[HN Gopher] The Brief Origins of May Day
___________________________________________________________________
The Brief Origins of May Day
Author : pera
Score : 205 points
Date : 2025-05-01 12:28 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (archive.iww.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (archive.iww.org)
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Solidarity forever.
| bsnnkv wrote:
| For the union makes us strong
| constantcrying wrote:
| [flagged]
| bsnnkv wrote:
| Making the generous assumption that there is a gap in your
| cultural knowledge and sharing the source of these two
| lines with background context:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_Forever
| constantcrying wrote:
| I have clear conflicts of interest with the working
| class, who work in factories. If I were in a union it
| should advocate for factory workers working more.
| bsnnkv wrote:
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't
| cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| constantcrying wrote:
| There is no snark here.
|
| The union wants my job outsourced so that factory workers
| can keep theirs.
|
| Please tell me why I should have solidarity with them.
| bsnnkv wrote:
| You keep repeating this in various comments throughout
| this submission- can you share links to the materials of
| the union(s) you are referring to and point out the
| relevant sections where they are advocating for this?
|
| I am curious to take a read for myself, as I'm sure many
| other readers are
| constantcrying wrote:
| It's the IGM and of course it isn't their public
| position, but it is clear that this is what they think
| and how they behave. They also are extremely influential
| in my company, as part of the Betriebsrat, and try to
| steer it in that direction.
|
| I recently had to deal with them (as part of the
| Betriebsrat) and, just as human beings, they seemed to be
| some of the worst people I ever met.
| p_j_w wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of
| how bad a comment is or you feel it is.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| (btw just in case this response feels one-sided, we've
| already asked the parent twice to stop breaking the site
| guidelines, so I'm not going to pile on here with a
| third)
| flmontpetit wrote:
| The core proposition of syndicalism is that the workplace
| should be democratized. Democracy is far from perfect,
| and if often fails, but we believe in it nonetheless
| because everything else is worse.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| Are you an owner? If not, you're working class.
| keybored wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43857741
|
| > Sure. And that is why protesting looks so ridiculous.
| The oppressed working class, making six figures typing
| away in a well furnished office.
|
| You're pulling out all the stops.
|
| 1. Developers are too privileged to care about the
| working class
|
| 2. But actually, the working class (or at least the
| unions) are my enemies, and they anecdotally come across
| as bad people[1]
|
| There's more.[2]
|
| > Easily the worst holiday. More hilarious is that it
| celebrated by those who hate work and working the most.
|
| So add that to the eclectic mix: people who celebrate it
| hate to work. Of course if you think about what it is for
| two seconds you realize that it has nothing to do with
| "celebrating work" or the fact that you have to work as a
| wage laborer, a completely farcical assumption.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43858309
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43857106
| int_19h wrote:
| An injury to one is an injury to all.
| throw0101a wrote:
| It's a bit amusing that May Day was due to the major strike in
| the US, but the US doesn't celebrate on that day, but in
| September:
|
| > _There was disagreement among labor unions at this time about
| when a holiday celebrating workers should be, with some
| advocating for continued emphasis of the September march-and-
| picnic date while others sought the designation of the more
| politically charged date of May 1. Conservative Democratic
| President Grover Cleveland was one of those concerned that a
| labor holiday on May 1 would tend to become a commemoration of
| the Haymarket affair and would strengthen socialist and anarchist
| movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the
| globe.[18] In 1887, he publicly supported the September Labor Day
| holiday as a less inflammatory alternative,[19] formally adopting
| the date as a United States federal holiday through a law that he
| signed in 1894.[2]_
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day#Labor_Day_versus_May...
|
| Labo(u)r Day of US/CA/JP/AU/NZ:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Observance_of_Internation...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Day
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Happy Beltane!
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Badass read. Geez we are soft today...
| DrillShopper wrote:
| I have a feeling this submission will be [flagged][dead] in the
| next half hour - that's how soft we are.
| pera wrote:
| We have been conditioned to fear the idea of demanding a more
| fair distribution of wealth: My great grandfather for example
| was shot dead by a cop during a union strike. Nothing happened
| after that event, just silence, fear and a deeply traumatized
| family.
|
| It is very important to remember that many of the things we
| enjoy today as workers only exist because of the enormous
| courage of workers from the 19th and early 20th century who
| fought really hard for a better future.
| irrational wrote:
| And a reminder that the police have never been on the side of
| the people. They are they muscle of the state.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > police have never been on the side of the people
|
| that is a remarkable generalization, that overstates things
| to the point of being misleading
|
| > They are they muscle of the state.
|
| still, there are better and worse states
|
| if you go fully pacifist and disempower yourself and your
| state it will not result in peace - it will result in
| someone else, likely worse, taking over
|
| Police in my country did some bad things (and far more bad
| things when we were a Russian puppet state) but last time I
| had an actual contact with police it was on railway station
| when they have cordoned off a group of aggressive football
| hooligans.
|
| I assure you that I preferred policeman over group of drunk
| abusive hooligans. And some kind of "muscle of the state"
| is needed to keep such people in check.
|
| (at the same time, police power should be kept on a leash)
| monkaiju wrote:
| Its only a generalization in so far as that is and always
| has been their direct purpose. The history of policing
| is, regionally, either rooted in slave catchers or as
| muscle to disrupt labor organizing.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > The history of policing is, regionally, either rooted
| in slave catchers or as muscle to disrupt labor
| organizing.
|
| Not really? It may apply in some very specific area but
| it does NOT generalize worldwide.
|
| And for direct purpose: even taking maximally cynical
| view and seeing police as muscle power existing to
| enforce tax payments by threat of force and to disrupt
| threats to state...
|
| Then I, as a citizen (and many other people) would agree
| that gangs should be disrupted and that they prefer to
| pay taxes over every lowlife able to steal all their
| stuff and burn down their home.
|
| Sadly, it takes only few people to make area terrible for
| others. Some do it with no benefit for themselves and
| there is no way to reason with them. Taking out such
| people (for whatever reason) by police is an useful
| service. That - even with quite badly managed police - is
| overall beneficial.
| kergonath wrote:
| Ideally, the interests of the state and of the people
| coincide (otherwise you cannot have a democracy). It is
| very unhelpful to say that the police is by nature hostile
| to the people. It does not have to be that way, and we
| should demand that it is not. The police is the enforcement
| arm of the State, true, but we are the State.
| int_19h wrote:
| Seeing how the atticle link is to the website of the IWW
| (International Workers of the World, a very oldschool union
| dating back to the early days of labor movement), why not take
| the first step today and join it?
|
| https://www.iww.org/membership/
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| The US does have a rich history of labor movements and it's sad
| that they've been diminished - arguably because of perceived and
| actual corruption in living memory - while working conditions for
| many haven't really improved.
|
| In the UK, also a nation with a very rich history of labour
| movements and philosophy (Engels family owned factories in
| Manchester, which he and Marx used as justification and evidence
| for many of the points made in _Conditions of the Working Class_
| ), has also seen a recent decline in labour movements - but
| that's partly because working conditions have improved so
| massively in recent decades: employment rights, statutory
| holidays and minimum wage have all improved.
