[sfteus]

From a union supporter who's spent some time reading about anti-union sentiment here, I've found it generally boils down to a few things:

1) A large portion of users on this site are entrepreneurs or in higher-level tech. For the former, unions can be seen as getting in the way of the startup lifecycle; for the latter, many believe that the value they provide makes them untouchable, or believe that the supply of high-level tech workers will never meet demand so they will simply be able to move to another company if needed without much friction.

2) Many people believe that unions spend too much time protecting "low-performers," and that a union enacting barriers to protect employees from quick firing for performance will hurt the overall team/company.

3) Many people also believe that both paying union dues, and a union negotiating for the "average" worker will lead to them making significantly less money. IE, say your company was split 75% junior/25% senior devs, and paid junior devs $75k and senior devs $300k. If the union put pressure on the employer to raise the minimum salary to $100k, then they believe that money will come out of the senior devs salaries (reducing it to ~$225k).

I can say in my experience, the first point is at least somewhat true right now (I had no issues moving to a more senior and better paid job after my last company sold out). I personally think the sentiment of point #2 is interesting; I generally don't view this as "protecting" those who should be fired, and more view it as a public defender ensuring everyone receives legal representation, even if they are clearly guilty.

I'd also just note that even I'm not blanket pro-union; Police unions are a prime example of what happens when unions consolidate too much power because they went decades without any pushback. I'd consider that an extreme outlier though.

[bumby]

>Police unions

Public unions seem to be a special case and, while I generally support unions, I can understand the perspective that public unions bring about specific problems.

E.g., a strong bargaining chip for a union is the right to strike. The idea that a public service can strike creates problems. As another example, I witnessed changes in competition and economics force auto unions to compromise for the business to remain solvent; in the public sphere there is not the same competitive pressure.

[h4n1]

Another reason police unions are entirely different, even from other public sector unions, is that the police are used to break strikes. They're structurally antagonistic to every other part of the labour movement.

[Geezus-42]

The main problem with the police union (in the US) is that they have been able to repeatedly stop officers who have done horrible things from being fired or even truly punished (paid leave is not punishment).

[MisterBastahrd]

There are a lot of people here who see themselves as temporarily disenfranchised members of the ownership class, and so unions are a negative thing for them because some day they'll hit it big and be rewarded for their steadfast adherence to greed.

[taeric]

There are at least a few of us that view unions as just a smaller extra government entity, and would prefer we rather had stronger governments. To wit, I don't want folks dependent on their job. Period. And unions often do give workers better conditions, but only so long as they are workers.

That said, I typically fall on the pro-union side of most debates. Often is a better alternative than where we are.

[dfxm12]

It would be great if benefits unions are known for fighting for like health care was guaranteed by the government, but there's some things that a union closer to the workers, which is focused on one thing, can better fight for than the government, like standards for safety beyond OSHA, standards for scheduling, training, discipline, etc. If I understand what you're saying right.

If you think unions are a smaller extra government entity, how do you view Apple in that same lens? Likely, the unions have the least power in this triangle (besides individual employees not covered by a union), and Apple has more power than the government in some, but not all, respects.

[dsfyu404ed]

>2) Many people believe that unions spend too much time protecting "low-performers," and that a union enacting barriers to protect employees from quick firing for performance will hurt the overall team/company.

This is not a "some people think" issue. This is a reality of running an organization like a union.

Literally every low barrier to entry organization from unions to political parties to organized religion to organized crime has to invest a significant amount of resources in giving a good chunk of its "dolts" a better deal than they could get anywhere else (even sometimes going to an extent that is not sustainable in order to advertise to other members how far the organization can/will go for you) because that ensures that those people will 100% go to bat for the organization. It is a necessary part of operations at scale.

[PathOfEclipse]

This is especially true of teacher's unions, who have been openly hostile towards any meaningful way of measuring teacher performance, and have made it astronomically expensive to fire any teacher no matter how bad or incompetent. The world would be a much better place if teacher's unions didn't exist.

[kodah]

I can be kind of mixed from a union standpoint. It really just depends on the goals and outcomes of a particular union. Airline unions tend to be particularly bad when it comes to controlling internal dissent against the union, and regulating peoples pay and flying hours (especially around furloughs). Things may have changed since I heard this criticism, but I'd hate to have this happen in software.

That said, we could use standardization in pay, better and more standardized promotions, and someone to tear down the existing LeetCode interview process. I have not seen any software unions that aim to do this though.

[fallingknife]

Why would I want standardization in pay? I would make less money.

Why would I want standardized promotions? I don't want to be lead by people just because they have been around longer than me.

Why would I want to tear down the leetcode interview process? It's much easier.than having to do demo projects.

[seanmcdirmid]

I see unions as mostly other entrenched institutions that add their own layers of bureaucracy and politics. They aren't any better or worse than corporations and governments, but simply by having a place at the table, things move slower and with less efficiency than they could. Of course, if the alternative is abuse of power by corporations and/or governments, they are a necessary evil.

[Ancapistani]

I'm very much anti-unionization, but don't really fall into any of those buckets. To be fair, I didn't take it to be an exhaustive list.

Basically, I'm opposed to unions as they exist in the US because of the government being involved and "artificially" granting them power.

[dpkirchner]

The government artificially grants corporations power by virtue of creating the concept of a corporation and limited liability, so to me it seems only fair for them to grant a collective of workers power as well.

[arrosenberg]

> Basically, I'm opposed to unions as they exist in the US because of the government being involved and "artificially" granting them power.

Artificial is an unfair characterization of history. The President didn't just descend from on high and grant unions powers out of magnanimity. At one point the unions were extremely powerful to the point that they were able to codify in law the rights they had attained.

[eesmith]

To add to the other good comments, unions existed and were effective before there were any laws specifically enabling or regulating them.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_v._Hunt . There was no law which "artificially" granted the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society power. The "five or six good workmen" who would have walked out should Horne continue to be employed, were exercising their right of free association.

And, fundamentally, that's where union power comes from - the right to collectively decide to quit.

Union laws give unions specific powers, it's true. But they also restrict union power. If you oppose the artificial granting of power, then you should also oppose the artificial restriction of power, and allow "jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns" [1] -- once-legal practices banned by Taft-Hartley and all fundamentally based in the power to collectively decide to stop working.

[1] Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

[andrepd]

As opposed to enforcing "artificial" property rights. That's government interference that you can tolerate :)

[ruined]

most american laws around unions are actually prohibitory and limiting. if legal recognition and regulation for organized labor were eliminated, i don't think it would result in less power wielded by unions.