Someone or multiple people are blasting “antiwork” manifestos to receipt printers at businesses around the world, according to people who claim to have seen the printed manifesto, dozens of posts on Reddit, and a cybersecurity company that is analyzing network traffic to insecure printers.
An intersection between technology and social issues – and an inventive and effectively harmless one, too. Especially the United States, but a lot of other countries too, desperately needs a lot more strong unions, and if this plays even a small role in getting there, it’s worth it.
After my dad’s experiences with the United Auto Workers’ union, I doubt I would ever willingly work in a union shop. Having twice as many bosses divided into two factions is a recipe for disaster.
SamuraiCrow,
I get the sentiment. There are bad unions that overstep their charter and fail short in terms of representing their members. Those deserve to be criticized. However it’s pretty clear that unions give workers more negotiating power in an otherwise very uneven playing field. A good union can make a big difference in raising the working conditions and standard of living for many workers and without unions many workers would be much worse off.
On the other hand if you run a business or are a shareholder, it’s no secret that unions are bad news for you because you’ll be spending more on worker incomes and benefits. Big companies like amazon take many billions more in profits each year thanks to not being unionized. It would make sense for opinions about unions to be governed by who one thinks deserves more money: shareholders versus workers.
The problem seems to be the UAW. I use to work on the line for GM too, and the garbage I heard from my union rep was unbelievable at times. I look at unions in Europe and I see things I like, I look at any of the big unions here in North America and all I see are some fat cat doing their best to collect their big incomes before they think of the workers.
Earl C Pottinger,
Yeah, if you’ve got a bad union and/or they’re pushing for dumb rules that don’t really help workers, then I see how it’s a real problem. I wonder if there’s a better way to fix them across the board. Regardless, I think getting rid of them outright would be detrimental for worker interests.
Alfman,
All big entities evolve into self-preservation machines, (is there a name for this?).
We can ask: Why do we still need the TSA, while it has repeatedly been shown to be ineffective?
https://www.heritage.org/transportation/commentary/heres-how-bad-the-tsa-failing-airport-security-its-time-privatization
That is one of my “go to” examples for failed massive programs, that still continues to exist, and many people still think it is doing something… when objectively they don’t.
The UAW and some other US unions seem to be not doing a good job of promoting worker welfare, which includes improving the companies they work for. Or promoting too much of their current members, at the expense of everyone else, like impossible to fulfill pension obligations that promote bankruptcy: https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/24/pensions-leave-cities-with-bankruptcy-as-their-life-raft/
Still, “importing” unions from Europe is impossible, and replacing an obsolete entity with a fresh start is an enormous task.
skuru,
I’ve also heard about this going on in many places. This one would have been easy to fix at the get go by not allowing politicians/governments cheat. Generations should pay for their own benefits without leaving future generations on the hook. It’s clear to anyone looking at things from the outside that kind of accounting will always be open to abuse because it makes it easy for politicians to pass the buck. The main problem we’re facing is that the damage is already done by prior politicians…grr.
Politicians are not held accountable because by the time the consequences come up they are gone and we’re on someone else’s watch. Like the social security shortfall we are approaching…it is projected that the government will only pay back 2/3rds of every dollar they paid in (or thereabouts). It would have been trivial for each generation to effectively pay for their own SS benefits, but instead they used the money early already and need future generations to back-pay SS benefits for earlier generations. Future generations are thus facing a combination of less benefits and greater burden than the earlier generations who essentially took advantage of benefits on credit that they’ll never pay back.
I think the future is going to be scary because 1) everything in our lifetimes (school, housing, food, insurance, cars, etc) has gotten so expensive compared to earlier generations and 2) in the meantime pensions and SS benefits are being cut both outright and by pegging benefits to unrealistically low inflation numbers by the feds.
We had the same here in the UK in the 1970’s. disenfranchised workers were doing the bare minimum. Output dropped. Quality was, frankly, shite. Corporate were paying too many managers too much money. Very little investment was happening in R&D, leading to outdated technology being used in supposedly “modern” cars.
