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Yes, if this inspires software and AI engineers to unionize, we’ll all be better off.



Yeah, I will check back and see how you feel in a few years after all the dev jobs have been farmed out overseas to somewhere like Nigeria.


“We’ll take our ball and go play somewhere else” is an empty threat.

300+ million people don’t just vanish because CEOs move their companies. The leverage they have is politically manipulated fiat money traditions.

The leverage the public has is experience doing all the work. Ignore the mathematical minority when they cry about gen pop and keep doing the work.

Corporates real role in civic life is distract people from marching on their state capital. They’ll play it because there is no moat against tens of millions with lots of guns.


No matter how morally right one side might feel, it won’t stop competition.

The USA and Detroit had unions and the industry and city became gutted. Tariff and import laws to stay afloat only go so far. There will be times industry will be gutted because there’s something better.

Hollywood seems poised to lose itself - whether AI, moral grandstanding, or strange rules with skin color quotas. The writers strike is going poorly, the general American populace has no sympathy for them, and the big money maker of super hero movies is losing steam.


> the general American populace has no sympathy for them

71% of Americans support unions, the highest level of support in history. Support among under 30s is ~88%.

https://newrepublic.com/post/175274/gallup-poll-two-thirds-a... ("Poll: Majority of Americans Support Unions and Support Strikes")

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... ("Most Americans support strikes by Hollywood writers and actors")


That 71% figure comes from AFL-CIO which is a federation of labor unions. As your link shows, Gallop showed 67% and a decrease between support YOY. Its higher than a long term average of 62% and lower than all time high of 75% following WW2 when unions were in their heyday.


> As your link shows, Gallop showed 67% and a decrease between support YOY.

Which just brings it to where it was in 2021, which is the highest it's been since 1965?

> Its higher than a long term average of 62% and lower than all time high of 75% following WW2 when unions were in their heyday.

Is "following WW2" January of 1957 where it was 75% or August of 1957 where it was 65%. I'm thinking there's some margin of error in those 50s numbers.


That’s fair with regards to specifics, just pointing out the comment being wildly out of touch I replied to. Par for the course unfortunately.

Union support is substantially higher among younger cohorts, and ~2 million of the 55+ cohort ages out annually, so support should skew upwards over time. Progress in this regard is a function of time.


>so support should skew upwards over time.

That does not necessarily follow. You can’t assume the younger cohort won’t change their opinion over time.


> Union support is substantially higher among younger cohorts, and ~2 million of the 55+ cohort ages out annually, so support should skew upwards over time. Progress in this regard is a function of time.

If this logic held, we in democratic countries would only have left-wing governments. Actually, people like unions less as they age for various reasons.


History suggests there are two paths; human social norms evolve or an angry mob chanting catechism only they care about starts a war.

The bits about Detroit and Hollywood are easily explained by generational churn of less media savvy, science minded people. Next generations are far more in tune with how the sausage is made; it’s people making biased political decisions. They know there is no divine mandate to preserve old norms.

The minutiae of history is hardly relevant as we have a completely different understanding of what’s possible due to technological advances. Trying to compare agrarian/early industrial culture and modern culture in the early years of tissue and limb regeneration therapy is false equivalence.

All human institutions that have survived are like a Ship of Theseus; everything has been replaced a few times. We just chant a few old sales pitches.


And if Hollywood destroys itself like Detroit did, that won't be because of unions but because the bosses got lazy and pumped out inferior products.


What will be the Hollywood equivalent to the Fort LTD? Another Marvel movie? Another Fast&Furious?


> The USA and Detroit had unions and the industry and city became gutted.

This narrative might be false, see the interview here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzz3VI32KBA


The median salary for Software Engineers in San Francisco is $175k.

The median salary for a remote Software Engineer from Nigeria is $57k.

Unions are not going to change the math on whether we outsource to other countries.


Not sure how a cost increase doesn't factor in just because there is already a large cost divide.


Not just a cost increase but threats of strike and having to work with the union instead of hiring directly.


Unions lead to cost increases VERY reliably


13% is what it costs in the US.

I don't think an extra 20k a person changes the math.

And honestly I doubt the median number would shift too much. Most unions focus on the low end of the pay scale for the majority of their changes.


They said the same thing in the 90s about getting Bangalored.

Yet all the FAANGs and other startups are still headquartered in the US.


Did you know that "Made in Japan" and "Made in Taiwan" used to be a mark of cheaply and badly made junk only a few decades ago? Back then, Americans were pretty confident that the United States would remain dominant in manufacturing indefinitely, particularly in at the time high-tech stuff like electronics and automotive manufacturing, and that other countries would have a hard time catching up. What a difference a few decades makes...


Lots of jokes from tv shows at the time about shoddy Japanese-made cars. Then in the early 2000s about shoddy American-made ones.


I think the biggest moat is time zone. There are lots of skilled english speaking devs who would LOVE to make 60k USD.


I’ve only heard made in Japan being a positive from people who were alive when it was made there in the 80s.


“A few decades ago” is understating it, but talk to some Boomers and you’ll hear a different story from the late 1950s / early 1960s. The Japanese Miracle had already happened by the era of the Walkman.


I remember a Japanese guest visiting and showing us his cam corder with a flip out display. Early 90s probably. Dont think we had them, or at least id never seen them. Was like someone coming from the future.



Thats a bold statement to make when virtually all manufacturing industries have deserted the US


...but that's not something that happened?


If they could have done that, they would have already done so.


That they couldn't do it in the past doesn't mean they can't in the present or future. Throw a little AI into your offshoring and domestic software development is going to take a hit.


Managers can’t even handle the lack of perceived control from letting employees work from home three days a week.

People have been saying this for decades now, meanwhile the number of well paid software jobs has grown tremendously the entire time. What do you think has changed that will reverse this trend in the next few years?


How, exactly?


More liberal structures embedded into the workplace.




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