost my whole life and I've lived in Massachusetts my entire adult life. If my requirement for a job were that my employer totally aligned with my own subjective values, I'd be begging on the streets.
As for my stock portfolio...I don't care. I want my dividends and I don't care how they get them to me so long as they stay within the letter of the law. See above about being able to compartmentalize one's own opinions from the need to require everyone else in a big diverse countr
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The political-action policies of unions are determined by their membership. Anyone can run for a union position and participate in the creation of such policies.
The political-action policies of corporations are determined by unelected C-suite bureaucrats and major influential shareholders. You have to have already eaten from the royal jelly to be in that crowd.
Which is more democratic?
Re: Unions (Score:5, Interesting)
The wife did residence training at a place that was unionized. Did the union do anything about the hazing ritual that is medical residency in the United States (30 hour call, 6 day work weeks for months on end, etc)? Nope. They just collected a cut of her paycheck and had their rep (whom she considered a friend) call her up one day and read off a script about supporting some Democrat-aligned horseshit that had nothing to do with her job.
I'll call your anectdote and raise you mine.
My ex (a highly skilled ICU nurse) was utterly screwed over by her supervisor in a cut-and-dry case of workplace harassment. The nurse's union -- that she wasn't even a part of -- fought on her behalf and won, yielding a decent settlement that included back pay and removing her from a career-ending blacklist.
Meanwhile, when it comes to politics, you're confusing cause and effect. The reason why most unions lean heavily Democrat (notably excluding those representing law enforcement personnel) is that the other candidates (and/or office holders) are campaigning on (if not actually enacting) policies that actively screw over their members. Blaming unions for this is like blaming the proverbial nerd for his face being in the way of a bully's fist.
Incidentally, it's illegal for normal union dues to fund political activities. Just like it's illegal for churches to do the same. Or at least it was until this past July.
Re: (Score:2)
Thats the best part. You’re free to find a job without a union.
Re: (Score:2)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA [stlouisfed.org]
It's no coincidence that this graph coincides with Reagan's "trick"le down economics.
Re: (Score:2)
The wife did residence training at a place that was unionized. Did the union do anything about the hazing ritual that is medical residency in the United States (30 hour call, 6 day work weeks for months on end, etc)? Nope. They just collected a cut of her paycheck and had their rep (whom she considered a friend) call her up one day and read off a script about supporting some Democrat-aligned horseshit that had nothing to do with her job.
Parasites. With left-radical characteristics. Plain and simple.
It doesn't end there in medicine either. The American Board of Medical Specialties has basically set up an illegal guild in this country. After you finish residency and get licensed, every state in the Union recognizes that you are fit to practice. But the ABMS wormed its way into all sorts of organizations and basically acts as the mob of the medical world. You have to jump through their hoops, buy their material for thousands of dollars, take a test the one time a year they give it and pay even more thous
billionaires are planning on destroying capitalism (Score:1)
Everybody thinks capitalism can't die unless socialism kills it.
But what if somebody else kills capitalism. And what if they do it for their sake and only their sake? The ultra wealthy are preparing for a post capitalist world where they control all resources. A world where they aren't dependent on us filthy creatures known as consumers.
It's usually called techno feudalism.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you the sort of person who likes to work in a group, or are you the sort of person that prefers to be self-reliant.
I'll work in a group when it suits me, but I prefer to err on the side of self-reliance. I consider it to be a form of fault-tolerance, nothing more, nothing less. Because I dive a lot lately, here's an analogy: Diving with a buddy is much more safe, however, there are courses offered for self-reliant diving because you may one day find yourself alone in an odd situation where the only one you can rely on is you. That can mean the difference between life and death.
Besides, if your own identity disappears in
Re: (Score:2)
Opinions change.
In the early days where the dot-com bubble was happening, unions didn't make sense when people were making big bucks for knowing their way around a keyboard. Most anti-union sentiment starts here because the people were the "hot stuff" and seeing everyone else as dinosaurs not wanting to learn the latest "hot stuff" to keep themselves employed.
Unions were seen as a way for the luddites to stay employed doing what they do and avoid the technological revolution that's happening around them.
