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Does Silicon Valley Need More Labor Unions? (salon.com)
Salon recently talked to Jeffrey Buchanan, who two years ago co-founded a labor rights group "that highlights the plight of security officers, food-service workers, janitors and shuttle-bus drivers in the region." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
The situation among Silicon Valley's low-wage contract workers has become so perilous that in January, thousands of security guards working at immensely profitable companies like Facebook and Cisco followed the shuttle-bus drivers and voted to unionize in an effort to collectively bargain for higher wages and better benefits. The upcoming labor contract negotiations between the roughly 3,000 security guards (represented by SEIU United Service Workers West) and their employers is one of the biggest developments in Silicon Valley labor organizing to happen this year. Buchanan says there's also a broader push this year to get tech companies to be proactive in ensuring these workers can make ends meet, even if these companies have to pay more for the services they procure...
A paper published last year by University of California at Santa Cruz researchers Chris Brenner and Kyle Neering estimates between 19,000 and 39,000 contracted service workers are employed in the Valley at any given time... An additional 78,000 workers are at risk of becoming contract employees, according to the study, a number which includes administrative assistants, sales representatives and medium-wage computer programmers. This is part of a larger societal shift in which salaried workers are converted to contractors -- a transition that benefits business owners, in that they don't have to pay benefits and can hire and fire contractors at will.
Buchanan's group represents contractors typically earning "as little as $20,000 a year." But Salon's headline argues that "programmers may be next" in the drive to organize contractors.
A paper published last year by University of California at Santa Cruz researchers Chris Brenner and Kyle Neering estimates between 19,000 and 39,000 contracted service workers are employed in the Valley at any given time... An additional 78,000 workers are at risk of becoming contract employees, according to the study, a number which includes administrative assistants, sales representatives and medium-wage computer programmers. This is part of a larger societal shift in which salaried workers are converted to contractors -- a transition that benefits business owners, in that they don't have to pay benefits and can hire and fire contractors at will.
Buchanan's group represents contractors typically earning "as little as $20,000 a year." But Salon's headline argues that "programmers may be next" in the drive to organize contractors.
Is more housing projects so that prices sink to a bearable level.
The headline asked a question, the answer is obviously "No".
Lots and lots of house boats. When the bay is full of house boats, cloud boats! That's right, in the cloud, literally! And when the cloud is full, contract out to Amazon! They house you right in the warehouse!
Can't afford to live in Silicon Valley? Live somewhere else. Problem solved.
In the employers favor there are endless new people fresh willing to get sucked in to replace those that figure out that a lot of silicon valley these days is a venture capitalist money laundering scheme. The recent book Chaos Monkeys draws the argument out in stark detail. Convince IT and Dev folks that they are wolves and only that sheep need collectivism. Keep up the illusion and that way you can keep fleecing them.
The inmates are running the asylum
We'll make great pets
I left the area and I have never been happier. Yeah, it's my home and my family is still there, but the grass is greener outside of the Bay Area.
Between the VCs, tech "entrepreneurs"', the fruits and nuts; you are better off just about anywhere else - I would say leave California completely.
Anyone who is not senior management needs to be in a union. Don't expect your bosses to be concerned about what is in your best interest - the sole function of a private business in a capitalist society is to return the maximum amount of money to the company's investors (stockholders). You, as a mere worker drone, are just fodder
Making the same as everyone else and keeping bad employees does not appeal to me. There is a reason why the labor movement was communist.
Corporatism != Free Market
Of course it does. You need equal pay sector spanning union rates. Guaranteeing that people who do a similar job get similar pay. Through that companies cannot fight competition by lowering wages. They have to innovate.
Unions work best in industries dominated by an oligopoly of only a handful of corporations. Generally, the workers of each company will have their own union, which will then ally themselves with each other. In a market with many small or medium sized players unions don't tend to be very powerful. Which is not really a problem, as in that case workers have many options which forces employers to compete for workforce, making unions unnecessary.
Manual labour seems like a good solution for silicon valley's unicorn problem.
Just have a look at European countries (not the UK, real Europe). Labour rights protect people from abusive management. They even help to improve company performance.
I work in a Canadian government (unionized) position.
My pay is double, my hours are halved (for those challenged, that's an effective 4x multplier); I have 5 weeks vacation, sick days I can use, 37 weeks of 93% pay parental leave, oh, and an actual pension.
I was one of the 20 year old kids who wondered why unions were needed. I'm 40 now. 25 year old me worked 90, 100 weeks for crazy people 40 year old me knows better.
Unionize. While you're at it, push for agressive regulation of software and IoT devices to restrict supply and introduce barriers to entry as soon as possible.
In my case, I stopped coding a decade ago for finance and that set me up for this role. I'll be financially independent at 45 and then I can do what I want with the rest of my life.
If that sounds attractive, if you're coding now and in a shitty job, you're smart enough to do something else.
Life is better capitalized.
