Is an union for sw developers still a bad idea?

It was never a bad idea. There are some problems that just can't be solved with throwing more money at it. The anti-union propaganda is so strong in some areas of this industry that it's manifested in that form of general apathy. Just ask yourself why it's always the highest paid workers who fight against unions the most.

> Given the state of the market and how corporations are treating their human capital nowadays do you think an union for software developers is a viable thing?

I mean, we/they are still getting treated better than majority of other people.

I'm not convinced unions would make things better. Teachers and nurses(not an exhaustive list, just the first things that came to mind) have unions and are still criminally underpaid compared to the value they provide to society.

A SW union would probably normalize the salary range to bring the floor up and the ceiling down. And reward seniority/time served compared instead of performance reviews, like other unionized jobs.

If you ask 10 different people what the purpose of a union is and (more importantly) how it achieves that purpose, you will get 10 different answers.

I do not have any specific grievances I feel need addressed. So the idea of a union as a "nice to have" feels like an unnecessary risk. It's very easy that the union takes my dues and fights for causes I have no interest in, or even puts my job at risk.

So I am personally wary, but I can see where particular industries where workers are more exploited (videogames, for example) it's an easier personal trade-off to make.

I have been involved in organizing several unions with software developers, two in my own workplaces. My first involvement in an organizing campaign was a decade ago.

It was always a good idea. As this recession deepens, I expect many more software workers to recognize that without organization, they are vulnerable to economic instability and executive caprice.

I am currently a member of Digital Media United[1] and active in helping other tech workers organize as part of CODE-CWA. My email address is in my profile, don't hesitate to get in touch if you are ready to start organizing.

1: https://twitter.com/webuildnpr 2: https://twitter.com/CODE_CWA

Unions are not a bad idea; they're just tackling an impossible problem.

The economics literature in the 1960's and 70's proved that employees will be largely unable to capture the benefit of increased productivity due to excess coordination costs relative to owners -- even when unions try to address those costs. The intractibility of the problem, ironically, stems from laws protecting the free enterprise of the employee, which increase coordination costs. No one wants to lose those freedoms.

So there's no more reason to believe unions will work now than to believe that more hardware will always fix scaling issues.

The actual solution has been outsourcing - for the outsourcing firm (OF). At scale they have negotiating leverage, particularly over time as a company becomes dependent on them. That has lead to a huge shift in wage benefits from the US to India and China et. al in IT. It works so long at the OF employee has no better alternative, but it's still the OF owner who gets the lion's share of the benefit (witness India's richest men).

Everyone plays this game, some better than others. Apple is fully outsourced for manufacturing, but their iPhone production line take ~1400 workers, while Android's take ~100. So Apple is much "nicer" in this world, but operates within its constraints. Businesses who ignore these constraints don't survive and don't get funded.

To get power, you have to own something - tangible or IP - that someone else will pay a lot for. That's the only solution. MBA's and JD's exist only to make sure that when you do, you don't give it away -- or they take it from you.

All American style unions are a bad idea and generally don't work. You guys need European style unions. Industry wide and with actual teeth.

I think the concept that "the purpose of a union is to prevent layoffs from ever occurring" is harmful to the movement.

If that is why you want to join a union, you will be disappointed.

shit, we cant even agree on tabs vs spaces. How do you expect us to collectively bargain?

There is never going to be a software developers union until you can accurately define what the job of a software developer is.

There are no industry standard tools or procedures for the role. Every job description is unique. There are no education requirements. There is no licensing body. There is no boundary for what constitutes software development and what doesn't. A group which ~every knowledge worker in the world can be part of is effectively useless.

There is a union for SW devs and any other tech people in Sweden. But then again, there is a union for every field of every work here.

I'm in a software union that covers a few sites. Its useful for the big sites. Who experience more drastic shifts in work so having defined layoff policies(retention credits and such) and such matters more.

But im in a proportionally smaller site that does unrelated business and has different concerns and gets completely ignored because our population is too small, so as a result our concerns and success is completely irrelevant at contract time.

In my infrequent idle time im trying to figure out what it would take to eject the union from just my location. It may be advantageous to the company to keep it here though, it suppresses our wages, so that complicates things.

Workers at companies slashing their headcounts may wish they had a union.

There are also alternatives to unions, like lobbying groups to counterbalance corporate interests that try to get laws passed that drive salaries down. Or communities that share information so people in the industry make more informed decisions.

I got downvoted for bringing this topic up in another thread, so I think most of hn folks are sell outs

Consider also the possibility of professional licensing.

You are asking to the wrong crowd.

Yeah I don't understand why software engineers buy into the libertarian pov.. Professors, doctors, nurses, teachers, police, fire, electricians, plumbers and so on are unionized. Not everywhere but lots of places.

No, I don't think it is viable at large, but there are opportunities within fields and sectors.

The factors that make unionization particularly difficult are first the demographics of developers. The tendency for SW developers to be white, wealthy, and male set a prior political disinclination toward unionization that makes unionization more challenging. Education, tending to be higher, doesn't make up for these other factors.

Secondly, SW developers tend to attract a disproportionate number of self-ascribed libertarian types[1] - the sort who tend to see social relations reified as contracts. As such, a conceptualization of class and class relations aren't a part of their mental model of work.

As I said, I see these tendencies make unionization more challenging, however, there are sectors where demographics and culture may make exceptions. In more exploitative roles, QA and Ops may have greater potential, and sectors like gamedev the ability to commodify workers may ultimately make unionization easier to realize.

Looking toward the long term, projects like Women in STEM, or the myriad others that seek demographic equity in STEM could shift tech population in ways that make unionization a possibility. Sectors that are boarderline now, could find themselves more open to unionization in the future. I'm a bit hesitant to even add this because it's speculative and easy to find counter examples, especially in personal accounts. I'm strictly speaking about aggregate groups at the business org level which is conveniently appropriate to unionization organization and voting. Maybe you dissent, or are in an industry or field which dissents, but a specific counter example to broad trends does not an argument dispel.

1. I'm not placing a truth value of their self-ascription claims and I really don't want to discuss anything more than how this disposition affects their behavior.