this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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When I think of a tech worker union my thoughts first go to standardizing everyone's pay and limiting what I can earn myself. I've probably fallen to anti-union propaganda.
A tech worker union that says nothing about pay could still do so much.
A union could ensure that the company's incentives are aligned with worker's incentives around things like on-call.
I'd love a union that forced a company to give all on-call workers compensation. Something like:
Basically, if a company is having lots of on-call alerts, or the company is preventing employees from using their comp time, you want this to be directly painful to the company. Incentives should be aligned, what is painful for the worker should be painful for the company.
Or, regarding "unlimited PTO". I'd love to see a union force companies to:
Tech workers have it good compared to a lot of workers, but there are still plenty of abuses a union could help with, even if the union never even mentions pay.
Another concern I have - which might also be anti-union propaganda - is that I won't be allowed to do certain things because that job is supposed to be done by someone else according to the contract.
I hate doing that sort of thing because it makes me wait and by the time they get back to me another fire has started that I have to put out and it takes me a while to get back to the first thing.
I'd be happy to hear this isn't a legitimate concern.
You're unlikely to be told that you aren't allowed to do this or that, unless it's a safety violation of some sort. The idea that you can describe jobs to the letter and everyone is aware of what's written there and only does that is absurd. What's in the job descriptions protects you against abuse if someone makes you do things aren't paid for trained for, capable of, etc. It's a backstop. It doesn't prevent you from doing other things. In fact doing extra is a basis for promotion, just like it works in non-union shops. That's what how I've seen things working in a unionised university I have access to.
In any case, if a union card comes to my desk, I'd get the power first and worry about these details later. At least someone would ask me how I want these things to work, instead of telling me with the only alternative being to leave the company or be fired.
While I agree it is absurd, it absolutely happens. See the Las Vegas convention workers union. I was told that one worker could not plug-in an extension cord that had been previously plugged in because it wasn’t his job. There were numerous other instances exactly like that, while working a convention center floor.
It does happen.
That's not the case the parent was asking about though. They were asking whether they can do more than what's in their job description. Not whether someone else is obliged to do more.
I don't doubt your experience and it's totally fine by me. That's how they want to run their workplace, that's the way they run it. It doesn't mean you're gonna make yours like that. It's unlikely that a software org would be run like that. At the end of the day unions are democratic institutions where their members decide how to do these things. Because of that, your current org would likely be run the way you and your colleagues want to run it. Not in some bizarre way that Las Vegas convention workers do. :D
Thanks for the answer!
Honestly, the fact that junior folks won't be allowed to do things would be great. I'd love to see IT getting proper engineering certifications. People wouldn't allow their factories to be built by non-certified engineers, but they'll let their nephew who's good with computers build their network. Seems like unions could help with that, too.