Of
Re: (Score:1)
as someone who owns and runs a few companies, the largest having around 1000 people working in it, I can understand why some people, especually who never built a company, think that the people working for a company are underpaid compared to the people who buolt it. This misunderstanding is easy to develop, people (and many other animals) have a strong built in mechanism responsible for having emotions and feelings related to fairness. This expectation of fairness is easy to channel into a different sort of
Re: (Score:2)
as someone who owns and runs a few companies, the largest having around 1000 people working in it, I can understand why some people, especually who never built a company, think that the people working for a company are underpaid compared to the people who buolt it. [...]
I think that someone like you who has built their own company (companies) is deserved of respect. There is quite a lot of risk involved, and I think it is reasonable to consider the profits as a sort of reward for taking on that risk. You also provide employment to a lot of people. I certainly tip my hat to you.
But I also think it is important to consider that in some situations a union is a force for good. In your situation a union may not be needed - The employees may be treated well, and even if they are
Re: (Score:2)
On a personal level, I woildn't allow unions to take over my enterprise, I would rather see the business shrink and restructure than lose control over how it is governed
That's not how the law works. Even with today's MAGA-neutered NLRB.
(FYI, every business owner knows the government already dictates quite a lot about how their companies are structured, run, and otherwise governed)
Re: (Score:2)
At least 1/3 of Americans probably believe EU cities are burning from the immigrant invaders, that Muslims have destroyed London, or that unions are shutting down absolutely everything and destroying Parisian neighborhoods. They also think you can't have cars and walkable neighborhoods, or houses with yards, and more, because of what they see o
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt they'd "struggle" at all, which is not to say their answers would be at all accurate.
Even though you got modded to zero or less: Your statement, unfortunately, has a high probability of being correct.
Re: (Score:2)
You're leaving out an important element, and you can't even really start discussing it validly until you include it. This element is that the union is itself another firm. It is not the workers exercising power in their control; the union exercises the power.
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose this is the cue for a Slashdot weigh in on capitalism vs socialism.
You know, I don't see why unions should be so triggering. In economic terms, "production" produces "economic rent". Firms use whatever power they have to maximise this (e.g. they may have a certain amount of monopoly power). This economic rent can be taken entirely by the firm, or be shared with the workers. When workers exercise power in their control (collective bargaining through a union), they can receive a bit more of this rent.
It sounds like a reasonable, and reasonably democratic set up.
Sure, you can dig up all the sins of unions, or for that matter the sins of firms exploiting workers, but the basic framework doesn't seem unfair to me. Perhaps gut-feel opposition comes with a instinctive personality type. Are you the sort of person who likes to work in a group, or are you the sort of person that prefers to be self-reliant.
I think unions have been demonized in the public conscious here in the States for most of the last 40-50 years. I know growing up my Dad constantly told me to never, ever consider joining a union of any kind because they would absolutely destroy my ability to work for a "good" company, whatever that meant. Then, when I actually got old enough to enter the workforce, he fed me a bunch of bullshit about how it's completely illegal for tech workers to form unions. He was either a drinker, or mixer, of the corp
Re: (Score:2)
All unions become corrupted when money enters the picture. Unions normally start out all nice and shiny and effective... and then time and money takes it toll based upon how effective the union was when it started. If it is an effective union, then it will be corrupted very rapidly.
Money can NOT be allowed to become concentrated in the hands of a few. Management should not be billionaires. Creators could be billionaires, but not managers/executives.
That's literally just propaganda (Score:3, Insightful)
Your willingness to consume the ultra-wealthy's propaganda is going to doom us all. I don't know why you find it entertaining but I know that you do. I have encountered multiple people who enjoy consuming propaganda.
I could of course easily debunk what you said but that's pointless. Anyone who agrees with you is so thoroughly steeped in propaganda that they are completely untouchable.
I learned that years ago, I would ta
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
> I could of course easily debunk what you said but that's pointless.
This is why no one likes your side. You think you're smart, but in reality, you aren't really much better than the "Fox news listeners", you're just an "MSNBC listener" that's exactly the same, with reversed polarity.
