

Do programmers need a union? - motters
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9773/do-programmers-need-a-union

======
mseebach
I think it's reasonable to distinguish "union" (collective bargaining) and
"professional association" (which is what I understand the SO poster is
talking about).

It's pointless for programmers to do collective bargaining - our skills are
simply too diverse. But to have a professional association that can create
standard contracts, assist it's members in negotiating out of stupid IP
clauses, perhaps create some certifications etc. isn't a bad idea.

~~~
_delirium
I think there are some companies at which a "company union" (something
traditional labor activism doesn't like) could be useful. Essentially, all the
employees in some particular class at a particular company (say, all the
electrical engineers) negotiate some subset of employment terms as a group. It
helps to level the playing field, because when you're one person negotiating
individually against a corporation whose managers/staff are acting
collectively on the other side, you're at a bit of a disadvantage--- it's very
hard to negotiate away stuff that's embedded in corporate policy (say,
noncompetes) just as an individual trying to get your own contract modified.
Much easier if a large group of people together threaten to leave _en masse_
if the terms aren't changed. This can sometimes be done without a formal union
though; sometimes informal employee organizations can wield enough "soft
power" to get objectionable things changed, especially if it's at an employer
who's sensitive to morale and image.

It's a bit less of a problem if you're at a company, usually a smaller one,
where you can actually negotiate one-on-one with a manager or boss who has
individual authority to negotiate a wide range of terms. Then you might be
able to get objectionable terms removed, if the manager's reasonable and
you're willing to compromise on other things (say, accept lower pay for more
favorable terms). But if the manager's highly constrained by higher-ups and
policy, you don't have a real negotiation.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_But if the manager's highly constrained by higher-ups and policy, you don't
have a real negotiation._

Negotiation begins with shopping around. Any _particular_ company may be
unwilling to negotiate with you. That doesn't mean you can't negotiate, it
just means you need to move on.

Incidentally, big companies do respond to these issues. When people start
leaving in droves, hiring policies are reviewed, and changes are made (or the
company dies).

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stcredzero
No. More granularity in capitalism. A lot of dysfunction gets perpetuated
because it's hidden in the bowels of big, bureaucratic institutions. Sunlight
is the best disinfectant.

~~~
eli
Not sure I follow. Couldn't you just as well argue that unions bring bad
employer practices to light?

~~~
stcredzero
Who brings bad union practices to light? Commerce exposes this sort of stuff.
The more commerce is used, as opposed to invisible, internal mechanisms, the
less unions have to do. Not all unions are bad, but not everything they do
acts to increase transparency.

------
gte910h
Yes, certain types do. Game programmers come to mind. Not sure everyone else
needs them though, but there are likely others who do.

Additionally, less onerous IP terms for employment, standard non-competes and
a reduction of the idea of absurd overtime being the norm are all good things.

California can thank their non-compete/IP laws for part of Silicon Valley's
success.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Why do game programmers need a union?

As for IP terms/noncompetes/overtime, I'm not sure why you need a union. Why
not just negotiate for that yourself?

~~~
gte910h
>As for IP terms/noncompetes/overtime, I'm not sure why you need a union. Why
not just negotiate for that yourself?

Because certain portions of our field have jobs that people are willing to be
whipped and beaten for if they can get the jobs (entry level game programming,
I'm looking at you).

There isn't anything about programming that makes it reasonable to require
unpaid overtime exemptions, etc, unlike most other fields have. It's merely
poor management demanding it.

Game programming, especially, would be nice, as there is no reason to make
games come out faster, they're _pure entertainment_ without just recompense
for hours worked. A heavy preponderance of unions would deescalate the field,
making everyone do less over a given period of time (or pay people much better
than they do for the overtime they demand).

~~~
yummyfajitas
Game programmers are presumably compensated with fun.

There is nothing preventing a game programmer from quitting to work at a bank,
a rails shop or google. If a game programmer stays, it's because he/she enjoys
game programming so much that it's worth the long hours and poor pay.

I'm not sure why you consider unions reducing productivity to be a good thing.

~~~
gte910h
Are you aware of the fact that if we had 1992's productivity, there would be
full employment in the US right now? You know when your boss lays off 1/3 the
team, then expects you to do the same work: That's productivity!

Productivity is not god. Productivity does not trump the health of the people
who work there. Programming jobs currently do horrible things to the health of
IT's practitioners, especially ones with stupidly long hours, including game
programming.

