
Ask HN: Why don't developers unionize? - quinequine
I&#x27;m not talking about your Dad or Grandma&#x27;s union of yesteryear but a new type of union focused on collective bargaining for issues that matter and taking decisive action.<p>Our new style of union would:<p>- Encourage corporations to take security and privacy seriously<p>- Advocate for those affected by automation<p>- Aide in the creation of standards<p>- Support free and open source software communities<p>- Strengthen the efforts of organizations like EFF, Archive.org, Tor, etc<p>- Advocate for a free and open internet<p>- Counterbalance corporate interests<p>Once upon a time, unions did a lot of good for working and middle class people and they failed ultimately in the end.<p>It seems we as developers have the power to create a new type of union. A new model that disrupts old ideas for collective bargaining and actually does some good in the world.<p>What will our legacy be? Some things in life are greater than code.<p>Why don&#x27;t developers unionize?
======
Kalium
What could I expect to change in my daily working life by joining your "new
model union"?

Unions got buy-in from workers because they offered tangible benefits to
workers. Shorter days, medical care, better pay, and so on. The items you list
are public policy concerns that align well with a variety of advocacy groups.
In virtually all cases, a specialist advocacy group seems better-suited to
addressing the problem than a union.

~~~
quinequine
You're right. Most developers could care less about anything that doesn't
impact their daily working life.

But I would argue that issues like wage suppression, security, and privacy
have a huge impact on our work-life balance, income and the software we write.

An organization of developers dedicated to collective bargaining would be able
to support advocacy groups and give them teeth in their dealings with large
multinational corporations and even governments.

Would you agree?

~~~
dsacco
No, I wouldn't agree. Collective bargaining organizations ("unions") are
fundamentally designed to advocate for their _members_ , not for peripheral
issues in the industry (except where they directly impact members' work life
balance, safety or compensation in a tangible way).

Personally, I would not be willing to join a union because I don't see any
benefits they could give me in return for my money. I'm quite happy bargaining
on my own, and advocating for the issues I care about, without a conglomerate
middleman.

~~~
quinequine
Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Developers like most people are motivated by self-interest and have little
motivation to see change in the status quo.

With regards to advocacy, it's much easier to cut a check to the EFF (or
similar organizations) when your conscience is moved.

We as developers could careless about actually seeing meaningful results
outside of the code we write and money we make.

That's what you're saying more or less?

I strongly disagree with your statement that collective bargaining isn't
beneficial because at no point are the efforts of individuals more effective
than that of a group. Only together is there change. The people's movements of
the world have demonstrated that time and time again.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_United_States)

~~~
Kalium
It is perhaps possible that you are misinterpreting dsacco. dsacco is mainly
noting that unions are not designed to or particularly good at advancing the
causes you have listed.

I may have missed it, but it is also possible that dsacco didn't opine on
whether developers care about things that are greater than code.

------
ChuckMcM
Generally unionization is fought fairly hard by companies for the simple
reason that it restricts what they can do and takes some control out of the
hands of management. In the Bay area in the late 80's there was mumbling about
unions after the great semiconductor flame out. A lot of people were laid off
without warning and since it was widespread the ability to walk across the
street and get rehired was limited. Since you can't really unionize when you
aren't working somewhere, and when the people working somewhere are just glad
they weren't the ones laid off, its hard to convince them they need to come on
board.

As employer abuses, such as the 'no poaching agreement' came to light, or
sudden changes in salary compensation etc. That provides incentive but it
often isn't enough incentive to start the really vicious knock down drawn out
fight that unionizing would entail.

Bottom line I think it would take a perfect storm of events, gross employer
abuse, a large group of people who feel they have nothing to lose, and the
prospect of a very bleak future unless something radical changes. We saw what
happens when those forces align last Noveember, it doesn't happen all that
often.

~~~
cam_l
Fully agree.. but I wonder what would happen if unions started to take a leaf
out of the 'no poaching' corporate playbook and simply unionised secretly.
Collective bargaining via synchronised individual bargaining, where everyone
demands the same conditions on their employment. (Surely this could be
appified ;) Perhaps if there were no official union, the vicious knock down
would be much more difficult to focus. And it could be much easier for a
coordinated and realtime response direct from the employees, rather than an
intermediary.

I think the thing that people forget with regard to unions and employers is
they are simply about redressing a massive power imbalance in a potentially
mutually beneficial relationship.