|
| However, in recent years something has changed, and I think a lot
| of people are now looking at holidays and working conditions in
| other countries: France (a socialist republic), Germany and
| Canada all seem to have better work/life balance, strong
| productivity, remain in the G7 and the roof hasn't fallen in.
|
| I do wonder whether the rise of zero-hour contracts and the gig
| economy, the debate in the US over tipping as a basis for not
| paying a higher minimum wage, the lack of holidays and so on,
| might lead to more interest in either new labour movements or
| reinvigorating the old.
|
| What's interesting for me is the productivity data shows that
| many businesses that need knowledge workers to function make more
| money and grow faster if they allow more work/life balance, but
| the messaging from the leadership pushes back against it. RTO and
| 5 days working weeks seem to be less effective than
| nomadic/remote work and 4x10 or even 4x8 working weeks. AI
| should, in theory, make that even more possible, but I don't
| think that's how most in the upper echelons of the Fortune 500 or
| FTSE 100 want it to work out.
|
| It's going to be an interesting thing to watch/be part of in
| years to come, but history tells us transition moments are often
| violent: can that violence be avoided?
| DrScientist wrote:
| > RTO and 5 days working weeks seem to be less effective than
| nomadic/remote work and 4x10 or even 4x8 working weeks
|
| It does depend on how you measure it. Given diligent workers
| you could argue that working from home is better for 'on task'
| work, than the distractions of the office - however some of
| those distractions create value for companies that's hard to
| measure.
|
| I've lost count of the number of times I've had the polite -
| how are you type conversation - via a chance encounter in the
| office, that has lead to an idea or new connection that moved
| something forward, ( have you tried X? Have you talked to Y ).
|
| These don't happen when you are on task working from home.
|
| For companies which are knowledge based - this sort of
| spontaneous creativity happens more when people are all
| together and less when people have to intentionally reach out.
|
| Companies aren't just the simple sum of the individuals and a
| lot of the creativity happens off-task.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| If you look at layouts of buildings for organisations lauded
| for unusually high output - I'm thinking Bell Labs, Xerox,
| MIT Media Lab, and others - historically there has been mixed
| mode: the ability to do focus work, and also the ability to
| step away from focus and bump into people on the way to get a
| coffee or lunch.
|
| Today's working environment is 40+ hours in open plan offices
| with too few social spaces or meeting rooms for meaningful
| collaboration, so both focus work and casual collaboration
| have to be fought for.
|
| Regardless, what's interesting to me at least is that even
| while we can see productivity rose for many decades even as
| people moved to the 5 day, 8-hour week (which must was
| counter-intuitive - there was an expectation of a drop in
| outputs), we're seeing potentially more gains from moving to
| a 4 day week.
|
| RTO - for my type of work, and most work that needs "flow"
| for 2-3 hours a day, minimum - doesn't work for most people
| in 2025. Leaders are holding onto it in an irrational way,
| and that is leading to growing resentment. That, coupled with
| trying to pay people who have to show up (service workers,
| gig economy workers), with ever fewer working rights and
| poorer conditions, means something's going to give at some
| point.
|
| If all the menial work was done by robots, and we were all
| going to Bell Labs-style environments for 3-4 days a week, I
| think we'd all prefer that and actually, society might be a
| lot more productive as a result. But it's never going to
| happen. Not in our lifetimes, any way.
| briandear wrote:
| Except when a company like Best Buy can fire a bunch of workers
| and replace them with Accenture who are paying workers $40/hour
| while holding them hostage with the H1B. At least 20% of
| workers in US construction (and even higher for residential)
| are illegal aliens. Then there is the offshoring of
| manufacturing: your local workers get too uppity? China can
| supply whatever you need. Don't like the United Auto Workers?
| Move your factory to northern Mexico.
|
| What's interesting is that tariffs helped American workers back
| in the day -- whether or not that happens again remains to be
| seen.
|
| Unless the entire world gets onboard with worker rights, trade
| barriers remain one of the only ways to improve the working
| conditions of local people.
|
| Regarding the French example: they do have the so-called 35
| hour week, but compare disposable income for the same job in
| the U.S. versus France: Americans have much higher disposable
| income than the French (even after accounting for health care
| costs.) The US could improve conditions, but pay will drop
| accordingly. That might be ok or it might not, but there is no
| free lunch.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| While trade barriers might improve working conditions, as you
| hint, it's going to come at a cost of disposable income.
|
| Those barriers work by raising the minimum price of a
| product, making it profitable to produce it in a more
| expensive labor market. When you make products more expensive
| though, it comes out the other side as people have to pay
| more to get the things they want, and you get inflation.
|
| If that is what people want, OK, fine. I don't think it's
| what has been sold to most Americans though - not only is the
| narrative that inflation going to be avoided, but income tax
| is going to be scrapped too. It's hard to find credible
| economists from any part of the political spectrum who agree.
|
| I hope it does work, because if it doesn't, what will follow
| will be horrible to watch from afar, even if as a result we
| end up with prices for most things coming down (if Chinese
| companies can't sell to the US, they'll just dump to the rest
| of the World).
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| The Republicans' trade barriers do not solve any labor
| problems. They contract the total market size and tax
| economic activity.
|
| The French have higher disposable income because Americans
| are too busy wasting their income on sky high rents, sky high
| healthcare costs, paying for cars because it's necessary,
| higher food and alcohol costs, etc. (Plus they have more of
| the thing money can't buy: time). And these tariffs are going
| to make American's lives even more expensive. (No one release
| in the world is going to oh these taxes: only Americans).
| parpfish wrote:
| Why don't labor issues resonate more with tech workers?
|
| I know that we're not a monolith and are actually a heterogeneous
| mix of opinions, but there frequently talk about job
| dissatisfaction (career burnout, comically stingy equity grants,
| etc).
|
| But when organizing comes up, it's usually treated with disdain
| because so many have bought into highly individualistic hustle-
| culture and the narrative that unions only exist to help lazy
| freeloaders
| DrillShopper wrote:
| The vast majority of tech workers I know come from comfortable
| middle class suburban backgrounds, so I'm not surprised they're
| anti-union and anti-labor.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I will admit that the return to office push was the first
| time I actively considered forming a union or at least an org
| that would fight for that specific benefit. Covid changed me.
| SirFatty wrote:
| A lot of "comfortable middle class suburban" folks I know are
| in the trades. Hardly anti-union with that group.
| gymbeaux wrote:
| But they entered their field with the union already
| established. Humans won't fight for a damn thing.
| SirFatty wrote:
| Ok? That has nothing to do with my comment pointing out
| that "comfortable middle class suburban" != anti-union
| and anti-labor.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| I know plenty of people in the trades that are anti-union -
| they're typically the ones in the "comfortable middle class
| suburban" category. They've worked a bit and maybe are
| contractors of their own. They complain about how much it
| costs to have a union crew and about how slow the work gets
| done. They do not think workers need more protections (look
| at Florida and other states prohibiting mandatory water
| breaks for worker protection), and actively complain about
| needing to carry Worker's Comp insurance and withhold taxes
| (which is why many of them pay under the table for non-
| union work, undocumented day laborers outside of Home
| Depot/Lowes seem to be their favorite choices).
