Mass layoffs, AI anxiety, and corporate surveillance have heightened interest in unions among IT professionals. Organizers who've been through it explain how to get started — and what to expect.
that unions are “not meritocratic,” “prevent innovation,” and “hold back earnings of top performers.”
When they make comments like that, they always assume that they are the “top performers”, getting the best deal already (edit: or on track to be one of them in the future). That assumption is usually wrong.
I think it is more the opposite. They have worked with some people who are terrible at their job. And the idea that those terrible people would get the same pay angers them.
And that is the trick. How does a union ensure the people who do a good job actually get paid better than those who don’t. The answer is of course that they can’t. This is because there is no objective standard for doing a good job in tech. Everyone’s idea of a good job is different.
When they make comments like that, they always assume that they are the “top performers”, getting the best deal already (edit: or on track to be one of them in the future). That assumption is usually wrong.
I think it is more the opposite. They have worked with some people who are terrible at their job. And the idea that those terrible people would get the same pay angers them. And that is the trick. How does a union ensure the people who do a good job actually get paid better than those who don’t. The answer is of course that they can’t. This is because there is no objective standard for doing a good job in tech. Everyone’s idea of a good job is different.