~~~
slavik81
Unions are essentially a form of cartel, and they suffer from all the same
organizational problems. Workers are faced with a prisoner's dilemma. The best
individual choice is always to defect. To keep a unified front you need some
sort of centralized force that prevents people from defecting. In traditional
unions, it is enforced by law that all employees must join the union if the
shop is unionized.

A secret voluntary union would lack that unifying force and would collapse as
workers pursue their personal self-interest.

~~~
cam_l
True. But corporates seems to survive with majority cooperation and occasional
defection. Perhaps there does need to be some mechanism to 'tat' the 'tits'
who defect.

My take is that the major obstacle workers face in negotiating conditions,
pay, and work, is information asymmetry. Having everyone negotiate from an
increased negotiating position should help the honest workers as well as the
defectors.. and one would hope, the employers.

~~~
rkofman
If all you're looking for is information symmetry, you don't need unions. You
just need to have a representative sample publicly publish their salaries /
other comp details.

------
aerovistae
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I feel like people unionize when they're being taken
advantage of and need to fight for better employment conditions....but
developers have it pretty nice, all in all, most of us. I don't feel much
incentive to unionize when I'm making $50/hr+ and have unlimited vacation.

~~~
NetStrikeForce
> and have unlimited vacation.

How much of that is paid?

~~~
dlhavema
unlimited vacation is starting to be more common... the company that is buying
the place i currently work at is doing it as well..

they don't have to keep PTO hours on the books, and don't have to pay out for
hours not taken when you leave either...

~~~
NetStrikeForce
So it's unpaid leave? How many paid vacation days do you have per year?

~~~
aerovistae
For me it was as simple as I said: unlimited paid vacation. What mattered was
getting your work done, not being in the office as much as possible.

------
mrmaximus
"Why am I getting reprimanded?" "Because you ran a unit test..." "What is
wrong with that?" "It's Brian's job to press that key, not yours. You violated
Union rules"

~~~
6t6t6t6
\- "Hi, we decided to change the terms of your contract and you have to sign
this document right now... or else."

\- "Sorry, I need to talk with he Union first to see what my options."

\- "Hi, we decided that you need to come to work all the weekends in March and
we still have to decide if we will pay for the overtime and how much".

\- "Mmm... Well, let me ask the Union, but I think that this is not going to
happen... I actually had lots of plans for the weekends in March."

\- "Hi, you are fired. Not because you are a bad professional but because you
ask too many questions and because you don't show yourself submissive in front
of me".

\- "Mmm... I am afraid that you will need to have a long conversation with the
lawyers of the Union first".

That's what Unions are for in many countries.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
All of those response are incorrect. The correct answer is "I can call my
network and have five offers inside of a month that pay me as much or more
than I'm making here."

If you need a union to push back for you, well, sorry but most likely you're
not keeping up with the average for your profession.

~~~
giaour
Imagine that you're on an H1-B visa. If you utter the phrase you've suggested,
you could be fired on the spot and have until the end on the day to leave the
country.

If, instead, you're engaged in a collective labor action, your employer cannot
retaliate by firing you.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
How about fixing the H1-B law instead?

~~~
giaour
Sure. Until that happens, developers should unionize. An adequate fix would
take years to implement, and congress is unlikely to pass one within the next
4-8 years, so I don't think your suggestion is likely to be relevant within a
reasonable timeframe.

------
DelaneyM
You seem to be describing donating to the EFF. That's good, I support the EFF.

But an EFF which gets to negotiate my salary for me? No thanks. I'll keep
donating to the EFF and just not join the union, thanks.

Without collective bargaining, what you're describing isn't a "new style of
union" but an advocacy organization. We probably need more of those, but
they're _really hard_ to run effectively.

------
mixedCase
I despise the bullyish behavior of most unions, in fact, the central
organization that coordinates them in my country has often been called our
"shadow government" due to how they blackmail the state on every issue to take
advantage and force them to be wasteful with tax dollars, causing far more
damage than what they undo.

I am just a single person, but I wouldn't be caught dead in an union just from
what I've seen them do.

~~~
scott_karana
How are companies themselves any different, except that they lobby publicly,
with propagandist PR fanfare?

