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Forming a union and joining the labor movement would be a start. Oh sure everybody hates unions, but there's not a progressive country in the world without a strong labor movement. Without labor you're left with narrow-minded plutocrats and unreliable technocrats to run everything.
It's easy to forget that there are collective action goals that go beyond better wages and more benefits. If you believe that corporations exert disproportionate control over policy in the US, collective action is a way to make that control more responsive to citizens.
Yes! IIRC unions provide campaign funding roughly equivalent to the (very right wing) Chamber of Commerce. Unions support liberal think tanks, which develop progressive policies and support the next generation of progressive journalists and policy analysts. More than money, they provide coordination. It's easy for 100 rich dudes to get together and drive policy. It's hard for 200 million working people. That's what a labor movement is for.
Remember that time labor unions lobbied for tax incentives to encourage employer provided health insurance that resulted in the disaster of a system we have today?
Are you sure the employer provided health insurance is a notable cause of the disaster of the current system?
Not letting individuals deduct it directly created the system that removed health insurance from the consumer market, which removed health care from the market, which created the meteoric rise in costs.
Anytime people are removed from the cost of a thing, the price goes up. Housing, education, healthcare. Even buying groceries people spend more than twice as much with a credit card vs cash.
Many countries which provide socialized healthcare do it for much, much cheaper than we do, even without being based on a market.
If removing something from the market led directly to massively inflated costs, we'd expect those systems to be the most expensive, but that's just not true.
In the US it's removed from the market without a price constraint.
Elective services like dermatology and cosmetic have managed to keep prices in line with what people can afford to pay out of pocket.
The other inflators in the US has been emergency room visits for people with no coverage at all, which are 10x more expensive than simply visiting a primary care physician. Plans pushing for funded HSAs would totally eliminate this problem as even the poorest people would have a reason to go where they could get more cost effective care.
Uhh, no, I don't remember that. I remember this:
http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2014/oct/30/ja...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_Unit...
See History
Did you read the paragraph that came before that? They only chose to campaign for employer-sponsored coverage because they thought that it was more achievable than the single-payer plan proposed by Truman.
Which resulted in the employer driven insurance disaster that exists now...
IIRC employer-based health insurance was a side effect of WW2 price controls. Unions organized support for the PPACA (Obamacare), even though it didn't directly affect their members.
Nobody is saying unions are perfect, but corporations and plutocrats aren't going anywhere, and labor is the only countervailing force.
Well the Labour party in the UK brought in the National Health System in the late 1940s.
Good luck with that. This industry has too many people with egos far bigger than their accomplishments justify, in my opinion. There is a tendency in this field for folks to believe tech is about as close to a meritocracy as it gets, and that unions or even a trade guild would just hold "the best" back.
You don't have to be arrogant about your own abilities to realize that promotion based on seniority would privilege longer-tenured workers over better, lesser-tenured workers.
That doesn't just hurt the best workers -- it hurts anyone who is above the average.
Promotion based on seniority is a common feature of union contracts, so it's a valid concern.
Some people like seniority-based promotion because it can reduce discrimination in promotion decisions. For example, a woman could be promoted based on seniority even though her sexist boss might prefer a less-qualified, less-tenured male candidate. That would certainly be unfair, and seniority-based promotion could prevent that. However, the tech industry is currently mostly men, which means that any female employee who joins a large company will have at least a few decades' worth of men ahead of her in line for a promotion, no matter how good she is at her job. Seniority-based promotion would actually entrench gender diversity problems for at least 20 years, rather than solve them. The only way it would have positive effects vis a vis diversity would be to impose it on a workforce that is already diverse but has discriminatory managers.
Do you have evidence that seniority based promotion hurts above average workers? Do you have good reason to suspect that seniority based promotion is a likely enough feature of a union in this industry to warrant concern?
Average is the break-even point.
If you are average: Given that most people are average (because that's what average means), you aren't an outlier, so you wouldn't expect a faster or slower promotion timeline in a meritocratic system than in a seniority based system. After all, the majority of people more senior than you at any company are likely to be average too (because that's what average means), unless the company has an unusual distribution of employee skill across the tenure spectrum. In a meritocratic system, you are still average, and you would still have an average promotion timeline. If you are average, it doesn't much matter what system you have.
If you are above average: Your talent will be recognized, and you will be promoted faster than most of your peers in a meritocratic system. In a seniority-based system, people who are not as good as you will be promoted before you because they have worked at the company longer. This hurts you, and it hurts the company, because both could do better under a meritocracy. You should prefer a meritocratic system over a seniority-based system.