Saner hours would employ more people (or the games would do less). No one can
say "games are essential enough to damage people's health over" but guess
what: their development largely damages their health of their programmers.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Are you aware of the fact that if we had 1992's productivity, we would all be
30% poorer (and living 2.8 years less) than we are today?

~~~
gte910h
I don't see your numbers:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg)

And productivity doesn't drive medical research, so:

>(and living 2.8 years less)

is unlikely

~~~
yummyfajitas
[http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=ny_gdp_mk...](http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-
wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+usa)

You can do the inflation calculation yourself. Income is a poor measure since
it excludes non-wage compensation (e.g., medical spending) which have gone up
significantly relative to income.

I'm not sure why you conclude life expectancy went up due to medical research.
Wealth increases life expectancy, but not due to medical spending.

~~~
gte910h
Your graph doesn't show anything about actual wages, or wages with the
excluded non-wage compensation you're speaking of.

GDP growth is not related to income growth of normal people. For the last 20
years, something like 85% of the growth has gone to the very very rich. It was
only really in the postwar period did the middle class ever really grow large
(in that period of time we had the only factories in the world), and income
growth has been pretty stagnant since the 80's.

According to the US Census Bureau, the median is "considerably lower than the
average, and provides a more accurate representation."

"While the median household income has increased 30% since 1990, it has
increased only slightly when considering inflation. In 1990, the median
household income was $30,056 or $44,603 in 2003 dollars. "

Sources: <http://www.demographia.com/db-stateinc2000.htm>

I bring you to the censuses conclusions about our largely stagnant american
wages (which peaked in 1999):
<http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p60-226.pdf>

Most of that GDP is going to very very rich people.

------
Zak
While I find a lot of the author's ideas useful, there's quite a bit of
emphasis on certification. I think certification of programmers tends to be a
mistake in that I've never heard of a credential (CS degrees included) that
actually serves as substantial evidence that a person can produce usable code
on demand. I find the comparison of programming to writing[0] useful here:
passing a grammar test is not evidence that someone can write articles, essays
or novels. When hiring a writer, one should examine samples of that person's
writing.

[0]This is not my idea, but I can't find the original source to cite it.

------
eli
I would join a union that lobbied against, say, overreaching non-compete
agreements and against age discrimination (a big problem in this industry).

But the life of a programmer is typically not so bad to start with.

~~~
westbywest
I would agree with you on the potential benefit of a lightweight union that
existed only for specific purposes, e.g. negotiating health care or lobbying
on my behalf. A traditional labor union would, IMO, entail too much
bureaucratic inertia to be of much utility to anyone in the field.

Besides that, I have to ask how long this collective experience of programmers
enjoying happy lives will last. My general observation is that the accepted
value of that labor is cheapening rapidly, whether from scarcity of jobs, glut
of available talent, or the general difficulties in remaining competitive when
the skillset is often globally portable.

My friend who basically left his engineering field to make more money cleaning
pools strikes me as a demonstrative example.

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viggity
This has to be one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Unions breed laziness
and rob its members of motivation to work because the union will always
protect them to the most dizzying degree.

Simply look at this flowchart to see the steps required to fire a New York
City teacher. It is outrageous.
<http://commongood.org/assets/attachments/firing_chart.pdf>

Unions have so much leverage over a company that they negotiate themselves out
of a job. There is a reason GM went bankrupt, there is a reason the public
school system is failing. Why the hell would I want to join a programmer's
union?

~~~
zmitri
Totally agree with you. Unions are useful for those who want to put in their
'20' years and then live off of pensions, work boring jobs, or need safety
guarantees.

From my experiences, programmers are dynamic, inventive, independent, and the
type of people who would be willing to stay up two days straight to get done
what they need to be done. Would you really want a union around to tell you
how many hours a week you could work? Could you imagine a start-up hiring
unionized programmers?

~~~
DougWebb
When a programmer is willing to stay up two days straight to get done what
they need to be done, that's one thing. When the programmer's company expects
and demands that the programmer work 80-100 hours per week for six months at
the 40 hour per week payrate because the management doesn't understand or care
about estimation, scheduling, and sustainable productivity, that's another.

I don't want a union that tells me I can't work more than 40 hours a week, but
I wouldn't mind a union that forces my company to pay me for overtime when
it's necessary. In the case of a start-up, that payment can be in the form of
something deferred, like partial ownership of the company. As a start-up
programmer I'm willing to take on some of the risk that the owners do, and
contribute my time and effort towards making the start-up a success. But I
expect to be rewarded for that too.

The other thing I'd like a union for, and maybe this is more of a professional
organization with some teeth, is to enforce some basic standard practices. I'm
a mechanical engineer by training, and I find it appalling how seldom basic
engineering practices are followed in the software development world. There's
a wide variety of tools, practices, and processes in software development so I
wouldn't want anything specific to be required, but some things are generic:

\- Use version control

\- Have and use a requirements definition process

\- Have and use an estimation process

\- Have and use a scheduling process that tries to keep a sustainable level of
productivity

\- Provide developers with opportunities to improve their skills (as simple as
a book budget and company time to study, up to in-house or out-of-house
training)

\- Provide a career path, including both management and non-management tracks.
(Programmers who don't want to manage shouldn't be stuck in dead-end
positions.)

