
The Plight of the Employed - rosser
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/the-plight-of-the-employed/
======
argonaut
Interesting that this is posted to HN - software developers in the US
currently have historically abnormally high levels of bargaining power and
leverage.

~~~
rosser
And that's a privilege I think we should check regularly.

A lot of the flavors of libertarianism that are so common in hacker circles
seem to be premised on a notion that everyone else has the kinds of power that
we do to dictate the terms of our labor, and that's just not true.

EDIT: phrasing.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's far less useful to _check your privilege_ than it is to _check if the
arguments are correct_.

The former is an easy way to dismiss an argument without actually reading it.
The latter requires careful thought and runs the risk that you might realize
you are incorrect.

~~~
rosser
I disagree. Even if you're fallaciously occasioned to "check your privilege",
it's still a useful exercise. And doesn't writing off _all_ such invocations
make you guilty of the same kind of prejudicial dismissal you're arguing
against, anyway?

~~~
yummyfajitas
So what? A privileged person can be correct, and an unprivileged one can be
wrong. What do you gain by checking your privilege over checking your
reasoning/facts?

~~~
rosser
They aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're often the very same thing.
(Edit: though it's perhaps more about checking _premises_ than _argument_ in
many cases.)

Consider my original comment in this thread: is it not the case that the kinds
of labor leverage that software people have aren't shared by everyone else? Is
it not therefore the case that the kinds of libertarianism espoused by so many
software people, premised at least in part on that leverage, don't apply to
everyone else as much as they seem to think?

I submit that if the developers espousing those fallaciously premised flavors
of libertarianism were (able) to "check their privilege", they'd arrive at
different conclusions.

------
greenyoda
" _And may I suggest that employers, although they’ll never say so in public,
like this situation? That is, there’s a significant upside to them from the
still-weak economy._ "

If the economy ever turns around (and I'm hopeful that it will), this will
come back to bite the employers. A large percentage of employees are
dissatisfied with their current jobs are are only staying there because of the
difficult job market.[1] When the job market improves, companies will have a
hard time filling all the positions of the abused employees who'll suddenly
start leaving in droves. (Or they'll have to offer significant raises to bribe
them to stay.)

Also, isn't Krugman pretty much stating the obvious in this article (employees
have low bargaining power in a poor economy)?

[1] [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17348695/ns/business-
careers/t/ame...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17348695/ns/business-
careers/t/americans-hate-their-jobs-more-ever/)

~~~
vampirechicken
and the cycle will repeat. all those vacancies arising from the departure of
disgruntled employees, being filled by new employees, disgruntled elsewhere,
but soon to be disgruntled at the new shop, because the shop will never
change.

Management must always believe themselves to be infallible, and beyond the
reproach of the rank and file. Employees who vote with their feet are
'disloyal'. Why is that? The fundamental power imbalance in the
employer/employee relationship.

You're always lucky if you can find somebody who worked for a place that's
hiring and can find out their opinion. Places can't fill open positions for a
reason. Sometimes it's because they just won't pay. But other times, it's
because they've garnered a reputation as not being a particularly good place
to work. They'll just end up lowering their standards until they attract
somebody in their hiring range, and then (mis)treat them just as they did
their predecessor, until they too leave.

and in their managerial meetings, they'll complain about the workers.

------
notastartup
This is a great article bringing light to the employed and how little
bargaining (if any) they have in this economy. I'd say it's even worse in
countries where population is several times smaller than United States and
happen to be just above the border of it. I've seen so many people at my past
jobs willing to "stay late" which is often beyond the 9 to 5 range. At one
company I worked at, people were asked to come and work on the weekends. I
used to get calls at 1 am on a friday, to commit some extra code. Someone who
was witnessing the birth of their newborn baby got a call from the company
about work...he quit immediately. There's so many stories I hear from people
who have worked across various industries in Vancouver, BC. It's not even
demanded but people's unwillingness to say no, out of fear of appearing less
irreplaceable compared to their peer engineers or designers. Overtime is
unpaid of course because software developers and web designers are not
"professionals" and no union because somebody decided for all of us that "it's
not in our interest" and that an engineer can "freely negotiate their salary".
Not in this economy, at least not in this tiny Canadian market filled with
exploitative employers.

~~~
typicalrunt
Being from Vancouver as well, I agree with your sentiment.

I also wanted to add that, due to the Y2K fiasco, BC lawmakers were able to
push through an exemption to the overtime laws. Basically, if you are in IT,
then you are not under most of the overtime protection laws that other workers
have. See here:

[http://www.labour.gov.bc.ca/esb/facshts/high_tech.htm](http://www.labour.gov.bc.ca/esb/facshts/high_tech.htm)

~~~
notastartup
Good to hear that I am not alone in thinking this. It seems the BC lawmakers
have failed to realize that what they've created is largely a slave contract
for highly skilled workers. Coupled with high real estate / rent prices and BC
tax on just about anything, on top of the federal tax rate is crippling. It's
no wonder so many Vancouverites are house poor, especially if you are single
and have no dependents to list for tax benefits or exemptions.

Professional, high skilled workers who are leaving vancouver, either
Toronto/New York or Seattle/Los Angeles, simply do not come back. Companies
that get infused with American angel investor cash, go South and takes jobs
with them.

Is it just me or is BC not a really a friendly place at all for technically
skilled people working in software/internet industry? People are definitely
NOT laid back as rest of the world likes to believe, if not people are more
cold hearted at work and ruthless when it comes to their job stability in a
market where it's very tough to find a new job quickly.

Sad to accept but NOT the Canadian dream I aspired for. I often catch myself
thinking about the American dream these days.