Silicon Valley big elites want h-1b programmers to do the low level work, and illegal aliens to work the unskilled jobs to support the h-1b programmers. If they didn't need America's money, they'd be in India.
Unions put their effort into supporting their members, not the general populace. They spend a trifling amount of time and money campaigning to increase the minimum wage, and that only because in some cases union wages are tied to it. If it weren't for that, they would not give one tenth of one shit about it.
Unions were a necessary step in workers' rights, but now it is time to protect the rights of all workers, without expecting them to unionize piecemeal.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If that were true, why would almost ALL employers do what they can to quash unions?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Why can't employees leave a bad company and go to a good one?
Regulations on health insurance? Court enforcement of non-compete agreements? Regulatory barriers to starting new businesses, especially co-ops and employee-owned corps?
For skilled workers with marketable talents, the desire for a union is usually a symptom of problems, not solutions.
Looks for impediments to the free flow of labor and you'll find the mechanisms that need fixing. But don't expect unions to work against their own interests by working to fix these problems.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I earn $55k doing IT in Silicon Valley with bonuses. I am doing pretty well.
Who would want a union for IT work? I thought we didn't like outsourcing. Because that is how you get more outsourcing.
1) Build a series of apartment complexes
2) Hire a bunch of employees
3) Pay them the absolute bare minimum
4) Let them live in the apartment complexes for free
???
6) Profit
First off let me start by saying unions are necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
then finish by saying the idea is great the implementation always fails in the long haul. Nothing destroys like unadulterated success. /. captcha lashings ./ fortune the end of labor is to gain leisure
An oversupply of ex-employees in the gig economy means fresh contractors will sacrifice pension pay, sick pay, health insurance to get their job back. A union can insure that all employers must include those costs in the contract.
This only works if no institutional knowledge is required.
The last thing Silicon Valley needs is to be more like Pittsburgh or Detroit.
In theory, unions are a balancing force between big bad corp and itty bitty labor.
This balancing force should find a happy medium between being able to have a business and being able to have a life.
They are necessary because business can't help in stepping over the balance point to make the cash that the market feels entitled to.
A little reality check for the markets might be a good thing, but
In practice, unions can't help themselves either.
Instead of forcing a happy operating partnership between labor and capital, they seem to step over the balance point in the other direction.
Often especially to the betterment of the union leadership.
The result is an operating point where you can't have a business and so can't have a life either.
California is supposed to be a place where folks are smarter and can find a better way.
The tech industry there is facing the same challenges that the US auto and steel industries have already faced.
A union solution now should have learned from history and be smart enough not to repeat this.
Are they? I think not, unions may play a useful part in this, but it seems a long shot.
California needs to find a better way to make a partnership between capital and labor.
Unless we are talking about a major union movement in China to balance the playing field?
Only Salon.com would ask a question that stupid.
1) Low pay/benefits.
In some situations, Silicon Valley will offer low pay and no benefits, but only to new hires. This is particularly common in start ups. Competent, Experienced people get god pay and can demand their own benefits. But new people have the right to reasonable pay.
2) Dangerous working conditions.
Silicon Valley does not do this.
3) Ridiculous hours/work.
Silicon Valley is known to do this consistently.
That is two out of three for new/bad workers. Yes, Silicon Valley needs Labor Unions.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
When the car you want costs more than you can afford, you get a different car.
Likewise, when your job pays less than you need, you get a different job.
What people are trying to do with jobs is the equivalent of buying a car on loan, driving it off the lot, and then try to renegotiate the price while refusing to give it back.
No.
Are all Trump supporters mentally ill or just the vast majority?
As a person who works in IT and teaches, I am in a union (former president) in one world, but not in the other. The wisdom that I can share with you is this:
The first and foremost benefit to being in a union is collective bargaining. This not only determines wages and benefits, but also creates an equitable system for minorities. If you are wondering why there is a lack of women and black people in IT it is because they are systematically undervalued and discriminated against.
The second benefit of being in a union is due process. Contrary to popular belief, this does not protect bad workers. It does, however, guarantee a fair process when applying discipline up to termination.
The third benefit of being in a union is insurance and legal access. In the education world, when a principal threatened the employment of my wife for not volunteering to stay after school hours because she was lactating and needed to feed our child, the lawyer stepped in. Strangely enough, the school had been violating State mandated workplace time rules that the lawyer had actually written. His fees were paid for through insurance paid for with member dues.
Now, to dispel any FUD about unions:
Unions are prohibited, by law, from spending any dues money for political purposes. They do, however, solicit contributions for political purposes.
Unions do not prevent employers, such as GM from closing manufacturing facilities and moving production to other countries.
Unions are a victim of their own success. When asking yourself what have unions ever done for the general public, consider laws passed regarding:
maternity leave
overtime pay
40 hour work week
minimum wages
workers compensation
employer based healthcare / healthcare for all (ACA in U.S., Universal in other countries)
sick days
outlawing discrimination
child labor
workking conditions
OSHA
whistleblowers
People take these things for granted now, but businesses are either trying to weaken these laws or move labor to parts of the world that do not have these laws. Unions are therefore not a thing of the past, but something that are always needed to secure the future.