|
| In fact they tend to be some of the most anti-union, anti-
| labor folks I know.
|
| I will grant that not every single person in the
| "comfortable middle class suburban" category is anti-union
| / anti-labor, but it's a pattern I see often enough that it
| is worth remarking on.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| Not even anti-union, but comfy enough not to feel the need
| for the effort/risk involved in unionizing.
|
| When you work in a trade where you could easily be killed or
| injured on the job the calculus is a bit different.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| It's never ceases to amaze me how much software folks think
| that their job cannot easily injure or kill them. All of
| the devs I know have no work/life balance, skip doctor's
| appointments because of work commitments, and several I
| know have had strokes or heart attacks at their desk while
| pushing to meet a deadline.
|
| Just because you likely won't be killed in a crane collapse
| or someone dropping a hammer doesn't mean that the
| workplace is safe and that working conditions are good.
| anovikov wrote:
| Because tech jobs are one of the few career lines that create a
| realistic path to passive income => becoming an "evil of
| capitalism". In fact, life outcomes that fall between "failure
| and poverty in old age" and "generational passive income from
| capital", are infrequent in the tech industry, at least from
| the people i know.
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| Those who fall between the two are usually those who didn't
| have a family nest egg to start with (ie, their parents were
| factory workers rather than accountants).
| alabastervlog wrote:
| ... Unions would be a great way to fight for reductions in
| anti-moonlighting rules and over-broad IP claims, to _protect
| and broaden_ that path.
| gymbeaux wrote:
| In my experience everyone thinks "we've got a good thing here,
| let's not ruin it."
|
| Indeed the bar is so low that even with all the bullshit in the
| tech industry, we seem to have it better than most- on salary
| alone. Throw in "full remote" (although that's disappearing)
| and it really can't be beat, even when your boss yells
| obscenities at you every day.
| hereonout2 wrote:
| I think I agree. Objectively we do have it better than most
| and tech is generally an extremely cushy job.
|
| Even here in Europe salaries can match Doctors and Lawyers
| but the barrier to entry is much lower and in my experience
| employment is still based on merit more than anything.
|
| Perhaps there's some element of "don't rock the boat" but
| maybe some guilt too. We really have lucked out.
|
| Not sure how comfortable I'd feel taking union action over my
| job that requires me to leave the house once a week but pays
| 3x a teachers salary.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| From a personal perspective -
|
| I don't care that much about "labour issues" because it seems
| like a logically flawed avenue to explore to begin with.
|
| To be financially successful under any market system I can
| think of requires you, in a mathematical sense, to be close
| enough to the top within a company that you get a greater
| proportion of the profit than simply 1/employees.
|
| In simple terms - I can't employ a maid unless I earn more than
| a maid, a maid can never be paid enough that I would want to be
| a maid (being the maid's employer, or at least having that
| optionality, is strictly superior).
|
| Some jobs have comparative advantage, e.g. I might enjoy
| working on my car but know that a mechanic can do the same job
| in 1/10th the time. But a lot of stuff is just straight - I
| earn more than you, you do it for me, so I can get more things
| done.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| No, it is not mathematically ordained that conditions must
| suck on the bottom of the pyramid in an absolute sense. In a
| relative sense, your argument isn't wrong, but in an absolute
| sense, the failure of our economy to bring modest levels of
| comfort on the bottom despite truly astonishing advances in
| fundamental capacity is a scathing indictment.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| In the absolute sense, from my perspective as someone who
| was born with not much (I often have a sense that this
| discussion is driven by people who were always fairly well
| off and see "the poor" as a different species) the primary
| issue is excessive regulation, resulting in things like
| property being hilariously expensive, so that it's
| difficult to afford a house or start a business.
|
| Wages and hours for low level jobs feel like a distraction,
| barely anyone needs more toys, the issue is that the
| necessary items for life are monopolised.
|
| So from my perspective the only thing that labour
| regulation can achieve is to basically just compress that
| experience, we still won't build more housing or make it
| easier to do so etc.
| flmontpetit wrote:
| Can you employ a doctor even if you don't make more than a
| doctor? I would hope so.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| The unions I have heard about or seen in action (in Poland or
| from news) either
|
| (1) demanded flat payment increases for all workers based on
| seniority etc. Which may make sense for factory workers but I
| am not enthusiastic about flat rates for programmers not taking
| into account actual experience/availability/output etc.
|
| Factory workers in many cases do job that can be easily rated
| and measured and do some specific amount of it.
|
| While measuring output of programmers is notoriously hard.
|
| I expect that union agreement of this kind would in fact
| benefit only lazy freeloaders not doing any work but having
| seniority.
|
| (2) are guilds that existed to keep jobs for members and to
| outlaw or ban hiring outsiders.
|
| I strictly prefer for exclusionary guilds to not exist and one
| of my big worries is that one would be setup, in area affecting
| me. One way or another, not necessarily an obvious self-naming
| itself as a guild.
|
| (3) are gangs existing to steal public money - for example, see
| coal miners in Poland. Main union achievements was to steal
| billions of public money to help lazy freeloaders doing work
| that was not worth doing or outright harmful.
|
| I do not support theft, also in terms of parasiting on public
| resources. Even if I would get some of proceeds of theft.
|
| (4) intended to achieve more free days, flexibility etc. On my
| freelancing agreements I sacrificed large part of earning to
| get about 100+ free days a year, very significant flexibility
| where and how and on what I work. So this part is achieved for
| me - and I am not sure how many other tech workers would
| actually prefer more free time over being paid more.
|
| I am not automatically against unions for tech workers but my
| first reaction and assumption is not that it will be positive
| or useful for me.
| constantcrying wrote:
| The union at my workplace is of the opinion that engineering
| jobs should be outsourced so that factory work can be kept
| onshore.
|
| Do you think I would join an organization like that? There is
| a clear conflict of interest between blue and white color
| workers and the more numerous blue color workers push the
| union to prioritize them.
| cruzcampo wrote:
| There should be a separate white collar workers union.
| constantcrying wrote:
| [flagged]
| cruzcampo wrote:
| Why is it a zero-sum game to you? Why not advocate for
| all workers in the name of solidarity? There's no enemy
| but the class enemy.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Because there are conflicts of interest. Factory workers
| create the products which create profits. I am paid with
| these profits, if the profits go down _engineers_ loose
| their jobs.
|
| If Factory workers longer and more efficiently my job
| becomes more secure. So obviously I want a union which
| advocates that factory workers work longer hours, it is
| clearly in _my_ interest. The same goes for strikes, if
| factory workers strike they endanger _my_ job and reduce
| the size of the engineering department, reducing my
| chances to get promoted.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > There's no enemy but the class enemy.
|
| this is a bizarre simplification, sounding like some kind
| of silly propaganda
|
| I am well aware of enemies not fitting into such labeling
| at all (and probably there are more less obvious ones)
| cruzcampo wrote:
| Could you name a few?
