Dan Luu

I've never understood the position that people shouldn't unionize because they're rich. You know who's even richer? Execs. Tech companies have monopsony hiring power and use it to capture most of the value of labor, enriching execs with mid 8 figure to mid 11 figure net worth.https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1172279395035308032 …

Even if you ignore marginalized groups, abuse, etc., I don't see why people think it's only fair that labor should negotiate individually when firms have monopsony power. This is highly asymmetrical, unions would make it more symmetrical, not create a socialist dystopia.

If you work in infra at BigCo and see the discounts they negotiate with vendors due to their market power (can sometimes be > 90%, depending on the market), do you think that the company behaves any differently when negotiating with labor, which has less power than vendors?

BTW, the person I'm quoting is probably worth 9 figures (co-founded a company whose 2015 valuation was mid 9 figures) and in the replies they say that programmers are rich enough because they make at least $60k/yr.

If tech unions are a good idea, then they will inevitably happen, yes? I can sorta see this argument with the really big techcos which are today like their own nation states. Maybe they can *only* be changed from within, or via antitrust.

Maybe there's nuance I'm missing because the 280 char limit makes it hard to express an idea, but I don't agree, in general, that good ideas must win. I especially don't agree in cases when extraordinarily wealthy & powerful people, like yourself, benefit from the idea losing.

to me, it means companies are systematically failing to listen to their employees (or even follow existing federal laws related to discrimination, etc), and everyone loses in that scenario. Do you feel this was the case at Microsoft, and Google, both places where you worked?