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Are Unionization Efforts Picking Up at Tech Companies? (cnbc.com) 90

Posted by EditorDavid from the getting-organized dept.
About two-thirds of Americans now say they support unions, reports CNBC, "the highest approval rating since 1965." And suddenly in the last few months, "workers have been organizing at a pace this country hasn't seen since the Great Depression." Amazon has captured headlines for union drives at its warehouses, including a successful effort on New York's Staten Island. But activity is picking up elsewhere in retail and tech at big companies that are generally viewed as progressive, with no history of labor unions. As of Wednesday, 209 Starbucks stores have officially voted to unionize according to the National Labor Relations Board. First-ever unions have also formed at an Apple store in Maryland, a Google Fiber contractor, REI, Trader Joe's, Kickstarter and Activision Blizzard....

The union movement at Apple stores is progressing at a slower pace. The first union win among Apple's 270-plus U.S. stores happened on June 18, when workers in Towson, Maryland, voted 65 to 33 to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. No other stores have held a vote.... Three other stores have taken steps to unionize, although one in Atlanta withdrew its election petition in May. That same month, a memo was leaked showing Apple's anti-union talking points, instructing store managers to tell workers they could lose benefits and career opportunities if they organized....

Communications Workers of America, which has about 700,000 members, helped organize the Atlanta Apple store, as well as workers at Google. In March, Google Fiber contractors in Kansas City held an NLRB election, becoming the first to officially unionize under what's known as the Alphabet Workers Union. Nearly 1,000 other Google workers have also signed cards to join the AWU, but because the employees haven't officially held an NLRB election, their group is known as a minority union. "There's a lot of research that shows that most Americans want unions," said Sara Steffens, secretary-treasurer of Communications Workers of America. "They just don't want to go through this scary union-busting process...."

Google has also been accused of fighting back. The NLRB found that the company "arguably violated" labor law when it fired employees for speaking up. The Google Fiber contractors faced additional anti-union messaging in a letter from the contractor, which said "everyone will be stuck with the union and forced to pay dues."
The article points out that union workers earn 16.6% more than nonunion workers on average — roughly $10,000 a year. "Workers are looking at how well their employers are performing and wondering why they're not getting rewarded equally. For example, Google parent Alphabet recorded its fastest revenue growth rate since 2007 last year. Apple's margin has been steadily rising and the company closed 2021 with its biggest quarter ever for sales, at almost $124 billion....

The article also notes that official figures from October 1, 2021 through June 30 showed a 58% increase in official attempts to unionize. "Whether the organizing momentum spreads more widely across the economy may depend on how vocal and successful workers are at Starbucks, Apple and elsewhere."
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Are Unionization Efforts Picking Up at Tech Companies? More

Are Unionization Efforts Picking Up at Tech Companies?

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  • What is this madness ??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GimpOnTheGo ( 6567570 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @07:51AM (#62768638)

    Next thing you know, Americans might actually get effective healthcare, affordable education and not be treated like indentured slaves !

    This is the thin edge of the wedge. It's a slippery slope.
    These ungrateful peasants have no love for their job creators !

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      There are many ways to make an union, and you can bet your bottom dollar the corporations will push for the worst way possible, such as getting some power hungry socialist to organize it as "all the power goes for him" until the thing crash and burn.
      You need more than meme words to get those things, you need an actual plan and probably several lobbysts to play as dirty as the corporations and healthcare companies play it.

      • the corporations will push for the worst way possible, such as getting some power hungry socialist to organize it

        And how can we tell the difference between the "power hungry socialist" corporate sock puppets and the native power hungry socialists that usually drive union organizing?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Z80a ( 971949 )

          That's the beauty of it, you don't need to.
          As long it's not some sort of leaderless, transparent small organization that actually get shit done, or other effective structure, it's game.

        • Just follow whichever one pays you more. Then go home after work, forget about all that nonsense and enjoy yourself.