I've been a Unionized tech worker for some odd 22 years of my career. Unions are worthless, they promote apathy and breed laziness. Ceiling hole counters are defended, productive workers are told to shut up about it, com
No one likes my side (Score:3, Insightful)
My actual policy ideas are overwhelmingly popular in isolation.
Like how Americans hate Obamacare and Love the ACA.
Re: (Score:2)
'because I don't have a billion dollars to blow tailoring propaganda' /. is free-ish.
Re: (Score:2)
How conveniently you ignore that those billions are used to corrupt unions. Fuck you and your propaganda. But you are in too deep to feel embarassed or to realized you are also parroting propaganda from the ultra wealthy. Moron.
Dude billionaires don't waste money (Score:3)
Again you're just spouting right-wing propaganda and it is so damn sad. I can't tell if you're doing it to get a rise out of me or if you genuinely are that dumb.
It's Poe's law. Right wing opinions are indistinguishable from people parodying or pretending to be right wing. Because right wing opinions are so fucking absurd on the face of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Again you're just spouting right-wing propaganda
So I appear to Right Wing to you? ROFLMAO. They would kill me if they had the chance, but then, so would the Left. You are the one who is so team oriented that you can't see reality itself. Stop. Wait until you can hear the blood pumping in your ears. Then, think. Until you can hear the blood pumping in your ears, you are the victim of propaganda and will continue to propagate mental illness to those around you.
The ideal solution is an anechoic (not a real word? wtf?) chamber; however, going up into the mou
Re: (Score:3)
Nice try. Who's paying you to post this idiocy?
Math is hard (Score:3)
And that that spending only applies to the presidential race. If you take all the other races across the whole country the right wing outspends us two to one at least.
We get a lot of money from a lot of small donors to the presidential race every 4 years and it just barely lets us be competitive on the national stage for the presidency and nothing else.
It's like dude, don't you eve
Re:That's literally just propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
Unions are just like any other organization. Some are good, some are bad, and realistically local unions can face competition from other unions. Typically, the small, local ones are good, but the mega-huge ones can be rife with politics.
Don't blame unions. Blame monopolies, poor government regulations, and basic human nature. Any organization that gets too big and fat eventually becomes lazy.
There are systems and processes (Score:2)
Believe it or not there has been improvements in organization and political science. The problem is people get obsessed with tradition and don't want to iterate or improve.
Re: (Score:1)
Unions are worthless, they promote apathy and breed laziness.
I heard a lot of stories to support this.
One case is my youngest brother talking about taking a job over the summer break at university where he was working at some ethanol refinery or something. He said one day his job was to sweep the floor of some room and it was emphasized to him this was to take all day. Sweeping the floor in a room seems pretty simple but consider this was in a place that had a lot of equipment for moving corn and so a lot of corners to get behind. That was still not a job that sho
Here's a crazy idea (Score:2)
As for some of your examples, Chesterton's fence. Don't take a fence down if you don't know why it was put up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unions are worthless. Maybe they were useful in the past to protect people from things like being in hot places all day but that's gone now. The breed laziness now.
If you truly believe this, what's the proposed solution to corporations increasingly treating people as less than human? Compensation for the lower ranks rarely, if ever, keeps up with inflation. Tying healthcare to the job forces people with ongoing medical issues, some of which are induced by our profit first, pill for everything health industry, but I digress; to stay in a job they despise just to keep themselves taken care of. Companies demand you give up personal time including weekends and evenings, f
Re: (Score:2)
You would think at some point we as a species could mature out of this mentality that everything just has to get shittier until we find a way to kill off vast swaths of people in a for-profit war. There has to be better ways to take care of people than, "Just keep letting things get worse until they can't get any worse." I can't believe that the only options we have are, "Keep protecting the business class and the uber rich, or just fuck off and wait for death."
Can we at least TRY to be better than that? Ev
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"they would start to agree with me as I debunked all the points"
And you've described the Documentary Effect. We often believe and adhere to the documentarian's presentation, that being the only, or latest, set of facts (or viewpoints) we have to work with. Then we hear other points of view, other facts, and we change our minds. Rinse and repeat. At some point the more logical of us settle on an understanding.
You seem to prefer those arguments and facts that follow a particular worldview. Others disagree. Th
Re:Unions (Score:5, Interesting)
This is both a "power corrupts" situation, and a "necessary evil" situation.