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Government of Russian federation and significant part of
| Russian society that supports reconquering territories
| Russia used to control.
|
| Soccer hooligan vandals.
|
| Corrupt local politicians.
|
| Some vandals obsessed with damaging community-run geodata
| collection project.
|
| People who thing that overregulating everything in Europe
| is an exciting adventure and we should have more of it.
|
| Climate change deniers, people misunderstanding vaccines
| and in effect trying to resurrect diseases that were
| extinct locally.
|
| People with Saruman-like approach to trees.
|
| Coal miners parasiting on billions from public funds to
| fund coal mining (as selling coal does not allow to pay
| for it, at least with how much they are paid for it).
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop posting
| political/ideological/national battle comments? You've
| done quite a bit of that in this thread. It's not what
| this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
|
| I realize that many other users have been doing this as
| well, but each HN commenter needs to stick to the
| intended use of the site regardless of what others are
| doing.
|
| Fortunately, it looks like your comment history is mostly
| fine (at least the parts of it that I skimmed back
| through) so this should be easy to fix.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| parpfish wrote:
| if they're not fighting for you, they're no _your_ union.
| it 's _a_ union.
| flmontpetit wrote:
| Self-advocacy for tech industry professionals largely manifests
| itself in the form of job hopping.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| What makes solidarity between workers possible is the
| homogeneity of their labour. This condition is not present for
| tech workers. Labour market conditions are completely different
| from those of say, a meat processing plant or a factory
| assembly line.
| vuggamie wrote:
| There is more than enough homogeneity of labor in this
| industry. All workers should organize.
| flmontpetit wrote:
| The real homogeneity is class, thus the need for developing
| class consciousness in all workers.
| int_19h wrote:
| Seeing how the article link is to IWW, it might be
| interesting to bring up their take: not only all workers
| should organize, but they should organize in a _single
| union_ cutting across industries to maximize their
| collective power vs holders of capital. IWW strives to
| become exactly that.
| cratermoon wrote:
| generative ai is rapidly homogenizing tech labor. By design.
| dcre wrote:
| Capital sowing the seeds of its own destruction! Where have
| I heard this before?
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _What makes solidarity between workers possible is the
| homogeneity of their labour._
|
| Ethan Hunt play by Tom Cruise and Waitress #2 played by Jane
| Doe aren't very homogeneous with regards to pay and fame, but
| they're both part of SAG.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| Good point. I am not familiar with Hollywood to know what
| their job market is like.
|
| EDIT: another commented mentioned that NBA players are also
| unionized. I think there is a second element to it, which
| has to do with how monopolized the employer market is.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Doesn't the "G" in SAG stand for "Guild?" A guild is
| different from a union, right? It is more like a bunch of
| independent contractors making connections or something
| like that.
| parpfish wrote:
| a guild for software would be interesting.
|
| not only would the collective provide benefits to the
| individual workers, but it would serve as an (optional)
| form of licensure/credentialing that ensures each member
| has a baseline level of competence. it could make hiring
| so much easier if you could skip the fizzbuzz screening
| rounds by pulling from a pool of vetted talent.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Yeah. There are groups like ACM, IEEE has some computer
| sub-group if I recall correctly, and there are more niche
| groups like SIAM. But, they all seem to have a somewhat
| academic focus, at least in my (very limited) experience.
| unionthrowaway wrote:
| This exact exchange (Unions are great for fungible labor
| but computer programming isn't like that / But Hollywood
| A-list actors are unionized and they're the polar
| opposite of fungible labor / Oh but SAG is a Guild not a
| Union) plays out in every HN thread I've seen which
| mentions unions.
|
| As a union member (not SAG-AFTRA), I find this curious.
| SAG-AFTRA is a Union. They have a cool name but, like
| many other groups with Guild in their name, they are
| recognized by the NLRB as a Union. There's no special
| classification for Guild, at least in America.
|
| When you look at Wikipedia's list of largest unions in
| the US, only 2 of the top 10 have Union in their name,
| but that doesn't mean the other 8 aren't actually Unions.
| Or that the ones with Brotherhood in their name don't
| allow women, or any other silly extrapolation one wants
| to concoct. It's just a name.
|
| We're not in the 13th century any more. There is no
| longer any functional difference between Guild and Union.
| Of the alleged benefits of Guilds enumerated in HN
| threads (vetting and certification of members, continuing
| education, ability to be paid above scale, etc),
| literally every single one is already offered by unions
| today. And if you thought of a new one that wasn't, you
| could bring it up at your next union meeting and vote on
| it.
|
| It's frustrating to read discussions of unions by online
| commenters who have never been union members or paid
| dues, never read a union contract, never attended a union
| meeting or voted with their coworkers, never worked
| similar jobs in both union and non-union workplaces. It's
| like a bunch of people who have never lived in a free
| society arguing over whether they should form a Democracy
| or a Republic, by picking countries with these words in
| their names, and selecting attributes of those countries
| they do or don't want to emulate. That's not how it
| works.
| ses1984 wrote:
| Most of us have way, way more in common with a meat
| processing worker than we have in common with the people who
| sign our pay checks.
|
| The wealthy class makes multiples of your salary in passive
| income and their marginal tax rate is lower. You work and
| fork over 40%. They do nothing and pay 15% or less.
|
| You put your retirement money into a 401k. They put their
| retirement money into a "charitable foundation".
|
| You draw down from your retirement money. They take a loan
| against it.
|
| What's the difference between a billionaire and a meat
| packing worker? Billions of dollars.
|
| What's the difference between a billionaire and a faang
| engineer? Also billions of dollars.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| I said nothing about belonging to different economic
| classes.
|
| My point is simply that if you are 1 of 50,000 in a meat
| processing plant, you do not really have any way of
| competing with your fellow workers. You might try to work
| harder and faster, but then you end up raising the bar for
| all, and you now have to maintain the new pace. And once
| the rest catch up with your pace, the pay for all will be
| lowered again.
|
| In tech, every job is slightly different, and there is a
| real opportunity to meaningful differentiate yourself from
| the rest and compete in a much more dynamic job market.
|
| Also, who are the ones hurting currently? The juniors or
| the seniors? Seniors are mostly doing fine. Juniors are the
| ones hurting. And juniors would have an even harder time,
| if you transitioned to a unionized system, because entry
| requirements would be raised significantly to account for
| the fact that you cannot fire people so easily.
| dcre wrote:
| This is the exactly the right kind of question to be asking,
| but I think your conclusion is wrong. Why think the painters
| and the welder in an auto factory have more in common than 20
| different kinds of programmers do?
| matkoniecz wrote:
| As far as I know workers in auto factory work on assembly
| line with very standardized amount of work and with work
| itself being highly repetitive.
|
| Also, their output is relatively easy to measure and stand
| arise.
|
| This is not true for programmers, making standard pay
| increase for programmers less useful as a target. What
| would be measured? Hours in office? Commits? Lines of code?
| KiranRao0 wrote:
| I think this is the right line of thinking. My
| understanding of the grandparent's argument is 2 pieces:
|
| 1. Heterogeneity/homogeneity of labour.
|
| 2. Tight/lose labour market.
|
| I think Argument 1 is the weaker argument. There's a lot of
| fungibility between software roles. However, there's a
| higher learning cost. Moving to a new software company
| requires _a few months_ before someone is close to full
| productivity. This in contrast between a painter moving
| from a Ford supplier to a GM supplier will likely close to
| full productivity within _a few weeks_. The cost (to the
| employer) is lower to rehire someone.