A "professional organization with teeth" could be an organization that
developers can join, which could audit employers work practices at the
employers request. A positive audit could lead to a certification of that
employer, which could make it easier for the employer to hire better
developers from among the ranks of the organization. The organization could
also provide training and certification to the developers for basic software
engineering practices, relevant legal practices, etc, making them more
appealing to the employers.

~~~
anamax
> I wouldn't mind a union that forces my company to pay me for overtime when
> it's necessary. In the case of a start-up, that payment can be in the form
> of something deferred, like partial ownership of the company.

You don't need a union to force your company to pay you overtime. You just the
willingness to walk when you don't like the terms.

Note that "willingness to walk" is all that the company has.

> Provide a career path, including both management and non-management tracks.
> (Programmers who don't want to manage shouldn't be stuck in dead-end
> positions.)

Ah yes - the geek director job, handed out as patronage.

People make it to real higher positions by providing the relevant value, not
by coming from a particular background. Mandating folks with a background just
leads to a "make work" position.

------
cangrande
Union's are only a good idea in situations where collective bargaining is
valuable.

I believe that programmers already have such a unique skill, that is extremely
un-commoditized, that it seems unnecessary.

------
petercooper
It's been a few years since the last time (pre-HN, even), but this idea keeps
coming up over and over for major discussion in the programming world. Every
time, there's a big discussion but the unionists never seem to get enough
traction or have enough backbone to get it going.

I can't see it happening, because most programmers are savvy enough to
negotiate their own terms with employers on an individual basis if they care
enough. Programmers, as a group, aren't usually as ignorant as groups who are
protected by unions.

------
teilo
A professional association that includes legal assistance in the event that a
programmer is sued for patent infringement would be a great thing.

There is something similar in the home school community: An organization that
in addition to providing general support, coordination, recommendations, etc.,
also has professional attorneys specializing in that field, and who will
defend their members in court when necessary.

------
kiba
So long as employers are free to fire anybody for any reasons unless it is
written in a contract specifying what reasons they can get fired. So long as
people have the ability to work without being employed by a union.

If people wants to form a union, fine with me, but don't drag me into it.

------
checkoutmygenes
HN'ers would derive more benefit from an agent

------
ergo98
No

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axod
No. Unions are pure evil.

~~~
datapimp
You have unions to thank for this thing called 'The Weekend'. Pure evil right
there. Let's not get out of hand.

~~~
axod
No I don't, if I don't want to work on the weekend, I don't.

It looks like possibly the Unions had something to do with weekends in the US,
so perhaps you're thanking them for that. I think globally the practice of
resting on the sabbath goes slightly further back.

Everyone has a choice. Either they decide to take a job or they don't. Unions
are all about blackmail and holding employers to ransom.

Unions are sort of a fun idea, but they end up as a 'them' vs 'us' mentality
which quickly escalates to strikes and blackmail.

~~~
gte910h
You have to look at the history of unions in the UK as well then if you think
it's only in the US they've done good:
<http://www.unionhistory.info/timeline/timeline.php>

Strikes hurt the strikers far more than the negotiations they are an
alternative to. No one wants strikes.

~~~
axod
I absolutely do not believe Unions to be a good thing. They're about bullying
and mob mentality. Sorry, you won't convince me otherwise :/

If you decide to strike, you should be sacked. Simple. You've broken your side
of a contract to work.

Funny how the site there kinda glosses over the disastrous Union woes of the
70s, how the country was brought to its knees.

Of course I'm not a Labour Party supporter at all, which is perhaps another
reason I dislike Unions. The two go hand in hand. The Labour party is after
all, bankrolled, and totally controlled by Unions. I disagree completely with
the philosophies of both of them. They're about waste. Unfairness. etc etc

~~~
gte910h
What did the chartist movement come from? What motivated them? What did Lords,
factory owners and government officials do to workers before eventually
succeeded?

Do you know the answers to the above? Until you do, you're missing out on
important parts of British history.

I do not think unions are an unadulterated good, and I think many times the
law goes silly trying to make it hard for companies to weasel out of their
agreements (which is where many of the laws benefiting unions come from), but
to act like they don't ever do good things, you really have to have not looked
at what Great Brittan was like before they came about.

You're looking at something without the perspective of history when you look
at the state of modern labour without looking at it's history and thereby
missing 90% of their reasons for doing what they do the way they do it. Lots
of the structures and behaviors are there to combat the shenanigans of the
companies employed against the workers in the past.