Without collective bargaining, corporations egregiously exploit their workers. This will always happen, reliably, every time corporations exist, no matter who runs them, because the imbalance of power is like the ring of Mordor. Even pure-hearted Frodo will fall to corruption eventually.
So, employees need collective bargaining in order to receive fair and decent treatment, and the only way to get that is Unions.
Once unions establish themselves, however, THEY wind up being corrupted by power as well. The union administrators make quite a lot of money at their jobs, and they sure don't want that to dry up, so once things are going well for their workers they have to start asking for "even more" in order to justify their continued existence. Including asking for things that are unreasonable. They may also engage political and/or economic leverage to basically force people to be members of their union whether they want to or not. More people = more power = more money and so on.
So it is easy to point at this end-result, which is clearly bad, and say "see? Unions are bad. We should reject them." But without them the results are even worse. Much worse. So, they are necessary evils. The best we can do is group up and muster collective leverage (by voting and etc.) to push back against the evils of Unions, while still benefiting from the good that they also do.
Aside: business owners have a direct financial incentive to hate unions whether they are evil or not. So they will usually advice against abiding unions, regardless of any other detail, and will naturally overplay the evils and downplay the goods in order to make their case.
Re: (Score:2)
One nice solution to this is to introduce a third party, usually the government. In some of the Nordics and in Japan the government negotiates with employers for annual baseline salary increases and on conditions, effectively acting like a union. The actual unions are also involved.
It creates a bit more balance. Not perfect of course, but much better than what most countries have.
Re: (Score:2)
If there were laws enforcing the basis that unions stand on, then maybe we can discuss unions in America again. Until then, unions are close to worthless. Go to Europe if you want to see unions that are far more effective than the ones in the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
Great. More of that.
Actually, consider some unions that are the de facto employer of their members. Ponder that for a bit.
Re: (Score:2)
Bzzzt, thank you for playing.
Had you even bothered to look, you'd have seen that the salary of the largest union, the AFL-CIO head is about $350k, less than the President of the US. "Lavish lifestyle"? Show me a big company CEO that takes down less than $1M/yr (plus stock options).
not special anymore (Score:1)
unions came about as labor workers realized they were in fact replaceable at the individual level but not in the aggregate. tech workers have felt immune to this for three decades. hurts donut
Re: (Score:1)
and this is why i feel no sympathy for you lot. self assessed smartest people in the room conned by a song and dance man while they spend billions to hang you out to dry. and then you call the people advocating for you losers and refuse to work with them.
you deserve every layoff
You can't unionize remote work (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
You're right. While the truly excellent outliers I have known and led have all been local-ish, the median is about the same and has been, in my experience, for almost a decade. And the worst coders I have known were also local. Most of the Indian and Filipino coders I have known were straight up the middle, generally competent enough. Not stars, not flops.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Might as well join the buggy whip makers' union (Score:3)
A hundred years ago, "overproduction" was a big topic of discussion and Aldous Huxley wrote a book in response to these concerns. Maybe you've read it; if not, you really should. If you have read it, definitely go read his essay Brave New World Revisited [huxley.net]. If you've read both, you're already one of the converted.
Billionaires are preparing for a world (Score:1)
The ultra wealthy have already noticed how dependent they are on you and me and they don't like it. They are taking steps to sever that dependency without losing their limitless wealth and power. It's the end of capitalism but without the socialism
Re: (Score:2)
Orthogonal issue (Score:3)
Whether or not workers in a particular segment are unionized is entirely orthogonal to the quality of goods being produced and services being provided.
Enshittification is happening because of many factors, but perhaps the biggest single idea is "move fast and break things." When a company no longer values the customer experience, the customer experience is shitty. That effect has nothing to do with the organizational structure of the company.
Re: (Score:3)
Enshittification is happening because of many factors, but perhaps the biggest single idea is "move fast and break things." When a company no longer values the customer experience, the customer experience is shitty. That effect has nothing to do with the organizational structure of the company.