Eventually, the whole house of cards came tumbling down and British Leyland was broken up. The last vestigial company to still exist is Jaguar Land Rover, and they’re now owned by India.
It’s not hard to see the same pattern in the US. Except over there it seems to have been much more gradual.
That sounds like something said in haste. Unions may look good on paper but in practice can have a lot of unintended consequences and be disastrous for the very people they’re meant to protect. Unions at best are a double-edged sword. I don’t belong to a union but I know many people who do and hear far more anger & frustration than joy & satisfaction from their experience. I’d argue that we in the US do not need more `strong` unions but rather more employers choosing of their own will to be slightly less profitable so they can better prioritize their employees.
I agree with this but unfortunately the reality is that the vast majority of business owners will be selfish and cruel, that’s just the nature of capitalism. I also feel that true employee ownership of the business (not just stock options, but fully vested, voting power ownership) can help a business stay profitable while putting the employee’s needs front and center. It’s not a perfect solution either, but as you said neither are unions.
My dad used to say that, and explained all of the dumb union rules that prevented him from getting his job done as well as he could have. So they voted the union out. And not only was he allowed to violate those old union rules on the types and hours of work he had to do, they were now required. He ended up working 30% more for the same pay for a couple years before they unceremoniously laid him off. His thoughts are a bit more pro union now. The dumb rules weren’t intrinsic to the Union, He thinks they should have just negotiated a better contract that would have been more in favor of the company to remove some of the dumb rules, but kept most of the job protections.
In short, it depends on the industry and the union. I think they could make sense in many industries, if they were run by smart people and the contracts were negotiated sensibly in good faith.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
+1
I also think a lot of union rules are dumb. Even worse, some unions raise money for political campaigns. A portion of my wife’s union dues for example are allocated for republican candidates that she despises. Using union dues that way should be illegal IMHO.
Those types of gripes aside, I have to say all my union friends and family are all better off than non-union…there’s hardly any contest at all. Unions provide balance of negotiating power than employees don’t otherwise have. More benefits, higher wages, protection from unilateral action. Businesses hate them because they work.
Unions are on the decline though. GOP lawmakers in particular have been passing laws to impede unionization. Some courts have overturned anti-union laws, but seeing as how courts have been loaded with republican judges, union restrictions are more likely to pass.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/missouri-court-strikes-down-public-labor-union-restrictions/
It’s ironic that the poorly educated who’d benefit most are the most likely to vote against their own interests. I have family who are anti-union because of politics, even those who have great union wages & perks.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/15/majorities-of-adults-see-decline-of-union-membership-as-bad-for-the-u-s-and-working-people/
The US needs a bill of rights much like EU membership requires adhering to the (none EU) European Convention and jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. Even Russia is a signatory to the European Convention. By bringing UN human rights obligations into domestic law it puts a halt to a lot of funny business. The people holding this back are senior judges and scholars propping up US exceptionalism as well as politicians who like getting away with it and never answering for their abuses in a court of law.
I forget the details but a bill of rights was supposed to be included in the US constitution. The reason ti wasn’t was the coalition of states signing up to it were going to fall apart if it was not signed quickly. Assurances were given a bill of rights would be added later and this never happened.
Another examples of “the con” and “rights stripping” is the UK’s Magna Carta. A lot of usually right wing blowhards not paying attention hold this up as the beginnings of democracy. Well, no. It was simply an agreement to reign in the power of the king to satisfy the barons who were getting a bit tetchy. There was the slimmest of the slimmest mention of the common person but any rights granted were slim to none and mostly only applied to “freemen” which excluded 99% of everyone else. Magna Carta itself was watered down over the years as the powers that be chipped away at what little Magna Carta represented and almost all of its provisions removed from law. A very modern equivalent to the King getting a bit too big for their boots and rights stripping is the wheeze by the current UK regime (I used the word “regime”to draw a direct and laced with contempt parallel with tin-pot Eastern bloc dictators and banana republics) to quash the right of judicial review and also nullify European Court of Human Rights decisions it doesn’t agree with.
