Unions are a tool, and tools have tradeoffs. They will be able to solve some of your problems — most importantly, the power imbalance between employer and employee — and introduce new ones you didn’t have before. The bet is that if we collectively use unions correctly, they will solve more problems than they create; that we will, on balance, be better off.
> Enhanced job security with ‘just cause’ protections
> Guaranteed wage increases for the first time of up to 8.25% (plus additional base rate discretionary compensation) that prioritize the largest wage increases for the lowest paid members over the life of the contract
> Additional compensation for on-call work
> Important protections that lock in guardrails on additional variable compensation (including stocks and bonuses)
> Improved protections for workers on visas
> Language guaranteeing flexible hybrid work schedules
> Process and transparency protections related to career growth, performance reviews and other workplace issues
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/11/24319022/nyt-times-tech-...
Knowing someone in tech there who refused to join the union, I was told these guys aren't particularly the best or smartest colleagues she's ever worked with to put it mildly.
Unions will kickstart the offshoring of our career. Just like every other place unions exist without a talent monopoly (manufacturing, automotive, and most recently film crews).
Google is going to hire in developing markets and stop hiring domestically. Everyone else will follow. The talent in India is incredible these days. You can't knock them or call them less talented than US engineers. They're rock solid. And there are lots of other talented worldwide markets for software engineering.
Without antitrust action from the DOJ/FTC, big tech will continue to crush domestic startups too or create a ceiling for how large they can grow in our market.
And if unions lead to offshoring happening, we're fucked.
pretty much every team in blue collar industries which have been able to negotiate better working conditions, better pay, and more time off.
The good:
- An elected collective bargaining team negotiated for us every ~5 years, and came up with a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). This allowed the members to express their desires for what they wanted (although not all requests were brought up in bargaining, and had to be agreed to to be ratified), which were generally listened to
- On-call compensation was set out as part of that agreement, and was the most generous I've experienced in my 25+ year career.
- Members could file grievances with the union regarding work conditions, or unfair treatment of the workers (I don't recall hearing of this ever happening, but there were processes in place for it)
- Health benefits were good, if not the best I've seen
- You could get two pay bumps per year, one that all union members got that was set aside in the CBA, and another moving you up a spot in your pay band (but only if you were not at the top of your salary band)
The bad:
- Union dues, while not huge, were yet another noticeable deduction from each pay
- When at the top of your salary band, you only got the one cost of living adjustment per year. There was no automatic way of moving to the next salary band
- Getting promoted means applying for internally posted positions (which all employees can apply for), and successfully being hired in to that position. This is the only way to move up salary bands, and you could only move up one pay slot in the new band (as they overlapped between bands). This really limited upwards career growth, and meant that leaving the company was the only way to get double-digit pay increases (or move in to management, which was outside the union)
- Our CBA strangely didn't cover / prevent layoffs of staff (although other union CBAs certainly do - so this is just my own experience), so I was one of the 100+ members that were laid off when a new VP decided to outsource a bunch of our roles to Tata Consultancy Services in India. There were provisions in place given my seniority that would have made a more junior union members have to be laid off in place of me (so I could take over their role instead), however I opted to take my severance package as I was ready to move on.
So to summarize - unions are definitely a mixed bag in my experience. I can appreciate the good they can do (and different CBAs will result in wildly different experiences), but from what I've personally seen, they generally function to treat all workers in a similar way: not rewarding the best, and not really punishing the worst.
Yes, unions were responsible for changing the factory working culture in the past. But I know tons of people that work in tech jobs now that have to be some the cushiest jobs in the history of the planet. Yes, there is stress, not a lot of job security, and the standard corporate BS, but tech employees are generally paid quite well with great perks (obviously, depending on the company). The people who work at these companies aren't accidentally falling into vats at meat processing plants a la The Jungle, so unions need to convince them what the benefit would be to them now.
Well...
The 1800's were horrific. It was not the industrial revolution alone that made things better. People had to fight and die in the labor movement for better outcomes for us now.
A quick read up on the history of the labor movement will show that it started because people didn't want to work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day in factories anymore.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day
International workers day started as a protest to get 8 hour days.
This sounds awfully similar to when people were holding their iPhones wrong.
