Technology

Maybe they just forgot to brainwash them with anti-union propaganda

Idk about intuit but GM is probably a result of their union coworkers getting awesome Bennie’s.

The union autoworkers get good benefits like overtime pay for work over 8 hours. Union working come in at 6, then take a fixed breakfast and lunch break and then leave at 2:30. Anything over that will need approval and overtime pay. I’m surprised Ford and Stellantis isn’t alongside with GM.

Funny, seeing them at the top gave me a favorable impression of them, but seems to have caused the opposite for you. My impression was probably due to, like someone else said, feeling like maybe they're not being drilled with as much anti-union propaganda.

But I'm from a place where you have to go out of your way not to be part of a union.

Look, I’m a recovering tech worker who left the industry because of the toxic work culture, having spent a quarter of my life at one of the good ones.

What are you up to these days? Which unicorn was that?

I think blind itself drives some interesting bias. The public posts are pretty incel. You need a critical mass of folks at your company to have a company private board so it attracts folks from bigger companies. It doesn't seem to represent average folks well. Unless I have no idea what average is.

I'm not sure what to do with that instinct. The overall results say a thing I wanted to hear. It all feels weird.

GM also has tons of union employees which has some impact on the non-union portion (i.e. better benefits etc), so seeing first-hand what unions can do for you might make them more likely to support one even if their current working conditions are great.

Unless unions work differently where you live, they are a democracy that will pursue whatever issues its members vote on. If members don't think pay is a problem, why would they try to change it?

A union lets you have leverage when negotiating for anything with the corpo. Individually you have a little if you're top talent, and none otherwise. Very few people are irreplaceable, some are somewhat painful to replace, the rest are less so. We've been mistaking the tight labor market in this industry for our own self worth but hopefully the last couple of years have helped most of us snap out of it.

Speaking of pay, the structures I've seen at a union university for example have pay scales based on the job and defined pay increases in every job. You know what you're gonna get paid for a position you're applying, and you know what you're gonna get paid years ahead in that job. With that said, a union can negotiate any sort of pay scheme. Perhaps most importantly a union can negotiate to get a much larger portion of the profits for the engineers. You think some folks in tech are paid very well, but if you look at the value they generate, they might not be paid nearly enough. If you think a union might take your 500K salary to 300K while raising some other people's salaries you should consider that a union can take it to 800K or more. Assuming this is happening at one of the wildly profitable companies where this money exists.

And of course a union gives you the leverage to negotiate any other conditions like the ones that you mentioned. On-call, PTO, remote, etc.

That's why you get as many people to sign up first, organize BEFORE the vote, not after.

I guess not much if I were an Intuit employee and significantly if I were at Apple. 😄

A collective agreement can't include less than the law but can provide more than the law, so they could add paid overtime in the collective agreement and the employer would have to follow that even though the law doesn't make it mandatory.

A collective agreement is a work contract, the only difference is that the employees negotiate it as a group instead of one by one.

Especially with remote work, not sure how to organize.

Remote work didn't stop you working, did it? Why would it stop unions from working? There's on the ground work for sure, but it's mostly desk stuff, especially in IT.

The same way you organize anything. Start by talking to a couple trusted coworkers to form an organizing committee. All the members of the OC need to talk to coworkers, handle workplace drama, agitate for better conditions, educate people about unions, maintain systematic campaign tracking, and fight against the boss during their union busting campaign. When I worked remotely, it was as simple as sending a dm like this:

Hey, would you be able to talk over break? Some coworkers and I were discussing some issues and I wanted to hear your thoughts.

They're doing that in any case when they can get away with it. Not forming a union isn't going stop them.

this can't happen because the kill switch activates after 72 hours and "order 66" initiates, plunging the whole stack into lockdown and the org into absolute chaos.

hope there were backups you strike busting pieces of shit.

don't fuck with IT professionals. you take away the only fulfillment we get out of life and you will come to personally understand the meaning behind, "there are worse fates than death"

apes strong together.

Unions are legal in all occupations. There may be restrictions on some form of collective action (i.e. the government can force strikers back to work) but organizing is never illegal.

Unions are legal in the US. The labor movement is currently seeing a huge swell in new bargaining units across most unions