That worked for Facebook/META. Create a minimally useful product, barely stay ahead of the competition, use network effects to trap users whose friends are also trapped, erect moats everywhere you can, lie to customers and government agencies about what you are really doing, value your profit over any lethal negative externalities you create, practice chicanery without fear.
Winning!
Try this instead (Score:2)
Customers grow a spine and boycott shitty products
Fewer and fewer options. (Score:1)
Re: Fewer and fewer options. (Score:2)
Luxottica publishes all its brands online. Those are the ones to avoid
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Several problems with that:
1. The amount of work it takes to determine if a product doesn't work can be non-trivial
2. The cost of switching products can be non-trivial
3. All products in a category can be shitty
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming the others companies don’t make the same shitty products.
Tech unions .. (Score:2)
--
The idiom “doing a land-office business” means conducting very brisk, profitable, or fast-paced business activity, usually implying that sales are happening quickly and in large volume.
Not a real doctor (Score:2)
Let me remind everyone Cory Doctorow is not a real doctor.
Oh sure (Score:3)
wrong (Score:2)
Much more useful is to vote with your wallet. Find and support companies that put customers first.
Re: (Score:2)
How much were your dues?
Old, tired shit (Score:1)
Doctorow is a Communist beloved by 68ers (Boomers) for preaching the doctrine. Unions drive away quality workers and promote the incompetent, sort of like socialism does. "Enshittification" is the result of high taxes and regulations created by Boomers. People want easy answers, like hating Jews or hating the Rich (or even actual Whites) but these are pathologies, not policy.
Re: (Score:3)
"Doctorow is a communist" is exactly the kind of "easy answers" you describe. Ironic that you haven't realised it.
Sold...where can I find one for programmers? (Score:2)
I think I would benefit from a well run union...I just know of none...even googling, I don't see any in my area.
Re: (Score:2)
When your skills are in such high demand (Score:1)
Just like Google? (Score:2)
Pff... I remember when people were saying Google couldn't become evil because the workplace culture at the company wouldn't allow it. The geeks would rebel and refuse to do evil.
Turns out, those geek ideals go right out the window when a paycheck is involved, and most people will shut the hell up and do their job. If that weren't true, nobody would work for Google, Meta, Comcast, Oracle, X, etc.
Teacher's Union (Score:5, Interesting)
I once worked as a programmer (Mainframe, back in the late 80s/early 90s) so my experiences back then (last century!) probably don't relate to today's job market, but if programmers (in general) think they have an issue the unions can solve, go for it...
BUT, understand that you run the risk of your programmer union becoming like the teacher's union, where every teacher is considered equal, and any sort of merit pay is (literally) prohibited. Teacher's unions (the union most Americans interact with) treat each teacher are interchangeable/entirely equal cogs, with the only distinguishing thing about them to differentiate pay levels are "time on the job" and "level of education". Of course, tenure is a unique monkey wrench in the comparison - teachers unions enforce tenure, private unions don't.
Programmers, in my experience, believe themselves to be like snowflakes, each one unique and different, each one possessing a unique skill set that makes them worth just a bit more than the programmer next to them - a programmer's union would likely struggle to accommodate that belief.
Cory talks about "enshitification", unionizing "programmers" would be embracing "commoditization" of themselves - unions can be great when the worker skill set is easily defined and the workers can easily be replaced, it gives commoditized workers the ability to even the power dynamic between worker and company - programmers, on the other hand, neither regard themselves as "commodities" nor easily replaceable, and they will have to do so to be successful in a union environment I suspect.
My biggest issue with unions is that the workers form a union to address some (presumably) righteous mistreatment, but too soon the "union" thinks it is an equal business partner with the actual owners of the business and try to dictate business practices, etc. The cautionary tale for me is the Stella D'oro Bakery strike in NY years ago. See https://bronx-yes.com/en/etern... [bronx-yes.com] for a very worker-friendly version of the story, there's also a worker-friendly movie "No Contract, No Cookies" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1... [imdb.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Programmers, in my experience, believe themselves to be like snowflakes, each one unique and different, each one possessing a unique skill set that makes them worth just a bit more than the programmer next to them - a programmer's union would likely struggle to accommodate that belief.