If you are below average: In a meritocratic system, you would be promoted as a last resort, when better people are not available. In a seniority-based system, you will be promoted just because you stuck around, even if you suck. You should prefer a seniority-based system over a meritocratic system.
If you are a worker at any level, and you improve your job skills and your value to the company, that will increase your promotion prospects in a meritocratic system, but not change them in any way in a seniority-based system. So why would anyone try to improve or work hard in a seniority-based system?
I have to object: you've provided a description of how you think seniority based systems work, but no evidence to support your contention that it is, in fact, the way they do.
No evidence is needed. It's a self-defining term.
It's very simple: when a group of people are considered for a promotion, the person who has the most seniority, i.e. has been at the company for the longest time, will automatically be given the promotion.
That doesn't mean the guy in charge of the mail room is going to be promoted to head of engineering because he's been there longer than any of the engineers. Promotions happen within departments. But you can damn well bet that the guy in charge of the mail room is the mail room employee who has been at the company the longest, no matter how good he is at his job.
Any system that doesn't work like this is not a "seniority-based" system, and is outside of the scope of the discussion.
Well, when your argument is "I say so" then of course there is no discussion to be had. How absurd.
twblalock's description seems quite rational to me. Can you provide a citation describing an actual seniority-based system that operates in a materially different manner than twblalock described (i.e. one not prioritized on (department-scoped) seniority)?
Even if they could describe such a system, it would not actually be a seniority based-system, not matter what words people use to describe it. That's my point.
A tech labor union should not make the mistakes of past unions... In fact, we should strive to be disruptive and experiment with brand new ideas.
For example, we could push for industry-wide standardized job level requirements that are demographic-blind. This would reduce agism, sexism, and other blind (or not-so-blind) biases.
This would also benefit businesses by normalizing job requirements across businesses (for example: reducing interview costs and avoiding spending internal resources on defining requirements).
True, but if professional athletes and Hollywood actors can be in unions so can hot shot web devs. Plenty of meritocracy (ugh I hate that word) in those fields.
If a union eventually grows out of this, fine. If a lobbyist or voting block emerges, that's fine too.
But in the short term, I suggest the focus be on preserving the industry from the large number of threats it now faces via cooperation from all roles in the industry. Once a habit of cooperation emerges, further future cooperation among members would be very likely.
From the Notes, this is a very sad story:
"I am Muslim, born in Massachusetts. I love my faith. Muslims in the US are very scared. Both my mom and wife wear the hijab, so I'm always worried they'll be attacked in the street. Even in the Bay Area it's a concern. Of course I encourage them to continue; it's important not to be affected. A few years ago, my mom and sister were at a farmers' market in Boston, what seems like a liberal setting. A big guy ran up and called them terrorists, started spitting at them. My 60 year old mom and 20 year old sister were really intimidated. My sister cried for the rest of the day. People stood by and watched. I give them the benefit of the doubt; they were taken off guard. We have to be aware of our surroundings and be ready to act. It takes mental preparation, so you don't end up reacting like a deer in the headlights."
I am worried what happens to a diverse country, such as the USA, when it elects a leadership that is vocally anti-immigrant. We are about to find out. All of us need to do what we can to minimize the kind of bigotry that might escalate under anti-immigrant leadership.
It's a potentially very scary time for minorities. The president sets the tone of the country through their actions. A president being anti-immigrant could bring that same quality out in others...
That's already happening. I've witnessed people trying to intimidate minority folk here in the East Bay, yelling 'you're going over the wall!' unprovoked at people on the street for example.
This is sad, you really think Trump is anti-immigrant? If you paid half a moment of attention you would know he is anti-ILLEGAL immigrant which is perfectly reasonable in a sovereign country with immigration laws.
I really think Trump is anti-immigrant. The distinction between legal and ILLEGAL immigrants sometimes cuts across families, and doesn't matter to those of us who came here from elsewhere. We know once the ILLEGAL immigrants are deported, we're next up.
I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. There is a CLEAR distinction between who is here legally and who is here illegally. In fact we have specific laws that define precisely the difference. I don't feel sorry for people that have come here illegally, afterall they broke the law as their first action to get here. I think a big problem is that we've gone so long kicking the can down the road that people (esp in California) have become used to this status quo where we turn a blind eye. Now that Trump has come in and promised to actually enforce our already existing laws, the left has exploded in anger thinking "how could he?!". I have followed this election closely and I have yet to hear a single thing that leads me to think he is going to deport legal citizens of any background whatsoever or that he'll discriminate against them. It's simply untrue. DJT loves America more than any President in our modern time and our country will grow strong under his leadership.
