Everything is political. Politics have been heavily intertwined with work forever. The history of unions is intertwined with literal government violence.

Negotiations for compensation is like the least life-impacting thing a union can do. Tech workers are well paid and capable of negotiating.

Things like work hours, quality of life, paid leaves, etc are important and can’t really be negotiated by the individual. Every labor victory from yesterday is the status quo but every future one is politics.

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tptacek 11 hours ago | parent [-]

OK, but that doesn't answer the concern of the person you're responding to. They're just not going to join. It's a common objection!

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vineyardmike 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes I suppose it doesn’t address the concern directly, and yes it’s common. I guess my point is that avoiding “politics” is a bad concern.

Why is compensation not included in “politics” when it’s very clearly a political topic? Because when people say “avoid politics” they usually mean it as a derogatory term for “all the disagreements that I dont personally care about” - and conveniently exclude the issues they care about from “politics”. Unions don’t work unless they get enough members, and getting enough support sometimes means supporting the “political issues” of other members. It’s a team, and everyone has to contribute… but of course everyone will be better off in the long run

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tptacek 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I understand what you're saying and where you're coming from, but you can't persuasively respond to an objection by saying the person is wrong to have the objection. This is a real problem in modern tech organizing: you don't all share the same politics. People are just going to not sign up.

It's very much like the problem product marketers have when they come up with a grand vision for how their product is supposed to work and then assume customers are going to be super into it. They are not! They just want a thing that solves their problems! They don't want or need to help you achieve your vision. You have to make your vision work for them, persuasively.

I'm not saying the (broad) project is doomed --- though I think you have an uphill climb in this market --- but I do think you're going to have to address this problem to achieve critical mass.

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murderfs 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Because when people say “avoid politics” they usually mean it as a derogatory term for “all the disagreements that I dont personally care about” - and conveniently exclude the issues they care about from “politics”.

People use "politics" as shorthand for "things that are divisive issues that split your purported represented class". You're not going to get anyone to join your union if all you do is advocate for things that the vast majority of employees at best don't care about, or worse, disagree with.