The bottom line is that H1B visas would not be an issue if IT workers had strong unions. IT workers would not always be on call or working 60 hour weeks if they had strong unions. IT workers would not suffer age discrimination if they had strong unions.
Last year, I filed 5 W-2 forms and a Schedule S (IT Consulting) on my taxes. I have the opportunity to work with lots of employers, including some that outsource work to India. I have perspective, and agree that IT workers are sheep who are convinced they are wolves.
The reality is that IT workers have no protection, and are blind to the fact that they need it until it is too late. With experience comes wisdom. Unfortunately, your colleagues are replaced before they acquire it. Don't be stupid. Unionize your workplace before you are replaced too.
The problem isn't so much lack of unions as it is the existence of a second-tier contractor status.
Get rid of that and you get rid of the problem.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In more populous states and in the cities especially, it's very easy to find work.
Ohio isn't exactly friendly to (re-)entry-level IT/CS work. Southwest Ohio, even moreso with the myriad of staffing agencies from whoknowswhere in the I-75 corridor.
Should one be in the Dayton metro area and also is looking for IT/CS work that doesn't involve Wright-Patt or some onerous certification requirements (IAT 8570, I'm looking at you!), good luck. You'd have to bankrupt yourself to find somewhere willing to take you on.
If you're wondering, I've interviewed as far out as Columbus.
Let the free market do its thing. If a company wants better workers, pay more and treat them better. If your employer is crap, leave. It actually does work.
If you don't have an employer, what then? Kind of hard to quit something you never had.
As noted above, southwest Ohio is a huge counter-example to your argument. The market is broken here.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It's another real estate bubble. Rents in most us cities are hrs the roof. So are home prices. It's the long tail of low interest rates. Once the fed gets rates into the 2.8 to 3% range and the no money down 3% 30 yr note goes away so will the bubble.
I negotiated my pay. I make a very high rate for what I do because I stay on the cutting edge and learn new stuff. Why should I make the same, much lower, salary of a coworker who doesn't reall ass anything innovarove? Why should we get into the situation that factory workers are in where the union defends slackers?
Suppose you looked around and saw that union wages were about 50% to 100% higher in your field for the same work. Would that justify the union dues?
Not when any programmer could just go somewhere else and get the 50-100% themselves with no union dues... or simply point that out before they left and get paid equally.
The fantasy that unions can help programmers who are already making tons of money is absurd, because programmers can easily obtain equivalent pay and get it - thus rendering a programmers union stillborn.
What value then would a programmers union have, obtaining several more varieties of cereal in the fully stocked kitchen?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After all these jobs are lost to overseas as a result of union strikes, a new president will be elected to "make America great again" and regain the dominance they lost. Hey, a suspicious person would think the unions were sponsored by the nation-states that eventually profited from the U.S. losing everything they had, but poor people don't think that hard.
Its why doctors don't need unions. If you have skills that are in limited supply that is all you need.
The people that tend to profit from unions are people without unique or valuable skills. And unions won't actually do that anymore given global economics.
Thus the union as a concept is obsolete. Those with skills can't be so easily replaced and those without will be outsourced or something if they cause problems.
So... do as thou wilt.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
SV tech workers need unions about the same as fish need an airplane.
If they were based in India, they'd actually need to turn a profit. Fedgov's quantitative easing free money spigot is only available to American capitalists who went to the right (American) university and who play golf at the right (American) country club.
The creation of a strong union aimed at Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is exactly what the industry needs. As Detroit and the Soviet Union and Venezuela prols all prove, labor has the power...
Unions are at all times and all situations a bad thing. Of course it seems like the low skilled jobs are underpaid. If so, I'm guessing it's difficult to keep them filled. Good; the wages will go up naturally or the jobs will remain unfilled. That's the way a market should work and does work. Whenever unions take root, the industry and consumer suffers. Witness industries such as steel in US and Detroit auto. In the early days of the automobile, Detroit *was* Silicon Valley. Innovation flourished. Many prospered. The city thrived. Union and general collectivism in government took over. Now Detroit is hell on earth. As in literally; perhaps the world's worst 1st-world city in every way. Economics is simple; there is no free lunch. If you see an opportunity higher on the food chain, pursue it. Almost all of us will find some opportunities out of reach. Do the best you can; extortion is not a virtue.
I worked in an IT union once, it was horrible
This union only cared about their interests, namely collecting their union dues and raiding other unions for more members (dues)
Employees in the same job category got the same pay so it was a race to see who could do the least amount of work
Do drugs on the job? steal money from the company? no problem the union will protect you.
Unions have some benefits and can do some good but they were not for me.
Yes! Unionize. Control the wages and pay some dumbfuck genius a percentage.
This will be the death of IT as we know it. I will never join a union.