I would hope that the last two decades of cyclical hiring + layoffs has disabused programmers of any seniority of the notion that their employers consider them anything other than a fungible product. "We hire rockstar dev" is just company code for "we shall blow smoke up your ass, force you to give us unpaid overtime until either the project is done or you burn out, and then fire you to save costs and get our management bonuses. Sure you're jaded now, but that's OK - there's a whole new graduating class of
Oh look, there's a fire burning!, let's... (Score:2)
throw some gas on it to put it out!
Yeah... that's the sort of thinking at play here: [1] Identify a problem and then [2] propose a "solution" that seems great to a simpleton but which would actually make things far worse. There's simply NO situation in which unionizing a set of workers makes quality and quantity and price get better for the consumer or average citizen. Unionized auto workers in the US famously produced higher car prices and lower quality cars. Unionized government workers produced the world
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:oh look (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're confused. Your ex-colleagues at the post office likely wouldn't even have OT multipliers if it hadn't been for their union. And they can choose to work or not work OT, don't blame the union for that.
And if they're sleeping on the job (OT or not) well that's up to management to handle. They (not the union) have the common-law right to discipline workers for their job performance.
Re: (Score:2)
And if they're sleeping on the job (OT or not) well that's up to management to handle. They (not the union) have the common-law right to discipline workers for their job performance.
...yea...that's not how that works.
Re: oh look (Score:2)
Bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:oh look (Score:5, Insightful)
You're describing a plutocracy, where the deepest pockets make the rules. That gives unions a reason to exist, to level the playing field by giving individuals an equal voice as large companies. We all want a level playing field, don't we?
Behind every union is a company that gave it a reason to exist by exploiting the workers. Repeat that to yourself until it sinks in.
Re: (Score:1)
"Behind every union is a company that gave it a reason to exist by exploiting the workers."
At one time this was true. But today too many unions exploit the workers for its own benefit and not the workers'. How much is the head of the union making compared to the workers? The unions also too often protect bad workers and it makes the rank & file look bad. ie teachers' and police unions.
Re:oh look (Score:4, Informative)
BULLSHIT. In 1974, 24+% of the US labor force was unionized. Now it's barely 10%, and those are mostly government jobs, because the Friedmanites outsource everything, and "you're now an independent contractor, not an employee".
Re: (Score:2)
Re:oh look (Score:5, Insightful)
You're describing a plutocracy, where the deepest pockets make the rules. That gives unions a reason to exist, to level the playing field by giving individuals an equal voice as large companies. We all want a level playing field, don't we?
Behind every union is a company that gave it a reason to exist by exploiting the workers. Repeat that to yourself until it sinks in.
And that company is trying to convince it's workers that it's really the union that is causing their problems. The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Union contributions"? What's that, other than union dues? And *those* are typically 1%-2% of your salary, regarless of what Faux wants you to believe.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:oh look (Score:5, Insightful)
Behind every union is a company that gave it a reason to exist by exploiting the workers.
Yet even after the reason is no longer there, the union continues existing.
Lest the company return to its old ways.
Re: (Score:2)
Lest the company return to its old ways.
Which they will do by corrupting the union. Don't think that strategy works? Look at the Union of States known as the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They allow bad-faith individuals to exploit the system and make it next to impossible to fire. They also prevent individual members from advancing based on any metric but seniority.
Every measure if individual performance in any workplace is deeply flawed. Individual performance is always deeply dependent on the system and structure in which that individual exists.
Think about it: if we work on an assembly line, and I come right after you; you work really fast (high productivity) but produce lots of errors, then I have to go slowly and fix all of your errors (low productivity).
It's similar in any other job where you work as part of a larger system. Your success is highly dependent o
Re: (Score:3)
And armies get disbanded after wars end...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
0) He persists in using the 'en%@)$tification' expletive, which is vulgar without improving comprehension or understanding, because he's vulgar.
1) He excuses his vulgarity because he is so righteous. Mostly he is. Then he goes off on something not so righteous, but not so often that, for me, I ignore him.
2) Then Cory spews this proclamation that business leaders (bosses in class warfare language) care only for their own gratification, and the heck with the rest. Partly correct, but he blames the perceived l
Re: (Score:2)
Re: My problem is not unions in theory, it is unio (Score:2)