|
| Argument 2 is the stronger argument, but may not be
| forever. In a tight labour market, I see very little need
| for unions. If the marginal worker can (and will) leave
| their position for a better position (pay, benefits,
| culture, etc), I see little need for unions. However, if
| the labour market for software engineers shifts in favor of
| businesses, this will change rapidly.
| dcre wrote:
| Tight labor markets don't last forever!
| constantcrying wrote:
| [flagged]
| cruzcampo wrote:
| But software developers _are_ the working class. Anyone who
| derives their income from labor is.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Sure. And that is why protesting looks so ridiculous. The
| oppressed working class, making six figures typing away in
| a well furnished office.
| masijo wrote:
| > making six figures typing away in a well furnished
| office
|
| I don't know about you but I don't make anything even
| remotely close to six figures...
| constantcrying wrote:
| The average US software dev does.
| cruzcampo wrote:
| We are what is called the labor aristocracy in socialist
| discourse:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy
|
| It is still labor and we _are_ still exploited - most the
| revenue we generate goes to capitalist interests, not us,
| the laborers, which are the creators of all revenue.
|
| It's just that we have it comparatively good and so are
| less inclined to seek out systemic change - a less
| favorable reading would be that we are bought off to
| split us off from the rest of the proletariat.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Uhm, my revenue goes to the shareholders of my company.
| Among those shareholders are me, my colleagues and the
| state.
| cruzcampo wrote:
| Most of the shareholders are random rich people that have
| never lifted a finger in their life, yet get to enjoy the
| fruits of your labor.
| trgn wrote:
| the labor movement really needs to get beyond this
| stereotype that it is to lift all these hunched poor
| little downtrodden suppliants out of poverty. workers who
| have successfully organized are not pitiful schlubs, and
| their affluence is a testament to the success of their
| organizing, not its triviality. political interests of
| the labor class just are not the same as those of
| capital, and therefore its methods and aims should be
| different as well.
| parpfish wrote:
| one thing that i've been repeating for years now is that
| if you want tech to organize, unions need to sell
| themselves differently.
|
| unions in the past are portrayed as remove physical
| dangers, limiting to reasonable hours and fair wages. but
| tech workers already have that stuff, so they don't see
| an upside.
|
| codetermination (getting workers on the board), four day
| work weeks, full-time remote, sabbaticals, open source
| support, rethinking startup equity, ... there's all sorts
| of things we could be pushing for that would make our
| jobs better that we could to push for if we worked
| together.
| trgn wrote:
| great list. another thing to add, credentialing so we can
| stop the leetcode gating at the interview stage.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The top-end of the working class shares more with the
| low-end of the working class, than the top-end of the
| working class shares with the low-end of the upper class.
|
| I have never been to a politician's dinner. I have never
| changed a law. If I were fired, which can be done at any
| time for no reason, I would have no source of income.
| Money is the weakest form of power, and a well-paid job
| is the weakest form of money.
| parpfish wrote:
| Sometimes I worry that all the stories about unions helping
| to end the most extreme exploitation and fix deadly working
| conditions has made them unrelatable.
|
| If you make a cushy salary and the biggest physical risk is
| carpal tunnel, you might think "I dont have it THAT bad.
| It'd be greedy and disrespectful of the sacrifices that
| were made to use unions in my situation"
| constantcrying wrote:
| What made unions unrelatable for me was them obviously
| pushing the interest of factory workers over the
| interests of engineers. Thanks for trying to get my job
| outsourced I guess.
| cruzcampo wrote:
| There's nothing stopping us from creating an engineers
| union. Each field should have their own organisation.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Yes there is. I hate unions and I hate union work and I
| love doing my job.
| 9rx wrote:
| More likely software developers are, for the most part,
| middle class - deriving their income from a combination of
| labor and land/capital.
|
| While software developers just starting out are apt to be
| working class, when you receive a comparatively high income
| for your labor it soon becomes hard to find things to do
| with it if you don't start investing in land/capital, so
| one in that position doesn't stay working class for long.
| masijo wrote:
| You know, there's a lot more to the working class than just
| manual labor. Anyone that depends on a wage to live is a
| worker, and we all share the same struggles.
| constantcrying wrote:
| The same struggles, like the quality of the office coffee
| machine? Bike subsidies from the employer too low?
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| No, things like: we obtain money by working rather than
| by pumping assets. We pay income tax rather than capital
| gains tax. Our employers are always asking for more while
| paying less. We do not individually have enough assets to
| make individual lobbying efforts EV positive, but our
| employers and the largest shareholders sure do. Politics
| is an expense for us but an investment for them -- unless
| we join together.
|
| Structurally we are more similar than different, even if
| tech workers have had it good for the last while.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| Things like unpaid overtime, health insurance being tied
| to employment, the ability to afford a house on what
| should be a reasonable income, protections from
| harassment/discrimination... unions have worked toward
| democratizing access to all of these things.
| keybored wrote:
| Nothing sounds as made-up as people being mad at privileged
| workers being on the same team as all workers.
|
| It sounds much better for them to be on the team of all
| workers rather than the other team, or to be out of the game
| entirely.
| brookst wrote:
| Do you also think the working class have no business
| complaining about the struggles of the truly poor? And the
| poor can't complain about people literally starving?
|
| You seem to be claiming that empathy is always "hollow" but I
| think this is at most a statement about you. Many people can
| be both well off and want to make things better for others.
| Not everyone, for sure, not enough maybe. But attacking
| people for showing empathy seems weird.
| jjj123 wrote:
| You make it sound like organizing you and your peers is just
| virtue signaling toward the plight of the working class.
|
| It's not virtue signaling. There are material gains that
| could be made by organizing. Layoff protection and the power
| to set company direction are two big ones that come to mind.
|
| It's okay to want to unionize for selfish reasons. In fact, I
| think it's borderline propaganda to suggest the only reason a
| wealthy person would organize is because of their own class
| guilt.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| Unless you're part of the owner class, you're still working
| class.
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| Because you have to take more of men's dignity before they
| collectivize against you
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I've been a manager in tech for the last 11 years full-time
|
| Prior to that I was a military commander as a Major in the
| United States Air Force
|
| Before joining the AF I had jobs in construction, freelance web
| design and car stereo installation in high school
|
| The singular difference is the personality of tech workers is
| "I can do this faster and easier by myself - I have no desire
| to communicate with other people"
|
| It seems to stem from a large swath very technical people
| coming from isolated environments when they were children.
|
| Specifically ones in middle to upper middle class families,
| where the computer was their creative outlet and they were
| spending more time with a computer and understanding the
| computer than they were other people.
|
| They were able to get excited about and learn and get deep into
| a topic where you really didn't need other people -- you need
| to documentation you needed books and you needed time to
| experiment.
|
| Almost every single other job I've ever worked in you *need*
| other people in order to make progress. That is not true for
| writing really small functional and precise software which is
| the "job" of most swe.
|
| As a function of that the majority of SWE's (and frankly this
| applies to most technical experts who have a very specific
| niche) have neither of the interest nor the belief that the
| organization is valuable in of itself as the organization and
| they are way more excited to jump companies in order to promote
| themselves because that is how they are incentivized and are
| happy to find themselves in that position.