One thing you must realize is that the median undocumented immigrant has been here 12 years. Many of these people have children who are American citizens, so if you promise to deport them, you're in effect saying you want to break up families.
Maybe that's fine with you. I don't think it sits well with a lot of people.
Realize as well that immigration status is a precarious thing, and it's not always clear who is here legally and who is not. Many people spend a long time in administrative limbo. I was in the US for seven years before I learned I was "legal".
Like many things, immigration is less clear-cut when you look at it in detail. I encourage you to do that, whether or not you end up agreeing with me.
You are casually dismissing the group of people who are the main focus of controversy: people who arrived as children and have been here all their lives. They have never known the country they would be deported to. They are Americans by lived experience. They broke no laws.
I am simply not comfortable deporting those people. It brings us no benefit whatsoever.
If you have a "deportation force" that operates on the kind of scale he claims to want at the speed he wants, you are obviously going to deport some citizens. It happened during Operation Wetback and there is no reason to think it would not happen again. People just don't always have their papers in order, and the immigration courts are backed up for years.
Would you be more agreeable if we gave amnesty to all existing illegals and then cracked down hard and built a much stronger border going forward? Where is the common ground?
I don't know what "cracked down hard" is supposed to mean, so I can't answer that.
I do know that I would be hard-pressed to come up with a more expensive, pointless, and futile way to attempt to restrict illegal immigration than building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, though.
Building a wall on the Canadian border.
Cracked down meaning we are not letting in illegal immigrants period. As far as the cost, you're incorrect so please do some research. The cost of building a border wall is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of taking care of the illegals each year.
He hates immigrants so much, he married one!
Immigrants take the jobs Americans won't do.
So untrue. It's a thoughtless played out argument that holds no water.
whoosh.
This is a fantastic result of Trump's election. You should have been thinking this way for the past decade. Third party data silos are a grave liability - it hardly matters if the acting threat is overt authoritarianism, progressive totalitarianism, or plain old economics.
Where can I get information on a Seattle Tech Solidarity group?
Contact me (my info is in the intro to the linked page). I'm hoping to set up a Seattle meeting in January.
If this happens, I will seriously consider becoming Muslim, and urging other irreligious people I know to consider doing the same, to dilute the database. I'd remain an atheist, but I'd be a Muslim atheist instead of a Christian atheist. I'd buy a Quran and read it once, then put it on the shelf and not believe it, replacing the Bible that is currently on my shelf not being believed. For local charity giving, I'd direct that to a local mosque instead of a local church.
Only 0.9% of people in the United States are Muslim. Atheists and agnostics make up about 7%, so if a large fraction of atheists and agnostics registered as Muslims, it would greatly dilute the database. There are also a substantial number who believe in some sort of spirituality but not in traditional gods, and quite a few people who believe in gods but as a personal thing and not as part of an organized religion. All of these together make up about 20% of the population. If a lot of those people would register as Muslims, it would really really dilute the database.
I think there's value in the general idea of stuffing databases (like NSEERS or the no-fly list) to the point where they collapse under their own weight.
If you are interested in this type of activism, and live in a city that offers its own form of ID (notably SF or LA), you can do this now by signing up for a city ID card. There is considerable concern that the city ID databases will be used as registries of illegal immigrants, so the more legal residents who take advantage of it, the weaker that signal becomes.
Plus, it's nice to have a second form of photo ID sometimes.
In SF, you need an appointment to get an ID. You can make one here: http://sfgov.org/countyclerk/sf-city-id-card
I'm in a union (pension, can't give it up) and I work F/T for one of those flat hierarchy startups, hired through a who's hiring post a few years ago. I actually prefer the union environment even with it's many problems to having no boss which is my other job. I now have to often depend on flaky coworkers who disappear days at a time or spam me with memes all day on Slack, and careless commits I have to fix repeatedly even after telling them the problem each time. There's nobody for me to complain to since we don't have a boss, there's an absentee founder somewhere and just every remote worker for themselves.
The problems with a union is of course your dues being misspent on administrative bloat, campaign donations, executive travel (go to any union site and click on events, there's often 2-3 a month requiring travel), and education costs for executive members. The actual organizers and shop stewards aren't paid anything by the union, it's the top tier executives that pocket the dues. What we tried to do was get them to take half for admin bloat, stop the campaign donations nonsense, and put the rest into a strike fund to pay us during lockouts something more than the picket line pay which is a paltry $100/week. There is typically 4-6years between contracts, and we each pay them $162 a month in dues.