------
shams93
If it wasn't for Steve Jobs we might have agents like Hollywood actors. To me
the real question is why don't we have agents like actors and basketball
players? We could be like actors and have both a union and our own agents. But
thanks to Jobs conspiring to hold back engineer income we have a situation
where we are often leveraged into poverty.

~~~
gigatexal
Leveraged into poverty? Developer salaries range from 50-65k starting to 250k
plus. Then there's freelancing.

~~~
quinequine
Depends on where you're at, right? You'll find tons of developers on Upwork
willing to work for less.

Isn't that the future for most of us? We're tomorrow's factory workers.
Corporations have already shown that they'll work to suppress wages.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

The long game is to promote STEM fields and increase supply - pushing down
wages and benefits.

~~~
nightski
No offense, because this isn't directed at you specifically, but developers on
Upwork selling themselves short are doing so because they lack the social
skills necessary to thrive in a freelance environment.

There are so many business opportunities to build quality software for a very
steep price it's incredible. But developers can have a pretty hard time
understanding how to sell themselves.

~~~
gremlinsinc
Well, what if the union was more of a supplier of Benefits if contract worker
(Group healthcare plan, dental, vision), had a lawyer on staff to checkout
contracts to make sure they're up and up for freelancers, helped encourage
companies to raise incomes for devs across the board, and also had a marketing
team/sales team dedicated to helping freelancers who are primarily introvert
sell their skills for the top dollar...though -- you could work for an outfit
like Topcoders which does do a lot of these types of things..

~~~
madamelic
You are describing consulting.

------
fiedzia
> Why don't developers unionize?

They don't need to. For any combination of those goals, you can find some
company that aligns with them, so just go there. It may not be google or
facebook, but you have choice.

~~~
quinequine
You're right. Most developers don't care about these sort of issues. No need
to unionize if you don't care about effecting change. And when you do, just
send a donation and call it a day.

------
LyndsySimon
I can only speak for myself, but I will never join a union. It's a political
thing for me. I know not everyone feels that way, but I also know that I'm not
the only one strongly opposed to unionization.

~~~
quinequine
I completely understand. How do you feel about collective bargaining in
general?

Consider a case where let's say the founder of an extremely successful yet 50
person software company sells the company for an ungodly sum ($250mil+) to
Corporation X but as a part of that deal this founder doesn't provide any
equity to 80% of his/her employees who helped build the company?

What should they do then?

~~~
LyndsySimon
> How do you feel about collective bargaining in general?

In a perfect world, where the government doesn't restrain the company from
firing everyone and hiring new employees, I'm fine with it. I wouldn't want to
participate, but I see no reason why it would be a unfair.

> Consider a case where let's say the founder of an extremely successful yet
> 50 person software company sells the company for an ungodly sum ($250mil+)
> to Corporation X but as a part of that deal this founder doesn't provide any
> equity to 80% of his/her employees who helped build the company?

> What should they do then?

Either continue working for the new owners or find employment elsewhere.

If employees wanted equity, then they should have negotiated that as part of
their terms of employment.

------
czep
There's probably some element of the Prisoner's Dilemma at play here. I'd join
a union if I knew that we'd all have normal working conditions, no forced or
coerced overtime, guaranteed health care, a pension plan, and a reserve in
case of strike (the only thing unions have to negotiate with management). I'd
accept a sizable pay cut if all that could be brought to the table.

But unless there's critical mass, it's every code monkey for his or herself.
So I contract myself to the highest bidder and wait for the revolution :)

~~~
solipsism
Why would a pay cut be involved? It's not clear to me the would be a pay cut.
And without a pay cut how is the Prisoners Dilemma relevant?

~~~
dsacco
In principle there is a pay cut if you have to pay dues, if nothing else.

------
kardashev
I was at a conference once setting up a booth for a company I worked for. We
ended up borrowing an electric screwdriver from a booth next door, but had to
turn it _by hand_ because only union members were allowed to use electric
tools to setup a booth.

Unions may have helped once upon a time, but now they just take money from
your compensation to pay union managers who work against a company being
efficient (which makes pay even less over time).

------
cperciva
What you're describing isn't a union; it's a professional association like the
ACM.

------
meddlepal
No thanks. I prefer to negotiate on my own and represent myself. I don't trust
unions and I think they lead to massive inefficiency.