The regime “minister” in charge of this wheeze is Raab – an utterly corrupt and inept lawyer who is a virulent anti-European who more than once has stated he wants to see the Human Rights Act abolished even if it means withdrawing from the European Convention. The EU is already wise to the games the UK regime is playing although I’m not sure they really get how pernicious this regime is and how good they are at manufacturing the appearance of legality. That last point should get the ECJ twitching over the Brexit withdrawal agreement and the EU Commission considering sanctions.
As a final note the UK has among the most savage anti-union laws in the world and among the very lowest spend of OECD countries on welfare programmes…
Note: The only union shop I worked in was GM. But while there it was my impression some of the dumb rules the union pushed were make work rules that the union management tabled to say to the member “See we are doing something”, also I joined GM just when the union stop some of the dues to the preferred political party. Until then the NDP was getting money from the union no matter what the members thought of the party. That is just wrong.
I also notice smaller and more local union listened to the workers more, I think when a union gets too big the people at the top tends to be isolated from the workers at the bottom.
In Spain most of them are basically political parties’ offshoots and instead of taking care of the workers they represent they follow the orders of the national organization’s instructions.
That’s sadly common in many countries. Sometimes the leadership does a poor job explaining why their orders are in their best interest, sometimes they just don’t understand workers real issues.
Unlike Europe the US does not have constitutionally meaningful human rights provisions on top of its somewhat rigged in favour of big business owners constitutional arrangements. Any sensible discussion needs to start with an examination of this.Then again I care not one wit for that pigsty of a country forcing its fat face into every discussion or being held up by the weak minded as a gold standard to compare everything against.
Bad goals, bad specifications, bad implementations all lead to a lot of bad. That is why constitutional arrangements and statute matter. This impacts business and social and other policy. Almost all of you are discussing things from the bottom up and falling into some obvious fallacies.
People with complaints or who who want to use such and such as an example really need to begin providing information. What country you are in effects what the legislative environment and history and culture of business and unions and politics. Give economic or legal overviews such as mixed economy. Explain why.
Okay, there’s the claim unions are bad. The claim employee owned is good. Well, some unions are good and some are bad. Some unions actually worked to fulfill the goals of an employee owned company such as give and take and a sense of equity on the management and employee side. This is why you need to be clear about the role of a union, or clear about your legislate environment, or clear about your politics, to give a sense of context. You have to be clear there are different organisation models and ownership arrangements. You also have to be clear that some countries are more advanced in some ways and have better developed policy and legal and other mechanisms to glue everything together.You also have to be clear that what works over here does not necessarily transplant to over there. You have to clear there are legacy issues and change management issues. The list goes on.
Sorry to be a bit sharp but I’m not new to any of these areas and have heard it all before and every ideological ding dong going. Not everyone is dishonorable but there are those who will talk the talk,or jump the gun without thinking things through or having a view in the round and so on, and those will will outright lie, cheat, and steal. Be careful of the ones who promise freedom and wealth if you deregulate to promote the “entrepreneurs” and contain the “bad” unions. Be careful of the glib promises to win your vote. Suicides, poverty, and death are the price which will be paid. Not by you. Never you. Always someone else… Until it’s your turn.
Not commenting on the article, but antiwork people, and especially r/antiwork people, are some of the dumbest people I’ve seen on the internet. They act as if they are only people on Earth who have realised that, for most folks out there, work is something not done for fun but something done to pay the bills.
I mean, holy poop Sherlock, of course it is! How do you think houses get built, electricity and clean water arrives at your house, and food gets deposited at the shelves?
As a millennial, I sometimes I wish that people around my age had the wonders of the modern age taken away from them just for a month or so.
