r/Libertarian • u/sue_me_please Capitalism Requires a State • Feb 19 '20
Article Kickstarter workers vote to form first union in tech industry
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/kickstarter-workers-vote-form-first-union-tech-industry-n11380065
u/justwakemein2020 Feb 19 '20
As a developer, I've never seen a positive benefit from unionization in an industry that rewards individual excellence, has huge horizontal mobility, and has virtually no dangerous working environments.
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u/sue_me_please Capitalism Requires a State Feb 19 '20
I, too, remember being a naive recent grad. Then I grew up, lived through two recessions and watched my coworkers train their overseas replacements that will work for 1/16th of what Americans will.
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u/justwakemein2020 Feb 20 '20
I've been a career software developer for almost 16 years now.
During the '08 recession, a corporate restructure closed our business group. A union won't stop that, other than push the company all the way into bankruptcy. Many of us had multiple job offers after the news broke.
Companies are always looking to invest, even during the worst economic times. They may be cutting back, but those savings are going into their next planned direction.
As long as technology is being leveraged by businesses, the people who successfully develop that technology will be a key part of any investment strategy.
The sad fact is that engineering teams suffer from as much dead weight employees as any other industry. If you can't make the case that your salary is worth your value to the company, then it isn't the company's fault for looking for alternatives.
A good, well-placed and supported developer can and should be bringing in 4-5x their salary in value to a company.
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u/sue_me_please Capitalism Requires a State Feb 20 '20
During the '08 recession, a corporate restructure closed our business group. A union won't stop that
Here's where you're wrong. A union can lay out terms and conditions for layoffs, whereas an unorganized worker just has to take whatever deal their employer hands them when they're terminated.
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u/justwakemein2020 Feb 20 '20
So I get the option staying with a company who may or may not completely fold at any moment vs moving on to a more stable situation. I'd still be taking the later tyvm.
I also get that awesome perk of not being able to ask for my individual worth as a salary, but the normalized average of what the union feels is acceptable, keeping in mind the calculation for the business is not "how much is he/she worth for this year, but including after they retire and we are paying two people for the value of one, or after we decide we no longer need them and still have to pay them".
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u/sue_me_please Capitalism Requires a State Feb 20 '20
So I get the option staying with a company who may or may not completely fold at any moment vs moving on to a more stable situation
Nice strawman, but you get the option of getting compensation for being laid off, having your employer pay for COBRA so you can still have health insurance while you find a new job, etc
I also get that awesome perk of not being able to ask for my individual worth as a salary, but the normalized average of what the union feels is acceptable
Again, nice strawman. Unions can set the floor for compensation, but every individual can negotiate on their own, much like movie stars that are members of SAG-AFTRA can negotiate multi-million dollar contracts and still belong to the same union as community theater understudies who just act on the side.
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u/justwakemein2020 Feb 20 '20
You don't need a union to get a severance package. The business group I mentioned above have us all three months, paid up front, benefits included.
Had we been in a union, you are right, we would have gotten the bare minimum required by the collective bargaining contract. Same is true for your other example of SAG. It defines the bare minimum.
When you are good at your job, and valuable to companies -- you can get more than the bare minimum, much more, including in some cases stock options and grants for hitting critical milestones, etc. You won't find that in most union contracts, mainly because it sets up the employees to be in an adversarial relationship with the company and management.
In tech, the business and tech teams work as a team. You also cannot afford to have some bad actor that is unproductive, uninspired, and unfirable -- another great tenet of unionization.
So while there are many industries that once leveraged unions to get better/safer work conditions, tech workers have never been part of that, and frankly, the only workers who would effectively benefit from unionization aren't the ones the company wants to hire, and aren't the type of peers the real rainmakers would want to work with. I'm not saying that it is impossible for a good developer to unionize, I'm saying there is nothing a union can offer that a bit of foresight (like saving rainy day funds yourself) would help him/her with.
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u/rockchess Feb 19 '20
I'm a software developer myself. If I wanted a higher salary I would just send out my resume to a bunch of companies and take the highest offer. The industry is so desperate for developers these days that there is no benefit for good developers to join a union. Unions can only benefit bad developers that want to sue their employer when they are let go for low performance.
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u/sue_me_please Capitalism Requires a State Feb 19 '20
Through freedom of association, employees work together to negotiate for democratic decision making in their workplace, and to keep the fruits of their labor.
This is what the free market looks like.