Mass layoffs, AI anxiety, and corporate surveillance have heightened interest in unions among IT professionals. Organizers who've been through it explain how to get started — and what to expect.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I think you touch on some realities that are often ignored. As far as I am concerned unions are only effective in redundancy situations in so far as they are able to keep the company honest with regards to their legal obligations.
Agreed. But there are essentially preasure points in manual labor that compell contracts to be written pro-union and to follow contractual rules. I don’t see that happening in the development side of tech. The only fear these companies have is that in a walkout they would lose money for a very short time. Tech is already a high turnover sector. Most companies use turnover to reduce costs.
The companies can also uproot themselves much easier and with everyone working remotely and the economy sucking, what tech company couldn’t have you replaced in 48hrs?
The only reason many of these companies even allow unions is for PR. Either to sound good or fear of backlash. Today people get angry but then the next story comes on the news and we all move on.
Again I’m pro-union in many cases. I just don’t see the forces that would make this work for the vast majority of tech companies.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I think you touch on some realities that are often ignored. As far as I am concerned unions are only effective in redundancy situations in so far as they are able to keep the company honest with regards to their legal obligations.
Agreed. But there are essentially preasure points in manual labor that compell contracts to be written pro-union and to follow contractual rules. I don’t see that happening in the development side of tech. The only fear these companies have is that in a walkout they would lose money for a very short time. Tech is already a high turnover sector. Most companies use turnover to reduce costs.
The companies can also uproot themselves much easier and with everyone working remotely and the economy sucking, what tech company couldn’t have you replaced in 48hrs?
The only reason many of these companies even allow unions is for PR. Either to sound good or fear of backlash. Today people get angry but then the next story comes on the news and we all move on.
Again I’m pro-union in many cases. I just don’t see the forces that would make this work for the vast majority of tech companies.