|
| If you wanna actually make an organization that creates
| sustainable software, you need an entirely different way of
| thinking. you need to think organizationally you think you need
| to think about how to help people how to get things out of
| their way communication etc. etc. etc. all these things have
| nothing to do with"shipping code "
|
| And for a lot of people who are good at programming they really
| genuinely could not care or have the capacity to understand
| about anything other than their narrow frame of view and they
| do not see their coworkers as part of their community they see
| them as competition.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > have neither of the interest nor the belief that the
| organization is valuable in of itself as the organization and
| they are way more excited to jump companies in order to
| promote themselves because that is how they are incentivized
| and are happy to find themselves in that position.
|
| This will continue to remain true so long as expected pay
| bumps for job-hopping outpace loyalty raises.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| We tend to think like this, unconsciously if not outright: "I'm
| smarter than the next guy, so in a dog-eat-dog system I'll come
| out ahead. Organizing with a bunch of less-smart people would
| only hold me back."
|
| Plus, at the risk of too much head-shrinking, I've never gotten
| the impression that tech workers liked each other very much.
| There's a lot of disdain in the industry, for the guy who uses
| that language or framework or operating system that I think
| sucks. You don't see that so much with, say, truckers. There
| may be some good-natured rivalry based on truck brands or long-
| haul versus short-haul, but not the real disdain you see in
| tech.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| Tech workers tend to get paid very well. That limits
| incentivization for unionization. Also there is a stigma that
| unions tend to be for the middle of the road workers with
| modest salaries. All the senior leaders with big salaries are
| not union, and everyone wants the big salary.
| citadel_melon wrote:
| It's silly. MLB players are unionized and they make more
| money than tech workers. The reason why management don't need
| a union is because they have much more say in determining
| their own wages.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Why don't labor issues resonate more with tech workers?
|
| Because many tech workers don't see themselves as workers, with
| some justification, many having substantial capital investments
| alongside labor income, making them, in class terms, petit
| bourgeois or at least close enough to it to perceive their own
| interests in more bourgeois than proletarian terms. And even
| the tech workers that are clearly part of the proletarian
| intelligentsia tend see themselves (rightly or wrongly) on a
| path that leads into the bourgeoisie, with bourgeois interests.
| flmontpetit wrote:
| It's crazy how we've abstracted financial serfdom out of the
| status of being a property owner. Contrasted with renting it
| surely seems like independence, but whether the bank squeezes
| extra value out of you directly or through the proxy of a
| landlord, the end result is similar.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Contrasted with renting it surely seems like independence,
| but whether the bank squeezes extra value out of you
| directly or through the proxy of a landlord, the end result
| is similar.
|
| The difference is public policy. Owning property in the US
| absolutely elevates you to a higher privileged status above
| renters. How many homeowners were being evicted from their
| homes after missing a couple mortgage payments during the
| pandemic? Precisely zero. While thousands of renters in red
| states had the sheriff at their throats within 60 days.
| That's all you need to know about class in this country.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I've always thought of it in these terms:
|
| Working class: you are sustained by your current labor.
|
| Upper class: you can sustain yourself based on the returns
| from your investments more-or-less indefinitely.
|
| Middle class, between the two: you can sustain yourself off
| your investments for so long that you can't practically be
| threatened by unemployment.
|
| It is a labor relations issue explicitly, you need a union if
| you are in the first of the three classes, because otherwise
| you can be threatened by unemployment to do something
| dangerous or dehumanizing.
|
| In the middle class definition, practically there's some
| element of the fact that our skills are in high demand, so
| you can become unthreatened by unemployment by having just,
| like, a 1 year buffer. But I do think we can overstate how
| in-demand our skills to satisfy our egos...
| reillyse wrote:
| I honestly think the "middle class" idea is just a fallacy.
| It feels like it's used by people to distance themselves
| from "working class" because they feel that working class
| is somehow beneath them. All of the middle class in todays
| parlance are just slightly more affluent working class. If
| you sell your time for money you are working class. If you
| make money from having money you are bourgeoisie.
|
| If you have to think about which one you are you are
| working class. At a stretch you might consider the owner of
| a small tech company (say 5-10 employees) as petit
| bourgeoisie but the vast majority of small business owners
| (say mechanics, shop owners, small companies) are squarely
| in the working class. They may have employees but they
| still work, either for wages or as managers of those
| employees - which is work.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The usual American idea of "middle class" is mostly
| (thoufh it tends to be defined more by income than actual
| means of relating to the economy) a mix of the upper
| income segment of the primarily labor-dependent class
| (working class/proletariat) and the lower (comparatively)
| income segment of the mixed labor/capital-dependent class
| (petit bourgeoisie).
|
| The middle class (petit bourgeoisie) is real, but its not
| centered around middle income (it is middle in the sense
| of being between the dominantly capital-dependent class
| and the dominantly labor-dependent class, primarily in
| how it relates to the economy, but in practice also _on
| average_ , in income and wealth, but it is still an elite
| minority, just less so than the _haut bourgeoisie_ that
| sits at the top.)
| bee_rider wrote:
| What is it about the owner of a small tech company that
| potentially bumps them into the middle class, in your
| view?
|
| I like the definition I provided because it seems
| functional to me; it describes classes with labor-capital
| relationships, and describes how the incentives influence
| their behavior.
| reillyse wrote:
| honestly the tech company person is probably not - I was
| just thinking of someone who started a what would be
| derisively called a "lifestyle business" and has
| basically retired earning a couple of million a year.
| Most small tech founders are still working for their
| crust.
|
| What I don't like about the middle class definition is
| that it is to my mind just a subset of the working class
| but designed to drive a wedge between people who should
| be looking out for each other. It has the effect of
| attempting to align working class people with super rich
| capitalists. Interesting that "middle class" was the
| original name for the capitalists who were between the
| working class and the nobility, now we pretend that the
| middle class are working class adjacent.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I honestly think the "middle class" idea is just a
| fallacy._
|
| One definition I found reasonable was that it it "starts"
| with those that can meet their basic necessities
| (housing, food, transportation, healthcare) and still
| have funds left over for discretionary spending:
|
| * https://ofdollarsanddata.com/the-biggest-lie-in-
| personal-fin...
|
| Where it "ends" at top-end is perhaps more arbitrary (not
| Top 10%? 20%? 1%?).