I would support a professional organization however that performs some amount
of accreditation and peer review especially if it led to better hiring
decisions throughout the industry and higher quality software.

------
jones1618
Developers like to think they are above blue collar concerns but I've
witnessed or heard first-person accounts of workplace abuses for otherwise
"privileged" developers. Although we have marketable skills and relative
"career security", that doesn't make switching jobs any less disruptive for
our career path, our families, health plans, stress levels, etc.

So, I like your idea of a developer's union with emphasis on professional
standards, EFF principles, etc. It would also be a powerful ally for
responding to workplace abuses I've seen such as: 1) excessive, mandatory work
hours. I know game developers that are required to work 60-80 hour work weeks
and sleep at their desks. 2) outsourcing abuse: Having to manage and train
offshore "resources" who become your replacement. 3) Keep-a-good-engineer down
syndrome. Organizationally suppressing engineers from advancing so they stay
in essential, non-executive roles.

And, if you think that your cushy job is immune to these problems, consider
that I've seen nearly every one of these conditions arise (usually after a
management change) in otherwise humane companies with positive corporate
cultures.

While a union might not prevent every individual abuse, it might provide a
check on companies who essentially hold your "cushy job" for ransom while they
take advantage of the fact that you are salaried (not paid hourly) and can
work from home any day or night.

------
RangerScience
I like the line of your thinking, but - seems to me the other commenters have
it. Sounds more like a advocacy group, or a professional association.

I think the actual answer to your question is "for many of us, things are
pretty good". Unionization happens with wide-spread abuses; when things
generally suck. I don't know what wide-spread abuses there are in software,
particularly salaried positions.

I don't necessarily need a union, but I do need the information necessary to
negotiate better - that sounds like a professional association.

------
zubat
The market is fluid enough - which isn't to say it's in good shape - that
developers who are decent can usually find a high enough salary to stay quiet
and cooperate.

Unions arise when workers have a reason not to stay quiet and they lack
recourse. But in tech the response to not getting what you want tends to be to
raise funds and start your own company, or at minimum freelance. This is
imperfect and allows vulnerable people to slip through the cracks. But again,
it's not enough to make for a turning point, at least yet.

------
appleflaxen
When unions are organized, they are interested in improving the workers'
positions. Over time, though, they just become one more entity in the
workplace, and advocate for their own power and money over all else. It is a
corrosive influence that starts out ok, but degrades to a very low common
denominator, and puts a company on the ropes. There is no better example of
this than detroit.

------
specialist
Two big reasons.

#1 Abundant labor, meaning buyers market, so developers don't have leverage.
This has a pretty good primer on the topic:

Democracy At Work

[https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-
Capitalism/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-
Capitalism/dp/1608462471)

#2 I'm as pinko commie liberal socialist as they come, and I can't imagine how
even the most well intentioned (least alt-factual neo-reactionary libertarian)
group of developers can coordinate collectively. Said another way, I can't
imagine preventing the free-rider, defector problem.

This book covers the sociology of collective action:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action)

Maybe, just maybe, there's a unifying issue or policy, like protecting privacy
rights, that could motivate most developers to pull in the same direction...
Just to throw out an idea as an example.

~~~
wattt
Wow you and I live in alternate universes. In my experience, and having been
without work at various times, and freelancing... I believe developers are
scarce. You need an aptitude and some (self?) training to take part and a lot
of people can't be bothered.

That being said, I see you describe yourself as a "pinko commie" and as a
business owner who was at one time a union administrator in a past life I
would never hire you, so perhaps that explains the bubble you are living in.