    • TBH I already have all of that, and I've never been in a union.

      I got a kidney transplant four years ago, paid for by my employer. And trust me, they're not cheap. Is that effective enough for you?

      Despite what my signature says, the entire cost of my education was somewhere under $20,000. I just went to community college followed by the cheapest in-state university. (Though what does this have to do with unions again?)

      Despite what you might believe, unions aren't some kind of panacea that suddenly make your

    • As long as that healthcare doesn't have Katie or Kevin in HR at the local chapter or corporate between me and my healing needs. Nope, gotta suck a corporate or union daddy dick to get a fucking bandage from a list of "providers" that provide great immediate value with significant long term reduction of baked-in costs.
    • Americans are 80% overweight and eat terrible processed foods. But they want the govt tonpay when they get sick or need a knee replacement. Healthcare starts at home not in a corrupt govt office
  • The old argument against engineering unionization was that engineers want the opportunity to go into management. Ive found that the worst managers were former engineers so Im not sure the old argument is a good one. Plus engineers are workers. We are not part of the aristocracy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 )

      Reading here for 20+ years and the message is consistently, "my manager is some non-techie phb idiot".

      Now you're saying non-techies are the best managers....

      The reality at tech companies is almost everyone on the entering side all the way to CTO is/was a techie. It's incredibly rare to find a non-technical manager. Usually the non techie is there purely as a result of corporate politics.

      • To me it seems to be a path situation.

        The best 1st level managers seem to be the best engineers. However, they tend to manage by being a first among equals. Biggest draw back is a bad apple can ruin such a group.

        Good first level managers should never be promoted. The person is all wrong for the upper levels. The best mid level tend to be people who think they are technologists. Usually technical enough to talk to but self important enough to not care about details.

        Upper levels, it's situational and matters

      • In my 30 odd years of various bosses in tech I would also say some of my best managers were non-technical as they were focused on managing the people and ensuring blockers and obstacles were removed to enable us to deliver faster and some of the absolute worst were former techs, the worst ever was a former dev/security expert whose skills had sadly dated but that didn't stop him meddling in the day to day technical work meaning software engineers had to waste a lot of time explaining things to him and provi
    • I don't know how things work in the tech unions, but I do know that my dad spent most of his working life in various supermarket chains and was always a member of the local union. When he moved up into management, he stayed in the union for pension and medical benefits although he wasn't expected to go out on strike. (During strikes, management was expected to keep working and the union had no problem with that.) Back in the mid '50s the union was given the choice between a raise and a health plan, and D

  • Pendulum swings... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @09:49AM (#62768796) Homepage

    As I get older, I find myself swinging more and more Left. I'm near the end of my career. But I owned my first home at age 26 and had an excellent, well-paying job by the time I was 27. Never belonged to a union in my life.

    But for my kids to buy a place? Science fiction. Obviously, I'll help to the extent that I can, but what about all the other 20-somethings who don't have parents that can help out?

    This generation is being screwed by corporations. They need to do something to correct the power imbalance. The idea that anyone can succeed as long as they work hard is just a joke nowadays.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 )

      Well when are your kids going to take some personal responsibility for their situation? If they wanted a house they should have picked richer parents. I expect they also had avocado on toast too and maybe some coffee which wasn't awful, so really it's their fault.

    • This generation is being screwed by corporations.

      How so? Do you really think that there is a corporate conspiracy to keep people from owning their own home? Do you think that corporations (outside of the resl estate industry) even care?

      Of course corporations seek to minimize their costs. But as a profesdionsl engineer, I've never found unions to be particularly good at negotiating my wage. Certainly, that is different in lower skilled, low wage industries. But they negotiate on behalf of all workers, seeking a floor under wages and demonizing highly pro

      • Re: Pendulum swings... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @11:21AM (#62768998) Homepage

        It's the people in less-skilled jobs or less-prestigious jobs who are being screwed. I'm also an engineer, though work mainly in software, and we have great bargaining power because of our professions. Baristas, teachers, warehouse workers, etc. have much less bargaining power... for them, unions are likely a win.

