<story><title>Tech Workers&apos; Values</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/tech-workers-values</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>civilian</author><text>My main objection to unions is that, once they&amp;#x27;re in a company, employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I want to be able to skip my union dues and deal directly with the company. OR I want to be able to make a union of my own, especially for a functional or values-based subset of coworkers, and have us negotiate separately.&lt;p&gt;This is not just a tech-unions-related complaint, this is a critique of unions as a whole. But yeah.&lt;p&gt;I think that tech workers are in a special place because we have a lot of disposable income.  I&amp;#x27;ve gotten over my college-era &amp;quot;can&amp;#x27;t pay for anything&amp;quot; attitude, and I&amp;#x27;m willing to pay for content that could be gotten for free.  Entertainment was the first one, but now I&amp;#x27;m also supporting some people on patreon and donating to causes. We don&amp;#x27;t need a union to drive that-- we can just remind tech workers that if we all donate a little, we can make big changes.</text></item><item><author>AndrewKemendo</author><text>&lt;i&gt;We believe that employees should come together and clearly define the values and policies they&amp;#x27;d like to see their companies uphold. A tech union isn&amp;#x27;t the perfect metaphor for this, but it&amp;#x27;s not far off.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it&amp;#x27;s going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve argued for a while that tech workers need a union, but the chorus on HN and other places is &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re too special for a union.&amp;quot; Which is bogus on it&amp;#x27;s face - otherwise SAG for example wouldn&amp;#x27;t exist.&lt;p&gt;If this moves the needle on a union then great, but I&amp;#x27;m wary of the source being a pure power move (which all unions are - rightfully). I think whomever leads this needs to be above reproach in every sense as an advocate for the tiny introverted developer.&lt;p&gt;edit: I should note that the reason SAG worked is because some of the highest profile actors joined in the early days and arranged to collectively bargain for the rest of the group. It will probably work best if you get the top 50 most high profile developers (Eg. Carmack) to join and then advocate for the small guy. Sadly, in reality, a union is only as good as it&amp;#x27;s most high profile members.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Barrin92</author><text>&amp;gt;My main objection to unions is that, once they&amp;#x27;re in a company, employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I want to be able to skip my union dues and deal directly with the company. OR I want to be able to make a union of my own, especially for a functional or values-based subset of coworkers, and have us negotiate separately.&lt;p&gt;Bargaining &lt;i&gt;collectively&lt;/i&gt; is the whole point of creating a union in the first place. This special snowflake mentality that permeates the tech sector and the myopic individualism is a giant problem.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tech Workers&apos; Values</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/tech-workers-values</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>civilian</author><text>My main objection to unions is that, once they&amp;#x27;re in a company, employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I want to be able to skip my union dues and deal directly with the company. OR I want to be able to make a union of my own, especially for a functional or values-based subset of coworkers, and have us negotiate separately.&lt;p&gt;This is not just a tech-unions-related complaint, this is a critique of unions as a whole. But yeah.&lt;p&gt;I think that tech workers are in a special place because we have a lot of disposable income.  I&amp;#x27;ve gotten over my college-era &amp;quot;can&amp;#x27;t pay for anything&amp;quot; attitude, and I&amp;#x27;m willing to pay for content that could be gotten for free.  Entertainment was the first one, but now I&amp;#x27;m also supporting some people on patreon and donating to causes. We don&amp;#x27;t need a union to drive that-- we can just remind tech workers that if we all donate a little, we can make big changes.</text></item><item><author>AndrewKemendo</author><text>&lt;i&gt;We believe that employees should come together and clearly define the values and policies they&amp;#x27;d like to see their companies uphold. A tech union isn&amp;#x27;t the perfect metaphor for this, but it&amp;#x27;s not far off.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it&amp;#x27;s going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve argued for a while that tech workers need a union, but the chorus on HN and other places is &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re too special for a union.&amp;quot; Which is bogus on it&amp;#x27;s face - otherwise SAG for example wouldn&amp;#x27;t exist.&lt;p&gt;If this moves the needle on a union then great, but I&amp;#x27;m wary of the source being a pure power move (which all unions are - rightfully). I think whomever leads this needs to be above reproach in every sense as an advocate for the tiny introverted developer.&lt;p&gt;edit: I should note that the reason SAG worked is because some of the highest profile actors joined in the early days and arranged to collectively bargain for the rest of the group. It will probably work best if you get the top 50 most high profile developers (Eg. Carmack) to join and then advocate for the small guy. Sadly, in reality, a union is only as good as it&amp;#x27;s most high profile members.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alphonsegaston</author><text>You can create a union to reflect whatever values (e.g. negotiating compensation) you see fit. Don&amp;#x27;t believe the narratives proffered by anti-union forces for their own benefit. Actors are all in unions and employ an entire sub-class of workers (agents) to negotiate compensation for them.</text></comment>