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't like this definition as much because it includes
| most people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck with
| minimal leisure expenditure, right?
|
| Like if you by groceries, rent an apartment, have a bus
| pass, qualify for Medicare, and you have a Netflix
| account or get fast food (discretionary spending), then
| you seem to be middle class by this definition. Is that
| right? Maybe Medicare bumps you out. But ok, you can get
| the cheapest marketplace plan.
|
| I mean, to be below middle class by this definition your
| expenses have to _exactly_ match your revenue, or you are
| living beyond your means. So other than some tiny slice
| (in some perimeter vs area sense) of the populace, being
| working class seems to be definitionally unsustainable.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| We make a lot of money. Money pays for healthcare, childcare,
| paternity/maternity leave, retirement, food, housing,
| transportation, in addition to recreation. Our "struggle" is
| invented. Oh, career burnout huh? So you're working yourself
| harder than you have to in order to make _more_ money? Sounds
| tough. And small equity grants? Oh gosh, how dare they not give
| us _even more money_.
|
| People who don't make a lot of money struggle to afford all
| those things, and are worked to death despite it. They don't
| just have enough and want more. They literally don't have
| enough to live a life free of struggle.
|
| Unions exist because workers were literally being killed by
| their employers. What's a tech worker's biggest gripe? Being
| on-call? Not getting a bonus on top of their fat salary? The
| only time I've ever done a hard day's work as a tech worker was
| when I joined a shitty startup that was abusive with long
| hours. I left and joined a normal company and it was smooth
| sailing. The most painful part of the job is my tennis elbow,
| but hey, I have a corporate healthcare plan and a $1000 swivel
| chair. I don't see the point of a union in this environment.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> We make a lot of money._
|
| Not compared to many unionized industries. Workers in
| professional sports and entertainment, for example, which
| fully embrace labor unions, make software developers look
| like they work for peanuts.
|
| _> Unions exist because workers were literally being killed
| by their employers._
|
| Labor unions have formed when death was actually on the
| horizon because death was on the horizon, but labor unions
| today are almost exclusively a rich man's sport. The poor
| aren't poor enough to face certain death, but aren't rich
| enough to risk the consequences of not working (i.e.
| striking) for beneficial-but-not-life-threatning demands, so
| it is not a reasonable choice for them to make. Hence why you
| almost never find labor unions in low paying jobs.
|
| Tech doesn't like unions simply because, as a group, tech
| doesn't like people. That's what a union is, after all: A
| group of people who have decided to associate with each
| other.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > Workers in professional sports and entertainment, for
| example, which fully embrace labor unions, make software
| developers look like they work for peanuts.
|
| I am pretty sure that union is not the most significant
| part why pay is high here.
| 9rx wrote:
| We're all pretty sure of that. How did you come to
| conclude that others might have thought differently?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. It's not what
| this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| 9rx wrote:
| What do you mean by flamewar? The dictionary defines it
| as _" an online dispute or argument characterized by
| heated, angry, and often abusive exchanges between
| multiple participants."_, which is in line with my
| understanding, but that isn't applicable here, so I am
| unsure how to interpret it. Further, the link states that
| the site is for _" Anything that good hackers would find
| interesting."_, which is what the question poses. The
| answer is something that would be found interesting -
| that is why it was asked, after all - so it seems the use
| is perfectly in line with expectations.
| dang wrote:
| I'm fine with that definition.
|
| "We're all pretty sure of that. Where did you dream up
| this straw man?" is just the kind of provocation that
| produces that kind of discussion, though.
|
| One thing to keep in mind is that most of us
| underestimate the provocation in our own posts (let's say
| by 10x) and overestimate the provocation in others' posts
| (let's say by another 10x) and that leads to quite a skew
| in perception [1]. I believe this is why everyone always
| feels like the other person started it / did worse [2].
| Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear! [3]
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=f
| alse&qu...
|
| [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=t
| rue&que...
|
| [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=t
| rue&que...
| 9rx wrote:
| Interesting. Not how I would interpret it, but I
| understand that communication is hard. I have edited in a
| hopefully successful effort to more accurately convey the
| question.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, that works! And I appreciate the thoughtful reply.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Sports and entertainment have super-star effect where
| vast majority is paid nothing or meager sums, while few
| stars pull massive piles of money.
|
| I suspect that this drives wages high for highly paid
| individuals in sport and entertainment.
|
| Note that stars in entertainment, in fields without
| unions also earn a lot.
| 9rx wrote:
| My question, as originally phrased, apparently was going
| to cause world war three or something like that according
| to another commenter, so at their behest I reworded it.
| Maybe something got lost in that effort, but I was trying
| to ask where you got the idea that anyone thinks that
| entertainment/sports stars make as much money as they do
| because of unions? I've never heard of such a thing and
| it violates everything we know about economics, so where
| you find fit in this 'revelation' you keep repeating is
| curious.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> Why don't labor issues resonate more with tech workers?_
|
| They do! What doesn't resonate with many tech workers is
| working together with other people. Tech workers are largely
| used to working alone, and many even struggle in social
| situations more-so than in other industries, so when a labor
| issue arises they believe it is a problem they must solve on
| their own.
| johngossman wrote:
| The many people working in big tech are certainly used to
| working together and solving problems together. I think
| others on this thread are closer: generally high economic
| status and greater perceived career autonomy than in other
| industries
| 9rx wrote:
| They are used to working together to the extent that is
| necessary to further their own self-interest (i.e. get
| promoted). That competitive environment is not conducive to
| working together in a 'brotherhood' sense that a union
| requires, through.
|
| Industries with significantly higher economic status and
| autonomy are all over unions (sports, entertainment,
| politics, medicine, etc.), so that doesn't really explain
| it.
| psadauskas wrote:
| Cory Doctorow wrote about this recently: The enshittification
| of tech jobs (27 Apr 2025)
| https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/27/some-animals/
|
| Particularly this part:
|
| > nestling comfortably alongside of the idea that "I don't need
| a union, I'm a temporarily embarrassed founder."
| praptak wrote:
| Labour issues? I'm afraid that most tech workers still believe
| that improving the technology is enough for the society to
| thrive, not rethinking capitalism (or at least its current
| implementation).
| bee_rider wrote:
| We're convinced we're be court wizards, not peasants, in a
| fantasy setting. Wizards join guilds, not unions.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| because generally tech workers are well compensated relative to
| other workers, the areas where this isn't true have had some
| movement in labor initiatives like the The United Videogame
| Workers
| zackmorris wrote:
| The simplest answer tends to be the right one, so in the face
| of the inexplicable, the answer is usually ignorance.
|
| The tech track works great if one falls into line and doesn't
| rock the boat by questioning authority or trying to see the big
| picture. If one clings to original teenage fantasies like the
| idea that intellectual prowess and financial success eventually
| bring esteem and a social life. If one chooses to avoid
| becoming mired in dead end physical labor jobs like everyone
| else, even for a time, in worship of their own cleverness.
|
| But should the unthinkable happen, say, the loss of a loved one
| due to a hyper focus on work, or witnessing one's work being
| used to take from others, or waking up one day to find oneself
| disillusioned with the direction tech is going, then suddenly
| tech loses its luster. One starts to recognize it for what it
| is - just another way to concentrate wealth and power in the
| hands of the few.
|
| Tech has come to symbolize sheltering from reality, like a
| state sanctioned drug. It's a way to pat oneself on the back
| and downplay the wisdom of those outside it. Blindly
| worshipping it to the exclusion of the other wonders of life is
| the surest way I know to separate oneself from the soul, other
| than money perhaps.
|
| In good conscience, I must add that the vast majority of tech
| today is phantom tech, not real tech. It serves to entertain
| and distract rather than be a labor-saving device. So in that
| sense, it's understandable that people invested in solving
| anything except any real problem have a disdain for the plight
| of labor.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| Tech workers, or white collars in general, believe in the law
| (I'm Not A Lawyer, as well as looking as the union as a
| solution) and sort of peaceful solution, without much violence.