Also, most people in my generation fail to realise they would have less menial jobs if they weren’t unskilled workers or their major wasn’t in something with near-zero job market demand (which often results in them working unskilled jobs).
kurkosdr,
Yeah but on the other hand I think large swaths of people who are highly skilled/educated end up having to take menial jobs anyways. In the past when higher education credentials were rare, it was a guaranteed ticket to a good job. Now though a college degree is an entry level requirement and employers have gotten selective just because too many qualified applicants were applying. Jobs that used to take a high school diploma can require a college degree. It was a few years ago, but I still remember laughing to myself when I saw a humongous stack of resumes applying for one job at a small company. Bigger companies can get a hundred thousand applications a year – way more than their entire workforce. The tech jobs are highly desired, but the problem is how much corporate giants have consolidated the workforce leaving too many graduates going for too few jobs. Maybe the market will get stronger this time…I’m not sure, but most of the college educated people I know ended up doing something other than what they graduated in. I don’t find my career to be very rewarding in part because of the damage amazon is doing to the small local businesses around me. I realize it’s pointless to complain, this long term consolidation with dominant companies displacing everyone else is probably inevitable.
I don’t see the trend you are talking about. In the company I work for, we have unfilled positions because nobody with a real CS degree or ability to code half-decently is applying for.
And btw no, weird degrees in customer relations and management that end in “technology” don’t count as CS degrees. Which is moot anyway since those people can’t code even at a high school student level.
Don’t get me wrong, I can see people who have degrees in fields with no demand in the job market having the problem you are mentioning, but if you have a degree in something wanted by the job market, you are good. Provided you don’t exclusiy apply to the same 10 trendy companies everyone else is applying to obviously (Google, Apple Amazon etc). Just find a company that makes boring backend software and also apply there. Just because Google has a fancy frontend and trendy corporate image, it doesn’t mean other companies are not nice places to work.
kurkosdr,
Of course I don’t know where you are or what company you are referring to, but I still see a lot of competition for jobs. Is it possible your company isn’t paying enough to incentivize people to go? If you look at the bay area/silicon valley regions the cost of living is insane, yet many companies just expect people to show up without any regards for affordability. Starter houses can cost $1M in some of the tech hubs. The giant corporations, for their part turn down 97% of applicants even while claiming shortage, which is ludicrous. Universities encourage prospective students to go into a lifetime of debt to fill tech jobs that often aren’t there. Many of my CS & engineering friends struggled to find relevant work on graduation, it was a numbers game where hundreds of applications might get you a handful of interviews with most jobs going to those with inside connections. When I graduated microsoft was holding job fairs and pushing for more H1B visas at the same time their existing employees were facing layoffs. It just doesn’t add up unless it’s a strategic tactic to reduce salaries. This does explain why older tech workers often face trouble finding employment despite their experience over recent grads, because employers value lower salaries over experience…
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/10/01/systemic-age-discrimination-in-tech-industry/
I was never accepted at the giant trendy companies. I mostly take local jobs. The problem is that most local companies are facing existential threats with mass consolidation, redundancies and increasing shares of the economic pie going to giants. The giants are growing by hundreds of billions every year. Good for them, but it means small and medium companies collectively shrinking by a similar amount. Whether it’s 30% app store fees, competing against an e-commerce monopoly, local data centers, etc, every year small local companies keep loosing to the giants. This bodes poorly for long term job prospects particularly in tech due to how scalable software is.
Take amazon, they can easily grow their share and put thousands of local companies out of business eliminating thousands of jobs in the process without hiring more CS guys. This year alone I’ve lost two clients for this reason, so do you think amazon is going to hire everyone who’s lost a job due to amazon’s growth? Obviously it’s a rhetorical question, but I’d like for people to seriously think about what happens to jobs long term as dominant corporations keep growing bigger.
