this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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It's not looking good for programers in particular.
The reason why the can get paid as much as they want is 100% based on you being able to jump ship form company to company without having to wait for a company to find common ground between you and them through a union.
Sure, they'll still be hugely compensated but tech companies will keep abusing interns, freelancers. Obviously outsourcing will explode even more than it already has in the last 10 years.
True, but that's why you do a trade union instead of a company union. And programmers have a lot to gain. These companies, shareholders, and CEOs rake in billions that could be going to employees.
A programmer will make a feature that saves the company a million dollars and they'll get paid $100,000 to build it.
Now is the best time for programmers to unionize. Do it when you already have leverage to make sure the good times stay good. Otherwise, we'll eventually be as replaceable as drafters are now.
Yeah we get paid well, but relative to the value we produce we're getting robbed.
And AWS profits are dropping each quarter recently...
Did you mean software engineers? A professional degree is not required but it is mostly software engineers taking the positions. The job title is also software engineer.
I know, I am one. Try not to split hairs
It’s pretty clear you are not part of the industry. Your preference for trade like titles shows you don’t have real world experience in this industry and are just sharing opinions based on your political beliefs with no real basis on reality.
And if you really are in the industry it’s difficult to believe that you failed to realize that 95%+ are not tradesmen and have profesional degrees in software engineering or something similar.
Did he ever say they were Trade Workers? The only time he mentioned Trade that I saw was talking about Trade Unions, which don't specifically have anything to do with Trade Workers
He described workers as programmers. Only a neophyte would do that.
When called out he doubled down instead of explaining why he doesn’t use the normal title
I said programmers because the person I responded to said programmers. Get the stick out of your ass, sophist. Leave it on Reddit.
Lmao
Software engineer is a stupid term akin to calling the guy at Subway a "sandwich engineer". Which even if stupid doesn't really affect me. But now, half the time anyone says "engineer" it's for you programmer dudes, and not real engineers. You've destroyed job boards and listings.
I don't buy it. This isn't the only mechanism, probably not even the most important one, for why salaries are where they are. Shortage of and especially of highly competent programmers is. In fact this actually underpins why jumping ship is even as easy as it is. Uninionization will provide additional leverage, while not diminishing the shortage pressure. Part of the point is that this leverage can substitute the leverage we have due to the current shortage, if and when it diminishes.
How strange, were I live there are Unions but when I jump ship I get paid what I want, without waiting for the Union, what do you think a Union is for ?
The real power of a Union is to let workers to negotiate for a minimum wage level (for example, I cannot be employed for less than a certain wage because it would be illegal to do so) that are reasonable and some basic rights the workers have (for example, no at will employment, a minimum PTO days which are enforced and thing like this).
True, this has some consequences, mainly companies try to go for the legal minimum, but I would say that it is positive overall
You, within my union, can get paid more than the minimum. There's nothing against it in the bylaws. Shockingly, very few people are able to individually negotiate higher wages than the minimum. I wonder why that might be?
Do you get paid $450k with only 5 years of experience? Cuz that's industry standard rn.
Obviously not, 450k here is out of market where I live but on the other hand I have not the living cost of the Silicon Valley (or the US in general). I suspect that at the end of the month I save much more than the average Silicon Valley worker even if he earn, let's say, 10 times what I earn.
But my point was that a Union does not stop you to ask what you want to be paid and if you are worth it you get it, nothing else.