        And they're being screwed with poor working conditions and low wages.

        • "I'm also an engineer, though work mainly in software, and we have great bargaining power because of our professions."

          I'm in the USA. In the 2000-2001 time frame, tech startups largely could not get funding unless their business plan included an action to send the tech work offshore. Established companies also were sending the tech work offshore. There was no bargaining power that I witnessed, then, and this effect seems to have continued up until recently. The only transient effect that I see recentl

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dskoll ( 99328 )

            If you've been in the industry for 30+ years and are an expert in multiple areas... then you have bargaining power.

            If you're just starting out, then probably not.

    • As I get older, I find myself swinging more and more Left.

      That would be odd. I've often heard that the older one gets the more conservative one becomes. Not to say that radicals become conservative with a capital C, but simply less radical, more resigned to the fact that we can't really change world.

      Your image of a pendulum seems especially appropriate, a back and forth between social progress and regression, even while society, save for the oscillations in fashion and habit brought about by technology, stays the same. The pendulum stays in place. But a pendulum i

      • I'm in my mid-70s, and I've always considered myself to be a moderate, slightly to the right of center. Now, most conservatives don't think me far enough to the right to be a conservative, but most liberals think I'm too far to the right to be a moderate. My opinions haven't changed that much, except to adapt to changing circumstances (When I was young, same-sex marriage wasn't even a possibility; now, it's commonplace and I'm OK with that.) but from what I can see, liberals have been moving the line betw
        • I think it's part of the ongoing polarization, the thinking being that since moderate, evolutionary solutions have failed, it's time for a revolution or a clamp-down.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dskoll ( 99328 )

          I'm not in the USA, so my country is nowhere near as polarized as the USA (though it is still a lot more polarized than it should be.)

          I think it's not only liberals who have been moving the line left in the United States, but also conservatives who have been moving it very far to the right. In fact, I don't think conservatives in the United States are worthy of that name... how can people who believe in small government and in freedom nevertheless promote intrusion of government into people's private liv

          • I've not had conservatives call me a liberal although some of them would probably dispute my claim to be slightly to the right of center. And, most of the vocal anti-abortion, anti-gay crowd are part of the Religious Right, and don't even call themselves conservatives for the most part.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jmccue ( 834797 )

      That is my worry, most kids these days will have things far worse then we did. Kids in the 30s may be 50/50 with an OK life, but their kids (our grandchildren), god help them.

      Unless a miracle happens, or if they are in the top 1%, things will be real bad with the climate outlook.

      I think with unions we may very well start seeing things like this in 10 to 20 years, seems we are slowly heading back to the "old days".

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_Lawrence_textile_strike

    • As I get older, I find myself swinging more and more Left. I'm near the end of my career. But I owned my first home at age 26 and had an excellent, well-paying job by the time I was 27. Never belonged to a union in my life.

      But for my kids to buy a place? Science fiction. Obviously, I'll help to the extent that I can, but what about all the other 20-somethings who don't have parents that can help out?

      This generation is being screwed by corporations. They need to do something to correct the power imbalance. The idea that anyone can succeed as long as they work hard is just a joke nowadays.

      It's not "evil corporations" preventing new construction that'd drive prices down, it's moronic zoning laws imposed by your leftist overlords "for your own good". But yeah, keep voting for them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        It is moronic zoning laws to some extent, but "leftist overlords"? What are you smoking? NIMBYism crosses all political lines. You think electing a more right-wing slate of candidates will improve local zoning laws?