~~~
techsupporter
I thought that the reasons Vancouver and nearby real estate are so expensive
is two-fold: 1) People from the rest of Canada like the weather in Vancouver
better, and 2) People from around the world who want to work in technology are
drawn there by easier immigration requirements and the network-effect of being
around other technology folks. The Seattle Times has spilled a good deal of
ink about how the Seattle area is bypassed by Silicon Valley heading north to
Vancouver because of immigration and work rules. If real estate prices are
still going up, would that imply that both of those, if true in the past, are
still true?

(Not for nothing: Didn't Microsoft open a rather large development center in
Vancouver for just this reason?)

~~~
notastartup
>1)People from the rest of Canada like the weather in Vancouver better

I hope you are joking....its' driven up by overseas speculation in the real
estate market from what I understand. Coming to vancouver for the weather
won't pay your bills (at least there's no shitty weather tax compensation),
and weather is a favorite topic amongst Vancouverites because the good days
are so much more meaningful when it's rare.

>2) People from around the world who want to work in technology are drawn
there by easier immigration requirements and the network-effect of being
around other technology folks.

I don't know of what "network effect" there is here other than amateurish
Meet-up groups where middle aged men who lived through y2k show up and talk
about how they like their coffee.

I think it was 7 years ago they opened. Microsoft recently closed it's
Victoria location. It's a game studio here in Vancouver but Quebec holds the
reigns in game development from what I gather. I used to work beside the
Microsoft building, the area is pretty much void of activity apart from Asian
hipsters in Starbucks. Not exactly a silicon valley or even Seattle, so I
don't know where is this "network effect" that eclipses Seattle or Silicon
Valley.

~~~
typicalrunt
Vancouver (-area) born and bred, so I can shine some light here.

 _It 's no wonder so many Vancouverites are house poor, especially if you are
single and have no dependents to list for tax benefits or exemptions._

I have to laugh a little at this. I 100% agree, but just wait until you have a
family. The options for shelter are either sky-high rent or sky-high purchase
prices if you want to stay in Vancouver or Burnaby (the city next-door). If
you want to save some money you either live in 1/2 of a house, in the basement
of a house, or live somewhere musty worrying about mold [1].

 _Is it just me or is BC not a really a friendly place at all for technically
skilled people working in software /internet industry?_

Vancouver isn't HQ for many large corporations, unlike Toronto so there are
few big players in this area (TELUS, WorkSafe, BC Hydro, Best Buy). The other
big players (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) are still relatively new. When a company
like TELUS has a big project, they are a blackhole that sucks up EVERYONE.
This happened 8 years ago with one of their projects. If you only stayed in
the Gastown district of Vancouver, you'd think Vancouver was bustling with
startups, but it's not. It's getting there, but IMHO the startup scene is
still in its infancy [3].

An old joke amongst the IT consultants here is that we often see each other
repeatedly circling the same big corps. It's a very very small world in
Vancouver.

 _I don 't know of what "network effect" there is here other than amateurish
Meet-up groups where middle aged men who lived through y2k show up and talk
about how they like their coffee._

I've seen this as well, which is why I don't attend too many meetups. Some of
the meetups are very small (the Ruby one in particular) and I'd like to see a
larger turnout. Saying that, I understand my lack of participation is what is
causing part of the low turnout (in my case it is also an issue of travel
distance).

 _real estate_

As for the real estate situation in Vancouver (and Canada, in general), there
is so many variables at play that there isn't one solid answer. There is the
foreign menace buying up our real estate that is portrayed by realtors and the
MSM, but the stats (there are few) show otherwise (<10%). Most of the cause is
our (Canadians, I mean) own doing due to the low emergency interest rates.
Instead of people using the low interest rates to get out of debt, they
instead gorged on more real estate. Thus you see people attempting to carry
their residential debts (mortgage, interest, taxes) by seeking ever higher
rates. Add into that the realtor lie (carried by the MSM) that housing only
goes up and you get people flipping houses to each other for ever higher
prices (and thus, rents). If you want to know how it all ends, just read up on
the US housing/credit crisis circa 2008. If you are a skeptic that thinks this
can't happen in Canada, read up on what happened in 1980-1 or 1990-1, the same
housing drop happened then [2].

[1] This isn't just a colloquial joke. Because Vancouver is technically
classified as a temperate rainforest, we enjoy much much MUCH more rain than
other places, with very nominal temperatures. If there is any defect in the
building envelope, you will get mold.

[2] But without the low interest rates or credit crisis, so this will be a big
new player.

[3] Part of the reason (from what I've heard) is the sky-high office rent in
the area. It takes a huge chunk of the operating budget.

