[test098]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...

pretty much every team in blue collar industries which have been able to negotiate better working conditions, better pay, and more time off.

[wyager]

But tech isn't a blue collar industry, and this is about tech unions.

[Henchman21]

I work in a data center with electricians, tower climbers, and systems and network engineers. ALL of us are blue collar. Including me, a systems/network engineer. I suggest you investigate this aspect of tech — there’s more to it than VS Code and JavaScript

[shagie]

I'd point to Kickstarter United - https://kickstarterunited.org

How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry ( 190 points | Oct 7, 2020 | 369 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24711814

Kickstarter Union voted 97.6% to ratify one of the first tech union contracts ( 179 points | June 17, 2022 | 305 comments ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31780972

[test098]

love those flying goalposts. i guess "tech" is different enough from other kinds of labor that it's special? ok:

IFPTE, UAW, CWA (which just recently welcomed workers in the video game industry: https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/video-game-workers-launc...)

edit: Alphabet Workers Union under CWA, Riot Games under UAW, Tech Workers Coalition

[toomuchtodo]

Why is tech not blue collar? Because you use your brain instead of your hands? You are closer to a plumber or an electrician than to Sergey Brin, griping that you should be working 60 hours a week to develop AI to replace you for Alphabet shareholders.

[Cyph0n]

We don’t have feathers in our caps. Blue, white, red, whatever - we are all resources working for the capitalists, and should try to learn whatever we can from each other.

So, why are there no major tech unions specifically? Tech is a “new” field (relatively speaking), is generally well paid, and comes with relatively better benefits compared to other fields. This is not something inherent to the field: it’s just a supply vs. demand thing combined with easy access to money (low rates, VCs, etc).

Unions will start to become more prominent as shit hits the fan for us tech workers. Because without a unifying threat, there is no realistic way to convince a bunch of people who are living relatively well to join forces - as demonstrated by this thread.

Unfortunately, the existence of a common threat is necessary imo but not sufficient (in the US at least), as we’ve witnessed over the past few years of layoffs and forced RTO.

[mateo411]

I agree. Unless you are programming Java.

"Java is a blue collar language." - James Gosling