~~~
NoPiece
Good developers are scarce, bad ones aren't.

~~~
tacostakohashi
I think this is probably the crux of why organizing isn't appealing for
developers / tech workers.

There is huge disparity and in worker skill levels, productivity and salaries.
Lots of mediocre developers on, say $60,000, but also lots of guys on $150,000
and up, with pretty different concerns (e.g., maybe the guy on $200,000 can
live with a few late nights).

Pretty different from, say, auto workers or bus drivers where you have
thousands of staff at the same skill and salary level, with the same interests
and concerns.

------
gremlinsinc
One thing I would like is a specifically 'contractor' umbrella corp/union
hybrid--you work for the corporation... but you VOTE on how much the CEO/Board
can take home - and you pay dues/etc.. to be officially an employee on paper
only -- so that the umbrella corp can collectively bargain for decent
healthcare/dental/etc --and other benefits AND -- say you just started
contracting 6 months ago...well you have to wait 2 years to get a mortgage..
if you're an employee that wait time is only 6 months.. and probably other
benefits of being an 'employee'...

You could sync it up w/ your bank account so it'll have a paystub record that
takes your contractor earnings and puts all that as payments..or something not
sure on legalities or specifics but having just started working from as a
self-employed contractor and my wife just getting laid off finding getting
mortgages and healthcare is a PAIN IN THE ASS!

------
russelluresti
Historically speaking, unions do not form until the workers are in a
crunch/threatened with losing their jobs. During these times, things are good
for most developers so they don't see the need to unionize.

Unions are also only effective because they are generally location-based. If
you want to build a building in New York, you have to get a construction crew
that can work in New York. That makes it very easy for a group to unionize New
York workers - because their tools for bargaining (e.g. strikes) are easy to
carry out when centralized. But on the web, this is much more difficult. If
you unionized all U.S. developers, companies would simply outsource to other
countries where the union doesn't exist. And while there are a few
international unions, AFAIK none of them are very effective at organizing. In
short, digital work is very easy to outsource and makes unions completely
ineffectual.

------
tacostakohashi
What you're talking about sounds more like professionalizing than unionizing
(although, outside the U.S., the contrast is less profound).

For the reasons you cite, it's a nice idea. The immediate answer is because
nobody would agree on what a developer is (do front end developers count? web
designers? excel macros?).

------
solipsism
I think a key component to unions is a marked class dichotomy. Blue collar on
one side, white on the other. This leads to strong "us vs them" tribal
instincts to prevail. I don't think that dichotomy is as strong in tech
industries, if it exists at all.

~~~
specialist
Very interesting observation.

I had always seen the fight as between capital and labor. But then again, I'm
an elitist white urbanite.

The book Democracy at Work (linked upthread) attempts to find a third way.
Worker owned democratically run organizations. My personal interest comes from
when I used democratic decision making on my own teams, to great effect. Alas,
we didn't control the capital, so our efforts had limited broader success.

------
WorldMaker
Part of it is that unions are associated with blue-collar work and developers
feel that they are "too white-collar" for that sort of thing.

There's no collar boundary to unionization, of course, but there is a
perception that there is.

~~~
rileymat2
Many professionals like lawyers and doctors may not have Unions, but have
strong professional oranizations.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
Lawyers and doctors require a extensive examination and continuing education
requirements in order to get and keep their accreditation in their
professional organizations. Developers, as a group, are unlikely to support
such a professional organization because many of them got their expertise in
non-traditional / unconventional ways and would fear being excluded.

~~~
WorldMaker
Which leads back to unions as the next best fit. If developers and the
software industry don't want to deal with professional organizations and
professional certifications then unions are the next best option for
collective action.

------
booleandilemma
Because things are good now. Developers are making decent salaries. In most
cases far better than their friends who chose other career paths.

But I don't think it will always be this way. With the rise of bootcamps and
the influx of new developers we're going to see over the next 15 years, thanks
to all of today's kids learning to code, I think developers are at serious
risk of becoming commoditized. I see a future where a developer is paid the
salary of a retail cashier and it scares me.

~~~
mrmaximus
> I see a future where a developer is paid the salary of a retail cashier and
> it scares me.

The only way that will happen is if Point-of-Sale systems become so complex
that a developer has to run them, or development becomes as easy as punching
buttons on a Point-of-Sale system.

