Unions are only going to be effective in a domain where the job can’t be done just as well by someone on the other side of the planet. Think plumbers, electricians, etc. The fact that the work has to be done “here and now” is the leverage those workers have.

A software engineer’s union would just kick whatever offshoring is happening into overdrive.

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joe_mamba 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yep this. I think i've lost count of home many US and German companies keep moving their SW positions to my home country because US labor is too expensive and German workers rights and unions too annoying for business.

Where I live now in Austria, there's some union of IT workers, but it's small and toothless because they know their work can be offshored and have no leverage especially that the country is already not attractive to investors as-is due to high costs, high taxes and regulations. IT workers giving themselves even more benefits and protections through unions, like the rail workers have for example, would just mean non critical IT work leaves the country ASAP to neighboring Hungary or Slovakia or something.

In a globalized free market without trade and regulatory barriers, where the products and the "labor" travels freely over a wire with no borders or tariffs, the best value players win all, and everyone else is stuck in a race to the bottom trying to match that even if their operating costs are higher due to regulations, taxes, etc

Unions only worked in jobs where the workers could collectively use the leverage they had all along against their employer but were too afraid to use due to retaliation, but unions can't fix real world economic and trade facts that make your leverage zero to begin with. See the VFX industry for best example.

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bojan 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If offshoring were that easy, American and European companies would have been doing it already, as it's a great deal on paper, why wouldn't the companies jump at the opportunity to get engineers for 30% of the cost?

However, the experienced reality repeatedly doesn't live up to the promise.

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joe_mamba 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Look, I'm not gonna argue on the pros and cons of offshoring, I'm just telling you the reality of what's happening where I live. Obviously, not everything can be outsourced 1:1 with massive savings and get same quality, but businesses don't care and more and more work is offshored now, whether you want it or not, especially in times of economic downturn when labor cost becomes more pressing and execs can show savings so they're taking their chances whether it pays off in the future or not we'll see.

Nobody would risk disrupting smooth running operations by introducing offshoring to save a few pennies, when free money was raining from the sky, but now that money is getting tighter and covid opened the doors to accepting more work done remotely and less work done in sync face to face, then offshoring is now a lot less risky and off-putting than in the past.

Plus, unlike the Indian offshoring scare of ~20 years ago, besides the remote work thing, offshore labor is a lot more skilled at IT task now. There isn't that massive gap anymore, where only Americans or Germans new how to write SW, and the eastern world only knew to make sneakers and do call support. Thanks to STEM universities, access to good education sources, FOSS and self learning, people outside the west can code just as good but at a lower cost when you keep the same hiring bar and don't just pay some offshore middleman consultancy for the cheapest labor.

And the proof is in the pudding as most big tech companies have large pools of workers in India at this point. You can say all you want, that offshoring isn't gonna work because of quality or culture or whatever, but it sure seems like it is working for them, and I don't think this genie is going back in the bottle.

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xienze 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They have been offshoring for decades. We go in cycles of execs asking “why the hell are we paying these entitled Americans so much when Indian will do just as good for peanuts?”, then offshoring, then realizing it doesn’t work that well. The next guy comes in and the cycle repeats.

However, the second an IT union gets established they’re just going to say the hell with it, India ain’t so bad.

	▲	joe_mamba 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>then realizing it doesn’t work that well How isn't it working? Most big tech companies have large pools of workers in India/Asia/LatAm/CEE at this point. So something must be working if they keep growing there.

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gosub100 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Unions might be able to bargain against h1b because they can have an honest conversation with management about the "we just can't FIND anybody" lie.

	▲	thedevilslawyer 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		When there's no solidarity amongst ALL workers, no wonder unions are a non starter. In such an environment, H1B workers will actively fight union formation.
	▲	xienze 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		But remember, the company can always decide to just not employ US-based employees (including H1B) at all. Your job can be done elsewhere for a fraction of the cost, remember?