[ditonal]

So tired of companies that raise hundreds of millions from some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world trying to pull the “we’re a startup” card. You’re not two dudes eating ramen in a garage and you don’t get to use that image to excuse your shitty behavior.

Also tired of the “other people in poverty are exploited even worse! You asking for basic labor protections shows your lack of empathy for them!”

I’m seriously having a hard time imagining any of this was written in good faith.

The real solution is, and always will be, collective bargaining. These VCs aren’t going to make sure you have healthcare. They could give it to you directly, or they could use their wealth and power to make sure the government gives it to you.

People ask “what can a union do? My office already has free kombucha”. Imagine if all the SWEs at all these VCs backed companies went on strike unless the laid off Convoy employees got six months of healthcare (it would have been in the initial employment contract). The money for this stuff would magically materialize. It doesn’t materialize because there’s no organization to advocate for it, it’s that simple.

[JumpCrisscross]

> tired of companies that raise hundreds of millions from some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world trying to pull the “we’re a startup” card

But they are one! If those wealthy people were getting perks in this failure, the way e.g. workers at Good got screwed, I'd agree with you. But if you're running with massive fixed costs and volatile revenue, knowing whether you're weeks or months from shutdown is difficult.

And again, people are assuming if he shut down six months ago everyone could have gotten severance. Convoy is $100+ million in debt. Wages are privileged; new severance obligations are not.

> real solution is, and always will be, collective bargaining

The closer solution is civic participation. How many people in Silicon Valley have written to their state elected to raise unemployment benefits? (Note: I'm not saying anyone deserves what's happening. But union participation in America is stubborn and dropping. We need another drum to beat.)

[slt2021]

I was with you until you mentioned unions.

tech is fundamentally incompatible with unions for several reasons:

  1. it will drive down the wages and give power to just another bureacracy
  2. Union participation does not differentiate between highly skilled (and sought after) tech worker, from mediocre tech worker who gets by using copilot and chatgpt
  3. I dont need union to negotiate with company on my behalf - I can negotiate by myself just fine
  4. If startup goes bust - I can easily find a job at another startup, probably will even get a pay raise - just because my skills are highly sought after and in demand. There is literally zero upside for me that union can do
  5. I dont want to share my specialist employee's power with faceless union burearacy

I know what it means to be a union worker - and trust me, it will never gonna work in software engineering

[sangnoir]

Here's a point by point rebuttal:

  1. Hollywood unions disprove this 
  2. Hollywood unions (SAG, DGA) disprove this
  3. Unions don't mean you can no longer negotiate. DiCaprio still does 
  4. One upside: Unions represent members who are no longer able to work
  5. Hollywood unions have some pretty specialized folk and it works well for them

As an individual - you only bargaining chip is your ability to do work. If you lose capacity to work - temporarily or otherwise - you lose the ability to negotiate. Unions don't suffer from that weakness.

The things you can negotiate for are capped at the value of your work. You can't forbid your employer from replacing you/your teammates with AI foe instance, but unions can, because the collective value of their output is beyond what the employers may gain from ML models. Not so on the individual level.

[idiotsecant]

You're taking a remarkably short sighted position here. Blacksmiths and cobblers were once highly in demand workers as well. Do you really think writing code is such a special beautiful skill that it's immune to the same forces of automation?

Software development is a trade skill, like any other. We're in a very brief window of time where it's a very lucrative skill to have. Don't expect that to last forever. When that stops being the case you'll want something between you and the harder facts of life that you might have had the privilege of ignoring for a while. There's a reason people bled and died to make these organizations. The moment it's possible the capital class will grind you into a fine paste and sell you in tubes to make a few extra percent on the quarterly financials.

[eru]

> The real solution is, and always will be, collective bargaining.

As long as I can opt-out of your collective bargaining (both as a worker and as a founder), I don't care what you bargain for.

[kortilla]

Raising lots of money doesn’t mean it’s a sustainable business. I don’t think you know the colloquial definition of startup in Silicon Valley.

Raising millions doesn’t mean making millions either. If you took a bunch of investor money and just paid it all out to your employees and closed up shop that’s a misappropriation of funds.

> Imagine if all the SWEs at all these VCs backed companies went on strike unless the laid off Convoy employees got six months of healthcare

Why would they do that? I’m not going to go on strike because other employees are incapable of understanding the risks of joining an unprofitable company that is default dead. If you want 6 months of paid healthcare, quote it and demand it as a signing bonus before you start.

Startups blow up. It’s your responsibility to prepare for it. Established companies blow up too. Sometimes you even just get fired because you suck.

SWEs have zero excuse to not have saved enough money to pay for cobra for six months if things fall apart.

[cma]

> Imagine if all the SWEs at all these VCs backed companies went on strike unless the laid off Convoy employees got six months of healthcare (it would have been in the initial employment contract).

Congress made secondary strikes illegal a long time ago. Maybe it would still be OK since that wouldn't technically be cross-industry; I'm not sure.

[vidarh]

There was a time when US unions striked despite being met by a risk of people getting outright murdered. Without hyperbole, the 8 hour working day was won with blood. The question needs to be whether you think a strike is right and morally justified, and worth the potential consequences, not whether it is legal.

[idiotsecant]

Ok, so it's illegal. Now what? Strike anyway.