IFPTE, UAW, CWA (which just recently welcomed workers in the video game industry: https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/video-game-workers-launc...)
edit: Alphabet Workers Union under CWA, Riot Games under UAW, Tech Workers Coalition
here's an answer i gave to this question downstream: "the Riot Games union is bargaining for better pay and less brutal working hours. at Blizzard they did employee walkouts, leading to better pay and changes in work culture. at Kickstarter they negotiated better remote work policies and reduction of discriminatory actions."
I'm also a lot closer to a lawyer or a doctor than I am to a plumber. And very likely on the Sergey Brin side of the distribution.
The median annual wage for physicians and surgeons in the US was $239,200 in 2023. In May 2023, the median annual wage for lawyers in the U.S. was $145,760, with the lowest 10% earning less than $69,760 and the highest 10% earning more than $239,200. Stats shamelessly stolen from the US BLS website.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/doctors-unionize-as-health...
[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9616465/
[3] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-visual-breakdown-of-who-o...
If you're in a working environment that hires SDEs straight out of Tier 1 Universities, start talking about what it's like to grow up poor and you'll see quickly how everyone's eyes glaze over and you get treated like a pariah.
Edit to add: I’m never allowed to forget that I don’t belong.
How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry ( 190 points | Oct 7, 2020 | 369 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24711814
Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts ( 179 points | June 17, 2022 | 305 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31780972
So, why are there no major tech unions specifically? Tech is a “new” field (relatively speaking), is generally well paid, and comes with relatively better benefits compared to other fields. This is not something inherent to the field: it’s just a supply vs. demand thing combined with easy access to money (low rates, VCs, etc).
Unions will start to become more prominent as shit hits the fan for us tech workers. Because without a unifying threat, there is no realistic way to convince a bunch of people who are living relatively well to join forces - as demonstrated by this thread.
Unfortunately, the existence of a common threat is necessary imo but not sufficient (in the US at least), as we’ve witnessed over the past few years of layoffs and forced RTO.
"Java is a blue collar language." - James Gosling