~~~
booleandilemma
The difficulty of development doesn't have to change, and I'm not saying it
will, but the number of people who know how to program will increase.

~~~
dsacco
That concerns me as well. If you'd like some consolation, make a job post and
interview "senior software engineers" sometime. Try fizzbuzz as a first
question (yes, even in 2017).

------
fleitz
Because developers don't see any advantage in unionizing.

It's like asking why cats don't herd.

Also many of the issues that matter to you don't matter to developers, or
aren't convincingly argued.

If you want developers to unionize the first step is consulting them on what
changes they'd like to see and then creating an organization to effect those
changes, treat the union like a lean startup creating an MVP and I bet you may
have success.

------
shaftway
Honestly, I don't understand the role of unions in modern society. At least
not in major metropolitan areas.

The original goal of a union was to protect people who had no other realistic
employment oppotunities. If you lived in rural Pennsylvania digging in a coal
mine, I totally get unionization. More power to you (/me beats his chest in
solidarity).

But you're talking about the modern age for a group that has arguably more
career mobility than any other career in the history of the world. If I don't
like the conditions at a job, I'll pick up and leave. There are hundreds of
jobs I can select from; the tech world is literally my oyster. If enough
people leave, conditions will change, but frankly I won't care because I won't
be there. Protection against mass layoffs? That sounds like you want to drag
the company down. I'd rather see 50% of the people continue on with a job
indefinitely than see 95% with a job for a few months until the company shuts
its doors.

These factors makes unions uninteresting for me. But there are other factors
that make me openly hostile to unions.

I think that collective bargaining in pay brings the average salary up, but
I'm not an average engineer. I like to think I'm in at least the top 25% (I'd
_like_ to say I'm in the 5%, but I don't know if I am), and so my assumption
is that unions will bring my salary _down_. Frankly I don't care about
bringing low-end engineers' salaries up at the cost of mine. I assume that the
company isn't totally irrational, and it is capable of deciding for itself how
important employees are and compensate them accordingly.

Also, my experience with unions in the past had to do with my spouse working
in education. The union there was not acting in teachers' best interest. They
routinely brought in retirement savings pitches that advocated terrible
choices for the teachers, any proposed change was immediately mired in
committees where it would languish and die, and when you did have an issue the
union was outright hostile (spouse was laid off over summer break for the
crime of being pregnant, union abruptly stopped discussing the issue with us
after a cutoff date until we'd paid the next year's dues, when we paid union
said "thank you, we're not going to pursue this, the school's decision
stands").

------
AnimalMuppet
Why don't developers unionize? Because they don't want, to, and nobody can
make them.

Next question: Why don't they want to? Because they detest bureaucracy, and
they see unions as another bureaucracy that they would have to put up with,
and they don't want the headaches. They get enough of pointy-haired bosses;
they don't want another one, even if the new one is supposed to be on their
side.

------
flyby
Ignoring administrative details, a union is simply enough usually self-
interested people becoming sufficiently one in purpose for long enough for it
to be in an industry's best interests to cooperate with that union of people -
instead of self-interested individuals - in order to enlist the labor that
industry needs to achieve its goals.

The reason it hasn't happened is there isn't sufficient denial of self-
interest for unionized interest to achieve critical mass to become a singular
force to be reckoned with.

------
MrLeap
Advocate for those affected by automation? That's like the teamsters
advocating for bicycle couriers who lost their jobs to UPS. I don't understand
how that would work. Good luck though.

------
robin-berjon
It's only a small subset of what you describe, and I wouldn't call it a union
as such, but the WICG ([https://wicg.io/](https://wicg.io/)) was created as a
means to help developers organise and produce the Web standards they need, to
somewhat counterbalance some of the influence of browser vendors.

------
wattt
Scarcity. Once you know how to program, and others know that, everyone wants
to hire you. There are simply not enough developers yet for all the things
people want to do right now.

------
kahnpro
Unfortunately so many developers are making enough money that it goes to their
heads. The demand for our skills gives us a very rare luxury that we can
actually negotiate employment contracts somewhat fairly, and so many
developers just cannot conceive of other professions where it's the company's
way or the highway.

We don't face enough hardships to see the value in unions. Unfortunately it
won't last forever.

------
substack
Collective action is hard, particularly when tech companies form and dissolve
very quickly and turnover is high. In addition to unions, worker ownership
through cooperatives is another avenue for better conditions. In worker
cooperatives, workers own the business, so business objectives are much more
aligned with labor. Cooperatives don't have to worry about management union-
busting or moving production elsewhere.

------
sshine
Developers do unionize. Some developers. In some countries. [Bernie]Take for
example Denmark[/Bernie]. In Denmark, PROSA is the union of IT professionals
and lives up to several of your ideas of a new style of union.

They have a strict definition (job titles, educational background) that
excludes designers but includes front-end developers. But since IT workers,
compared to so many other industries, are rather well off, PROSA is not a
typical worker's union. I assume the main reason why people are members is to
get access to the part-government funded unemployment fund, and the secondary
reason is to support its IT politics.

Yes, they've handled large-scale conflict and strikes in the past, and yes,
they handle collective agreements for workers in a few larger organisations.
But because there's so little conflict in this sector in Denmark, it is mostly
handled on a case-by-case basis (where the union membership fee can be seen as
a subscription to legal aid) and the union can spend its energy on[1]:

\- Lobbying for better IT policy. Unlike like-minded non-profits, the union
has a good budget, full-time employees, career lobbyists etc. Still, IT policy
is not being taken very serious in Denmark (being just a series of tubes)

\- Running citizen-focused campaigns that focus on privacy, use of FOSS, the
free internet, TPP, automation, etc.

\- Donating, on occasion, to non-profits that really need it. I think EFF were
targets at least once.

It does not maintain or create standards. It does not hold companies
responsible for privately made security choices. (The media does to some
extent, but as you may have read, paying for security is more expensive than
screwing up and dealing with the consequences.) It does not support FOSS
directly, AFAIK, but since Denmark is such a small place, there are active
FOSS players both among union members and employees.

Among other things PROSA does, which you have not mentioned that a new style
of union could is: Create a geographically based community. Some meetup groups
use their meeting rooms (e.g. Functional Copenhageners; MF#K). And there's a
lot of user groups organized within PROSA, so in a sense they've taken over
the social aspect of LUGs (Linux User Groups); e.g. makers, roboticists, board
gamers, network admins, etc.

If you ask me, unions in IT are useful if you're the hundred-something or
thousand-something employee in a large corporation. If you can't simply switch
jobs from one month to the next. If you don't get paid so well that you could
take months off if you wanted. And IT is large enough to encompass people for
whom that makes total sense. And then there's those who probably get paid more
without a collective wage agreement. In Denmark, some of those choose to stay
for the cozy atmosphere. :)

[1]: Note, I never worked for PROSA. I'm sure they do a hell of a lot more
union-related work than I can imagine exists. Also, I know nothing of how IT
unions work elsewhere. I just wrote articles for their magazine while I was a
student.