Another problem is of course the adversarial situation that will inevitably become your daily workplace. Your management is now the enemy, as they will never capitulate to all your demands during collective bargaining so every single work meeting you have with them is usually a fight. Everything you do is now paid in time values, so if they ask you to do something that isn't clearly spelled out in the collective agreement you don't do it because it's free work, such as asking your contracted plumber to mow your lawn. This creates many problems, as management repeatedly tries to implement ridiculous new procedures that of course add time which is unpaid.
The positives with a union is you can directly confront coworkers if you have issues with them that are work related (and not criminal such as sexual harassment), so you don't have to go to management which could have them fired. It's nice to work out petty disputes between a floor steward and your coworker without the heavy hand of management adding complexity and fear into the mix. Another positive is you are free to speak your mind directly to management without fear of being arbitrarily terminated or screwed with. It's common where I work to see somebody walk up to management and tell them their attitude is disgusting to their face in front of everybody. Finally you get to bid on everything, so the founder's cousin who started yesterday doesn't get priority vacation over you.
Also goodbye implied forced Christmas parties, implied forced picnics with some visiting sales manager or your boss on the weekend or forced team building clownery outside of work hours, fake vacation policies that claim to be 'unlimited', unpaid overtime, and idiotic work environments like cafes or bars, my favorite idiocy being a historic theatre sized bank building converted into a very loud cafe with wood benches roped off where everybody was expected to work.
One important thing is a bit mischaracterized, Trump didn't claim he'd deport 11 million legal immigrants, he claimed he'd deport illegal immigrants. Even Mexico deports illegal immigrants to its country. It's not something most countries consider controversial.
As far as I know he didn't say he'd turn a blind eye to police violence. What he said was essentially he wanted less antagonism toward police.
I think playing loose with words like this and confounding things kind of elicits skepticism.
60 Minutes interview, September 2015:
Pelley: "Eleven, 12 million illegal immigrants --"
Trump: "Or whatever the number is."
Pelley: "Still in the country, what do you do?"
Trump: "If they've done well, they're going out and they're coming back in legally. Because you said it--"
Pelley: "You're rounding them all up?"
Trump: "We're rounding 'em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they're going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn't sound nice. But not everything is nice."
If he really wanted to keep out illegal immigrants he'd do what Japan or China do. Require verification of legal residence from everyone for job, schools, etc. No fences/walls needed.
Or he could ask someone to develop an app where people could report people who are working without proper docs and fine the workplace and schools for violations. It could even be incentivized and non false positives get rewards of some sort --tax credit, whatever. False positives get demerits, etc.
That said, if employers are not willing to pay citizens a minimum wage of $15, then we will need a way to allow cheap unskilled imported labor to work on farms etc. Set up a system where you allow seasonal work visas. If you overstay, you are out 5 years. If you want to stay past a season extend your visa by exposing someone overstaying their visa so you get self policing. However, since this creates underemployed citizens, tax the employers who employ imported labor to underwrite citizen unemployment benefits.
Yes but since all of this fear-mongering is contrived by the liberal safe-space culture that has bred groups like this and not based in reality, we won't need to do any of that.
Beyond the moral arguements, the real reason nothing has happened is that this has absolutely no popular support in areas who actually have undocumented immigrants.
People in these areas usually are fine with them because "who cares". Businesses are fine because they usually represent cheap labor. Local governments have a lot to do on their plate already, they don't want to go in the immigration business.
These policies are basically "federal overreach". Feds fly in to do something the locals do not want.
Do you think LA is a sanctuary city because of Obama? It's the will of the people. Who cares what people in Iowa think?
As jobs are automated away and our own unskilled labor force finds it harder to find any job, there will be more concern about it.
All the feds have to do is enforce e-verify. If anything Trumps win likely signifies distress from the working class. If the Dems dig in their heals and cater more to non citizens than they do their own citizens, I'm afraid they may lose in the next election again.
No, that is plainly not sufficient, which is obvious because many states already do this. Unless by "enforce E-Verify" you mean something far more drastic.
It means you fine people or firms hiring people who don't have work documents. No excuses. Forged? They get fined and pay for the ticket back to home country of person using forged docs.
This is precisely why Trump won more than any reason. He made an appeal to the most important group in America, the middle class, and they agreed with him.
I'm not sure Trump has it in him, but if he did and courted the black working class the right way, I think he could start winning them over from the Dems. But he has to be serious about creating jobs for them, it means raising the min wage to $15 and not allowing undocs to undercut citizen workers.
Trump should learn one thing. Black families like jobs. They'll vote for jobs. They also want, if not always like the police but jobs would go a long way to smoothing things over, as with any pop.
he lost the popular vote, and only won it within income brackets above $60k+.