  • Don't form a union, form a company which supplies other companies with workers, maybe call it Bunion Inc. Everybody is an equal shareholder in Bunion Inc and everybody is availible to be farmed out to these client companies.
    Instead of being evil commie union scum destroying the fabric of society by asking for enough money to live on, it would be a corporation quite rightly leveraging everything availible to maximise income in accordance with the holy priciples of business.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      But then I'll form a company called Onion Inc. I'll hire H1B employees and underbid Bunion.

      But not always. The whole subcontracting scam has been used in many cases. Some to avoid government regulation on the primary business. Even thought they pay employees higher.

      • Oh, yeah, somebody may undercut Bunion. The point is that a company will agree to a 10% increase in Onion or Bunion fees at the yearly reassessment where they will fight all the way to deny their own employees 1%.

        A lot of us have seen it. Company is expanding, but can't find anyone else willing to work for their shitty wage so they get agency workers in and cheerily pay the agency double the shitty wage for an agency worker who doesn't know how to do the job until he is trained by the shittily paid normal s

    • Don't form a union, form a company which supplies other companies with workers, maybe call it Bunion Inc

      Usually they call those temp agencies or staffing agencies, generally they suck worse than being an employee.

      . Everybody is an equal shareholder in Bunion Inc and everybody is availible to be farmed out to these client companies.

      The union kind of thingies tend to be seniority driven rather than equality or meritocratically driven .

      Instead of being evil commie union scum destroying the fabric of society by asking for enough money to live on, it would be a corporation quite rightly leveraging everything availible to maximise income in accordance with the holy priciples of business.

      Maybe the workers could do something like buying stock in the company, that way if the company does good the workers do good, if the company crashes and burns, so do the workers.

  • The examples given in the TFS are only half tech companies. It's not just happening at tech companies, it's happening across the board.

    Unions are a shitty patch on shitty labor laws written by shitty politicians (or by corporate lawyers, and then handed to same) but they're a zillion times better than nothing, and workers are realizing that.

  • I want nothing to do with being in a union and I hope to God my work never gets one. And if they do get a union, I hope I'm not forced to join one.

    My wife has been trying to get out of here union for well over a decade, and everyone says ti can be done, but no one knows how to do it.

    My wife's best friend, who is a paralegal, was forced into a union. The law firm unanimously voted the union out, and the union sued the law firm for union busting.

    My SIL worked for a restaurant that went union. It's no longer

  • I grew up when the UK was being messed up by strikes. As a result I was pretty anti-union. Then I ended up as a programmer in a large local government organisation. For about 6 years I ignored the unions. We then saw a 'job evaluation scheme' which sought to put our wages on a 'rational basis' implemented; the more 'skilled' you were, the more you should get. The idea was that this was 'fairer' - but the organisation was implemented it in a way that would have cost some people a lot of money. The union went

  • Why do you think so much of manufacturing in the USA is NOW in Communist China? 1. More profit 2. Less union BS

  • For example, take a stand against outsourcing in order to preserve American jobs and wages, would gladly pay dues for that. But no, the focus is supporting various Democratic politicians and preferred gender pronouns. I am not spending thousands of dollars per year on other people's special interests to a body that is supposed to represent mine. If I support particular causes, I can always donate directly to charity a political campaign.

  • The day I think I need a Union in IT is the day I retire from IT. 30 years of happily negotiating my rates based on my skill and market and generally haven't had an issue in corporate or contract world, I have no problems negotiating rates well above going market rate. If they don't negotiate on terms acceptable to me I would just go elsewhere, has only ever happened once and 3 months later I was back at that place at an even higher contract rate than I initially demanded.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      You're a liar.

      And I retired a couple years ago, and never got to "negotiate" my rate, working for companies from 9 people to Ameritech and AT&T.

  • Something that always comes up in discussions of unionization is whether high performers will lose out under a union contract.

    There is a well known example of a union which protects the vulnerable and also allows the top people to get rich. The Screen Actors Guild sets a floor on pay and some protections on working conditions, while the Meryl Streeps of the world can negotiate compensation in line with their value.

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