~~~
specialist
I meant to reply to this. Thank you (!) for the PROSA tip. I will be studying
it. I'm sure I'll have to update my (world)views accordingly!

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owebmaster
Digital nomad communities are a new type of union. I'm starting to develop the
network around me with this mindset (as I'm a digital nomad myself).

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herbst
This is all happening on multiple levels. EFF beeing a big one, CCC also well
known, next to their many small local branches.

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w_t_payne
Unions may be the wrong model. I'd prefer to see developers organise along the
same lines as the legal profession. I.e. instead of encouraging more people to
enter the profession we start to lobby for legislation that erects barriers,
requires professional qualifications etc... We should restrict the supply of
developers and start to perpetuate memes that normalise a significant increase
in societal and economic status.

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slantaclaus
"Advocate for those affected by automation" \-- sounds like a conflict of
interest to me.

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rtfm666
quinequine: Would you please drop me a line via my mail (lukewm AT riseup DOT
net). I'd love to start up a dialogue about this. It's been something that is
interesting me a lot lately.

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q3r3qr3q
Nice speech, Tony Robbins.

------
itbeho
"Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic
organization there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization.
Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many
of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some
agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective
farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples
are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of
education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff,
etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep
control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions
within the organization."

[http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html](http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html)

~~~
dsacco
Do you have some more commentary to add about this to make it relevant to the
discussion? You just threw out a sort of related quote without any connecting
context to the question at hand.

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goelevator
Unionization doesn't provide freedom, it provides more structure. Sure it can
benefit you as times are hard, but unlike physical labor or hazardous work
conditions, the need that you seem to be wanting is not a union. You are
looking for ways for the status quo of employees to change from their
employers. The ownership and lack of respect many companies have on their
employees can create issues.

What if instead you fought for a different system that would put more control
in the hands of groups of developers without unions? What if you solidified
what it meant to create teams that can stand up for what they believe inside
the organizations?

I think teams will end up running most organizations, if many are not already.
I read everyday about some team leaving and forming an entire product for
another company. Why is this so hard on a massive scale?

Why not create a movement for teams inside companies to change the relation vs
external structures like unions.

Forget unions. Build your teams and stand up for what the team believes in,
regardless of what company you work for.