Then don’t go looking for a job in the Bay Era/Silicon Valley, which is a hyper-competitive arena that would make Andrew Ryan recoil in awe and disgust at the same time. Not to mention the place is literally covered with poop because the “liberals” running the place see no problem with allowing druggies to sleep on the streets (let’s be honest, the Bay Area is one of those places where if you can’t afford the price of admission, you shouldn’t be looking for a house there in the first place, so there is no reason it should have a homeless population other than the city allowing druggies to sleep on the streets. which it does).
I mean, if you do manage to find a job there that compensates for the living expenses and don’t mind the occasional turd on the sidewalk, fine, but I don’t see why you should make it your life mission to find a job there. Everyone wants to work there due to past glamour, so there is huge competition. It’s the same reason the videogame industry receives tons of applications despite treating workers like trash.
Good industries to look for a job are:
– Regulared gambling (that’s where I work for, relaxed workplace, somewhat above market-rate salaries, still has some of that cool web company vibe)
– Finance/fin tech (long hours, have to talk to lots of suits, but good pay if you can get the job)
– Oil extraction and refining, shipping etc (same as above)
Most people don’t apply for those because they are uncool and baaaaad, so you should apply and let supply and demand for CS workers work its magic.
Also, in this age of online interreviews, you should not limit your search to a particular geographical area.
Another solution of course is to launch your own web app (say “Tinder for Cats”, ok just joking) using AWS serverless (near-zero upfront costs), if you have confidence on your idea, or join someone’s web startup, but the above options are good if you want a traditional salaried job.
BTW I consider “Finance/fin tech” to include Wall Street and high-frequency trading (which involves lots of computers and lots of people to program them).
Also, not all of those companies have long hours, but you know, there is lots of talk about “work ethic” in those places, so, yeah… you may get them
(so, go to first option to avoid long hours, or third)
kurkosdr,
The thing is those are the areas where most of the tech employers are at. I’m on LI in NYS, which is seeing an exodus of young people in part due to jobs. I’ve thought of leaving too but my wife’s family is here. Anyways I don’t buy into the notion that the grass is greener on the other side, though I could be wrong.
Personally I’ve not had the luxury of weeding out uncool and/or boring work…Honestly this sometimes means taking jobs that are beneath one’s skill set, which sucks but you have to go where the work is. I generally work on business applications and websites where they’ll happily take a CS degree but truthfully you can be overqualified. I was probably naive, but when I got into CS, I didn’t realize how boring most of the work would be. Some of the more interesting work for me has been in embedded and specialized hardware, but really there’s more demand for the boring stuff.
One thing I find depressing is how so many tech jobs are in physically gloomy conditions, I didn’t use to mind working in dark windowless cubical farms, but it takes a toll. Some contracts have me traveling across the country, which I can’t do as much anymore because of family, but those used to offer some variety. I’ve found bad work environments to be quite common for tech jobs unless you find a glitzy company. Naturally someone has to get the windowless offices and it technically makes sense to give it to non-public facing employees. CS guys can end up with the short straws because they can do their jobs in backrooms & basements if need be. It strikes me as cruel how many office buildings are technically above ground and still choose to go with windowless architecture anyways, haha. I feel like we all deserve better accommodations, but it comes down to supply and demand.
Yeah, I’ve had jobs that were 50 – 70 hours/week on average. Many people don’t realize that we’re excluded from federal overtime pay. And then software jobs in particular have a significant risk of outsourcing/offshoring, I’ve seen this personally numerous times with local employees let go for cheaper offshore labor. The result isn’t always positive for the company, but that doesn’t stop them from being sold on the idea of cheaper labor.
I’ve been pretty good making sacrifices and saving money so that my finances are ok, but still I think people should be aware that STEM isn’t always the path to easy money and plentiful jobs it is sometimes portrayed to be by the media, guidance counselors, and higher education brochures.