He won because everyone voted along party lines + similar turnout to 2000 (Dem marginally above Rep turnout). All other narratives do not match the actual results.
We're fine with them because they're our friends and neighbors.
That's super true, though it's important to remember that ghettos are still a thing in all but name only in some cities. Public transit routes still get voted down because "they" might show up in the nicer parts of towns.
It takes many legal immigrants years to get status. Some of them wait a decade. I've known a few who had to wait this out. For these people having others jump the line is not a friendly gesture.
Most people welcome immigrants, so long as they follow the rules others have to follow.
Arguably our system is in need of reform or many kinds (it's our prerogative to seek immigrants of high value to the economy, for example, or those who fill a skills gap or labor gap -say farm workers)
I'm fine with them because I'm a parent, and the idea of deporting the parents of my children's friends and classmates makes me nauseous and angry. I don't much care for any analysis past that.
It was the same with the trans bathrooms. You might be surprised how many of us parents have kids with trans friends. The issues get real clear real fast when you see how they affect your kids friends. It's not at all hard to get a glimpse of how they'd affect your kids, if circumstances were different.
And republicans are fine with them because they need cheap workers they can abuse who will never call OSHA, that they can steal wages from, and that they can stiff on workers comp.
For just one of so many appalling stories: https://www.thenation.com/article/immigrant-workers-are-bein...
If we actually wanted to stop illegal immigration, getting serious about e-verify and levying enormous fines on employers would get the job done.
Oh for sure. But the dimming of prospects for low skills Americans may have the Repubs, with their newfound populism, find that to survive as a party they will have to look out for the derided suburban worker instead of the guy or gal who sit in corner offices.
In normal conversation, I'd be 100% sure this is sarcasm.
On HN it's 50/50.
This response to idlewords is chillingly Trumpian and certainly goes against the common HN culture. Let's replay the last three comments:
HN prides itself on discussions and while many a silly idea has been aired here I really expect basic factchecking to be respected. That this remains the top thread on this post after being summarily debunked is disappointing.
Idldeword's quote states he'd deport 11 immigrants. It should say he claimed he'd deport 11 million illegal immigrants. In confounding these terms it creates unnecessary alarm for legal immigrants who are not the intended subjects of the policy.
Countries have many policies to keep people out. Do you think Mexico or Japan don't keep people out? They too have policies for who can enter their countries for what. It's normal. We're the outliers in terms of policy non enforcement compared to other nations.
You're the one doing the confounding, between border control and mass deportations.
No western country conducts mass deportations, least of all of long-term residents.
Why exclude the second and third largest economies from the picture (just because they are not "western"?
The reason most advanced economies don't need mass deportations is because they enforce immigration laws more strictly for jobs and for schools --therefore they have fewer illegal immigrants (due to fewer incentives). On the other hand we allow more legal immigrants than all those other western economies --which is a good thing.
I'm okay if those same people just get back in line with everyone else, by the way. It may take a while, but take your turn like other legal immigrants.
PS. Latin American countries from time to time do conduct mass deportations, so it's a bit misleading to say none do. Even Angela Merkel said she'd deport upwards of 100k immigrants she first allowed in (thus legal).
Until somebody decides to enforce the laws requiring verification eligibility of employment, I consider all this talk of illegal immigrants to be misdirection. Convict the criminal employers who are paying illegal immigrants under the table. That would force wages up. Punishing the folks who come into the United States to work hard is disgusting.
Most people don't mind immigrants coming to make a living --so long as they follow the rules most other legal immigrants follow. What most people contend with is people just coming in because they want to. Can I just land in Japan and get a legally obtained job without a visa, can I do so in Mexico as well?
More or less the same rules every other nation has to control who comes in (and out) including Mexico, South Africa, etc. We are not outliers in this respect.
It's a long process --sometimes involving multi-year even decade waits for people looking to legally migrate. It's not fair to them or to me (when I want to go overseas) to have people jump the line.
I don't disagree with any of that. I'm saying that enforcing fines or imprisonment for criminal employers of illegal immigrants is the only way to fix it.
I live in Florida. Border control routinely rounds up undocumented citrus workers and deports them. Nobody ever punishes the farms that employ them. If they punished the farms, it would change things.
I never see anybody push against those employers. I think it's because those complaining are more aligned with the businesses.
Oh certainly --that is where enforcement should focus on. Just like they do in China and Japan. Fine the employers and make them pay the ticket back to the worker's home country --forged papers, no excuse, get better vetting.