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I’m a 4th year computer science student, what can I do to support tech Unions?
you can volunteer in some alt-albor organization that supports unions externally, like Tech Workers Coalition: https://techworkerscoalition.org/
Looks promising! Glad to see there’s a group active in Canada!
yep, it’s one of the new chapters and it’s pretty active and growing fast. You should join.
I tried to get my highschool leftist group to do a guerilla union rights leafleting campaign, specifically targeting Walmart, teaching all workers of how to unionize, what their rights are, and what anti-union lies to look out for.
They said “unions aren’t leftist” and kicked me out.
that’s why you do union organizing with organizers and not with edgy teenagers.
Jesus Christ.
Workers skeptical of unions in a survey of 1,900 tech professionals conducted by the career site Blind cited specific concerns: that unions are “not meritocratic,” “prevent innovation,” and “hold back earnings of top performers.”
Looking at my non union job where idiots make millions and it has taken years to get even the basics of ci/cd implemented.
that unions are “not meritocratic,” “prevent innovation,” and “hold back earnings of top performers.”
When they make comments like that, they always assume that they are the “top performers”, getting the best deal already (edit: or on track to be one of them in the future). That assumption is usually wrong.
In a potentially more ominous development, SpaceX, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, and the University of Southern California have in separate legal actions challenged the constitutionality of the NLRB
Nuts, didn’t realize Trader Joe’s was on the evil list.
Lots of useful examples in the article though, thanks for sharing.
Serious question from an idiot: I work in tech but I’m the only guy in the company doing so (solo IT) so there’s no chance of a Union, right, because I’m all alone and no one to unionize with? Or are unions able to cover multiple companies, like The IBEW or something? I guess I’ve never really looked much into it. I do actually like my job and have successfully negotiated better pay on my own behalf, so maybe it’s not necessary? Minus I am in an at-will state so might be not worth it?
you can unionize with the rest of the workers. They are called “wall to wall unions” when you do not organize by department/profession but by company. In some countries they are the norm.
Tech unionization is something that kind of makes me want to start another company.
It would be interesting to go union by default from the get go. Yes I’d be setting up conflict, but I expect everyone that would join would be very into the experiment and we’d all want to make it work well.
are you thinking of a cooperative?
That is absolutely one model, but I think it might be better to have an explicit union setup to avoid the co op elements being perverted into old school capitalism over time and nobody wants to unionize there because it is nominally a co op.
It might be more interesting to setup an explicit capitalist vs union structure where the capitalist side has strict bylaws in place to enforce union negotiation and support. That would probably be more honest over time as I think systems tend towards power for those that are running things one way or another.
A co op could work really well though if the company stayed smaller and had strict guidelines for membership and clear processes for removal of bad actors.
Definitely worth a lot more thought.
both coops and unionized companies operate within a capitalist structure and on the market (usually). Neither model can emancipate itself from its context. So I’m not sure about what aspect you expect to be different. And coops can be run with good governance where power structures are explicit, managed and democratically altered to reflect the values of the members. The case where you have few people controlling everything is a dysfunction, it’s not part of the model (and also can happen with unions).
That fear of the company letting you go for anything at any time…with a union they just can’t do that
They also can’t do that in countries with workers rights. This should be a standard right, not something that requires the workers to unionize.
Edit: I understand that unions make it easier to enforce.
A lot of legal protections for workers aren’t enforced, or are difficult to enforce due to standards of evidence and other factors. A union is a worker-controlled means of enforcement. Instead of appealing to power from above, workers can exert their own collective power from below. In other words, it’s better than having rights on paper, because the government can’t just sign a piece of paper to take them away from you or decide not to enforce the rights.
redundancy good, more attacks on bad guys good, more problems for bad guys good, hurt bad people hurt bad people