I will remain skeptical over claims of shortages until more companies put their money where their mouths are and start paying for student’s education like they used to a few decades back. Companies were offering good jobs to students right out of high school; that’s what real shortage looks like. It’s not much of a shortage if companies get to remain picky about applicants and expect applicants to pay for their own degrees just to apply for jobs. Many companies will say there’s a shortage, but until they act it, then it’s just words.
This story is not about the tech industry, but it does highlight the point I’m getting at: employers saying there’s a shortage doesn’t automatically mean it’s true. We have to look beyond what they say at what they do…
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/florida-man-goes-viral-after-applying-to-60-entry-level-jobs-getting-1-interview
Another trend I find worrying among my generation is people blowing away their stimulus/covid relief checks either on expensive electronics or to live antiwork fantasies, not realising that, when they inevitably have to return to the job market, inflation (caused in part by all that stimulus/covid relief money chasing a finite supply of goods) will eat some of their paycheck, which means less money to be put aside for unexpected expenses.
It is amazing really. On one forum I am on people have taken the checks and bought stocks, top up their mutual funds, even bought stocks yet at the same time they point out they know friend who took all the money to have a blowout party. Afterwards their friends have nothing but a headache and they have funds for future needs. The nearsightedness of some people is ad-sounding.
Some of those people are placing their eggs on the idea that governments will always provide for their needs if they cry hard enough, via assistance programs like UBI and the like.
However, considering that money will be tight post-COVID 19 (if not in the literal sense at least in the purchasing power sense) and will get even tighter due to loss of access to cheap energy at a global level, I wouldn’t bet on it.
@kurkosdr
You were saying?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/09/gig-economy-workers-to-get-employee-rights-under-eu-proposals
I never questioned whether minimum wage regulations should be a thing, genius (although you should expect some of that minimum wage to be eaten away by post-COVID inflation).
This has nothing to do with antiwork idiots betting on the government giving them free money if they cry hard enough.
Stop trying to drive every thread off-topic. You are an annoying person.
@kurkosdr
Your reply is very unprofessional. I don’t need to point this out to others as it is obvious and are you’re doing a very good job of smearing your reputation by yourself.
@HollyB
You are not my boss so I don’t have to reply something like “we will look at this issue later, for now let’s focus on the question at hand”.
Instead I can simply reply “FFS, stop trying to drive every thread off-topic, you are an annoying person”.
@kurkosdr
I suggest you look into comprehension skills and creativity and context, and therapy for emotional regulation. The only person annoying anyone is yourself.
Do you know what too much of the wrong stress does? It contributes to depression and premature aging, higher cortisol levels and increased visceral fat, higher blood pressure, and earlier death.
How old are you? Serious question because you’re coming over as no older than 18-26 at most. See also: developmental psychology. It’s also a component of good human resources certification, FYI.
Pay attention if you want to get past 50.
@HollyB
“The polite thread-destroying twat” is an old trolling technique, you can do better.
@Kurkosdr
I have no interest in your name calling, gas lighting, victim blaming, immaturity, offensiveness, evasiveness, misdirection, provoking, baiting, agitation, twisting, or anything else you have been throwing.
Topics derailed like this are hideously boring and mostly scroll past for everyone so I suggest you desist for everyone’s benefit.
This two links are worth indulging for any remaining libertarian “army of one” laissez-faire carpet chewing macho hipster types. The first is a ten minute rant by James O’ Brian, the nations conscience. The second is a reasonably well grounded lesson in history and economics and society and philosophy and culture. Stuff you can learn by having empathy and, you know, reading books? That is assuming you can get to a library or afford to buy a book before the fiscal conservatives close the libraries and your job disappears through “efficiency savings”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peLkcZBb8gY
James O’Brien’s powerful response to No10 aides joking about Christmas party | LBC
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/brooks-true-conservatism-dead-fox-news-voter-suppression/620853/
What Happened to American Conservatism?
The rich philosophical tradition I fell in love with has been reduced to Fox News and voter suppression.