| brickfaced wrote:
| [flagged]
| amarcheschi wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| It's not ok to post political or ideological flamewar
| comments to HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or
| you feel they are.
|
| Both of your posts to this thread (this one and
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43857366) have broken
| the site guidelines.
|
| If you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to
| the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| That's fair
| parpfish wrote:
| Then you better not watch any fireworks on Independence Day
| either
| brickfaced wrote:
| Comparing the American Revolution to random anarchist
| terrorists throwing bombs into crowds is... certainly
| something.
| ebiester wrote:
| The founding fathers would have been called terrorists
| today by the British. Past the Boston Tea Party, the Green
| Mountain Boys is a pretty good example. "The Green Mountain
| Boys stopped sheriffs from enforcing New York laws and
| terrorized settlers who had New York grants, burning
| buildings, stealing cattle, and administering occasional
| floggings with birch rods." -
| https://www.britannica.com/topic/Green-Mountain-Boys
| [deleted]
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I wish we were off today in the US. This holiday makes me jealous
| of my international friends :)
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Is there any link to May Day with the emergency distress call of
| an airline?
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Mayday is from the french m'aider (a short form of venez
| m'aider, "come [and] help me")
| gymbeaux wrote:
| [flagged]
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > Tell me which rule I broke.
|
| hard to say without knowing what was there
| gymbeaux wrote:
| I'm obviously addressing the mods (perhaps facetiously). No,
| I didn't break any rules (except for "fuck this place")
| cruzcampo wrote:
| There's a lot of regressives here actively abusing the flagging
| functionality for censorship - ironically the same kind of
| people that'll tell you how much they care about freedom of
| speech (the unspoken part: _but only if its speech they agree
| with_ )
| justinrubek wrote:
| Unfortunately, I don't think this is a good place for
| discussion, and it isn't being addressed properly by the
| moderation team.
| flmontpetit wrote:
| Social media cracking down on leftist ideology is something
| that needs to be studied. They are very slick about it, and
| will usually find some way to make it appear legit (eg:
| deliberately interpreting obvious sarcasm as literally as
| possible and then hitting you with the content policy) but at
| the end of the day anybody can see that reactionaries can get
| away with calls to violence and war crime apologia while the
| rest of us have to be on their absolute best behaviour.
|
| It really goes to show you that capital has no ideology and
| will adopt whatever shape it needs to as the political climate
| changes. The United States government is now fascist, and
| therefore the investor class is also fascist.
| dang wrote:
| If you're referring to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43857048 ("everyone who
| isn't a bootlicker"), then obviously you broke at least these:
|
| " _Eschew flamebait._ "
|
| " _Please don 't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle._"
|
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| That means the users who flagged your post were correct to do
| so.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > Literally thousands of working people embraced the ideals of
| anarchism, which sought to put an end to all hierarchical
| structures
|
| Something that groups of people rarely seem to realize: you don't
| have to accept a binary. You don't have to put _all_ hierarchical
| structure to an end. You don 't have to do ONLY one thing or ONLY
| another. Life is about balance.
|
| Doesn't matter what side of a spectrum you're on. Conservatives,
| capitalists, evangelicals, anarchists, socialists, leftists. Each
| group is often dominated by a polarizing, binary force. Some
| fiery personality is agitating so hard for their point of view
| that they will only accept total capitulation and domination of
| their position. But that doesn't leave room for the middle way,
| compromise, a diversity of states of being. And so it creates
| conflict, even warfare.
|
| I've worked in both systems (capitalist hierarchy, anarchist non-
| hierarchy). Both are useful. Both suck. The reason they both
| suck, is their incapacity to accept that _sometimes_ the "other
| way" is better to get a specific thing done. But they can't see
| outside their own limited model. They're 2-dimensional, when they
| need to be 3-D.
|
| They won't allow the "other way" in, because they're afraid it
| will taint "their way", and in some way ruin or defeat it. But if
| they did finally compromise and allow an alien system to co-
| habitate with their own, they'd see the truth. A composite of
| glass and plastic is better than either of them alone. Foreign
| organisms living in your gut make you healthier. It's the sum of
| the good properties, closely aligned, that contribute to a better
| whole.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Something that groups of people rarely seem to realize: you
| don't have to accept a binary. You don't have to put all
| hierarchical structure to an end. You don't have to do ONLY one
| thing or ONLY another.
|
| I do not understand your framing. You don't "have to" do
| anything. These are people talking about what they _wish_ to
| do.
|
| > Life is about balance.
|
| Pseudo-Buddhist bullshit.
|
| You are lost in abstraction. These arguments are actually about
| material conditions, they're not just personality conflicts.
| Middle-class people lose contact with this fact, because they
| have no material worries; or rather their material conditions
| are simply tied to whether their employer believes they are
| profitable to employ. Of course middle-class people have to
| "compromise." Or rather they have to paint their total and
| continuous submission as a compromise, complain about the
| _inflexibility_ of their bosses, and dream of one day having
| the _leverage_ to order people around themselves.
|
| Arguing that the best solution is in the middle is just the
| moderation fallacy. It's not profound, it's the law of
| averages. It's the kind of thing you can say regardless of
| subject, an invariant, that will always make people who believe
| in the law of averages believe you said something profound.
| graemep wrote:
| May day has much older, possibly separate, origins as a
| celebration of the start of summer.
| stuaxo wrote:
| It's been a long time, and the 8 hour day was a good advance back
| then.
|
| Now, we need a 4 day week (1 day less work) at the same pay, just
| as back then they moved from 10-16 hour working days to 8, for
| the same pay at the end of the week.
| OJFord wrote:
| As usual for the US, this is really The Brief Origins of _US_ May
| Day, or charitably perhaps the socialist May Day, and otherwise
| May Day has its origins centuries before the existence of the US.
|
| https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/the-histor...
| dang wrote:
| All: Hacker News is for _curious_ conversation.
|
| Bashing people who hold opposing views with harsh phrases driven
| by pre-existing emotion is not only not curious conversation, it
| poisons it.
|
| Unfortunately, quite a few of you have been doing that in this
| thread. That's not ok, and no, the topic does not excuse it--on
| the contrary: " _Comments should get more thoughtful and
| substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive._ "
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
|
| If you aren't feeling curious, or can't post thoughtfully and
| substantively, please take a break until you are and can.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I think modern people in the West, and especially people who are
| against communism, may not realize that Marx's ideas took hold so
| forcefully because they seemed to provide a way for everyday
| workers to fight back against the working conditions that arose
| following the industrial revolution. (Charles Dickens's novels
| provide a lot of detail from the perspective of the working
| class.)
|
| One example: in retrospect, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
| resulted in much death and starvation. But the people of Russia
| in the 1920s were _fed up_ with the working conditions and
| effective two-lane legal state in Russia (i.e. the law bound poor
| people and protected rich people) that had existed for hundreds
| of years under the Tsars.
|
| As far as I can tell, rule of law is always the best answer to
| injustice - a law that reflects the will of the people, binds all
| equally, and protects all equally. But when injustice has
| persisted for a while, people can be vulnerable to ideologues and
| ideologies that can take advantage of the situation, create a new
| ruling class, and cause an overcorrection.
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