| ▲ | woodrowbarlow 12 hours ago |
| i would love to have a software engineer's union, not so much to get better working conditions but to be able to say stuff like "i can't implement that unethical feature, it's against union rules and i'd lose my membership". |
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| ▲ | aforwardslash an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| Why not just ask for context and approval of the legal team? That would generate enough trail so some shady requirements get dropped almost immediately; having your superior explicitly sign off in writing a feature you deemed unethical and/or potentially illegal is a great way of actually removing them from the pipeline. You can even frame it as "a good guy" just alerting him/her that there may be a fallback, so make sure it has all necessary elements. Compliance decisions are often above a developers paygrade, and one should squarely document the culprit on any shady decision - and boy, this is very easy in big organizations where no single decision-maker wants to be accountable. |
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| ▲ | grayhatter 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| To be fair; you don't need a union... you can just say no. Context; I told them they couldn't ship this exact feature as designed. (It worked until I left.) |
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| ▲ | woodrowbarlow 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | yes, true sometimes (not always). but if more people have access to a way to confidently say "no" (with protection behind them), then i think saying "no" would happen more often, by people who might've otherwise complied. | |
| ▲ | Trasmatta 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Without the protection of a union, "just saying no" is a good way to get fired |
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| ▲ | toast0 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You could join the Order of the Engineer and refuse to do things that would not be compatible with your understanding of the Obligation of an Engineer [1]. Of course, that doesn't stop your employer from asking someone else to do it and asking you to find other employment. There's a few other orders or societies or what have you that you could join. Personally, I don't drive a train or even wear a stripey hat, so I haven't considered joining an organization for Engineers. [1] https://order-of-the-engineer.org/about-the-order/obligation... |
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| ▲ | volkercraig 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Start one. Unions are worker owned. You could also join the IWW. |
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| ▲ | woodrowbarlow 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | are there examples of unions that have started around a focus on the ethics of the services they provide? unions traditionally start locally, around issues for which the locality is a hotspot, which is why they usually focus on pay and working conditions. it's also easier to get a large group to agree on a set of improvements to working conditions vs a set of ethical boundaries. | |
| ▲ | actionfromafar 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Unions in the US are nerfed, by law. | | |
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| ▲ | kube-system 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'd wonder how you'd get into that arrangement to begin with when the entire job is based on unethical tracking |
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| ▲ | dzikimarian 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Honestly - shouldn't one assume that train already departed when they decided to work for company that is basically data mining operation with no ethics? |
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| ▲ | theodorejb 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You don't need to join a union to push back against unethical feature requests. |
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| ▲ | jakubadamw 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The collective leverage of a union gives you significantly more power to do something like this. | | |
| ▲ | theodorejb 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Only if the union is against the unethical request. In some cases the union may be for it, which makes it even harder to push back. | | |
| ▲ | jackb4040 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fellow software engineers aren't incentivized to destroy their company's reputation in the same way that boards of directors have proven to be time and time again. |
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| ▲ | chrncirurp 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > You don't need to join a union to push back against unethical feature requests. If you push back against unethical feature requests: No union: you get fired Union: you still get fired | | |
| ▲ | dzikimarian 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Maybe don't apply to Meta in the first place? With their track record it's pretty obvious that you'll be part of building something morally dubious. | |
| ▲ | jeffgreco 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Still a better outcome than tossing your ethics overboard. | | |
| ▲ | garciasn 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why bother to join a union, pay dues, potentially have your career limited, and have another layer to deal with? Just leave or be fired without the song and dance. | | |
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| ▲ | woodrowbarlow 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | maybe, but the union could provide a lot of services to someone who loses their job this way (like income insurance and legal services) and could leverage collective power over companies that demonstrate a pattern of behavior. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is something that has just never sat well with me. How exactly will the union provide this insurance? That insurance isn't free, so paid for by member dues? How many members are required to be able to afford the payout for just one member? How about the other services unions are touted as being able to provide? They all come from the same dues? I know that unions will put money into investment funds to attempt to grow the coffers, but that just means the money isn't liquid. Unions are always touted as a panacea, but logically, it doesn't compute for me. They feel more like ponzi schemes than anything else. | | |
| ▲ | woodrowbarlow 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | that's definitely a big question and i don't pretend to have enough expertise to answer fully; however, i will point to the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan which is (per Wikipedia[1]) "one of the world's largest institutional investors [...] over $266 billion in net assets, with a one-year total-fund net return of 9.4%, and a 7.4% 10-year total-fund net return". the union runs their own investment fund; it's an extension of collective power into the financial realm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Teachers%27_Pension_Pl... | | |
| ▲ | hluska 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | That is only a pension plan. It provides no insurance to teachers who are still employed. |
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| ▲ | prmoustache 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > This is something that has just never sat well with me. How exactly will the union provide this insurance? That insurance isn't free, so paid for by member dues? That is how all unions were born. | | | |
| ▲ | askl 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > That insurance isn't free, so paid for by member dues? Yes, obviously. That's how every insurance works. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, obviously. A question not asked as assumed a natural part of the thinking process is how many members does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? Just because other unions exists does not mean that the one that techBro Norma Rae starts is going to remain viable. How many claims can be paid out before the insurance no longer pays out? Lots of conversation left after your trite yes obviously unhelpful comment |
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| ▲ | soco 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Simple idea: look how other unions work, and in other countries as well. The wheel has already been invented. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | You can say that about a lot of things. The car was already invented, but so many new car companies struggle. Just because a thing exists does not mean someone else can come along to immediately become successful with thing. | | |
| ▲ | soco 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | The question as I took it was "I can't imagine how this can work". Interpreting it as anything else is defeatism and I won't entertain that. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's not defeatism. It's doing the research to avoid unnecessary failure from over ambitiousness getting in the way of doing something the right way. This isn't a Show HN situation where you go and get some VC funding and yolo your way through it. This is something that if it's not done right it could have a greater blast radius than some VC funded startup shutting down with a "What we've learned" blog post. | | |
| ▲ | soco 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Makes sense, but I haven't seen in the comments the signs of research having been done. Or maybe you were hoping that I am doing the research for you, while you brainstorm how it can't work? I am an union member, albeit not in the US, and for me it looks fine. Sample size of 1, but a sample which says it does work. Take this information as you wish. |
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| ▲ | grayhatter 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I didn't get fired. |
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| ▲ | absqueued 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Take a lead, let me sign up :) |
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| ▲ | 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [deleted] |
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| ▲ | LadyCailin 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That’s what licensing is for, not unions. |
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| ▲ | woodrowbarlow 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | i don't believe that software development should require a license. imagine having to get board-licensed to download gcc; therein lies the death of free software and owning your devices. | | |
| ▲ | iamnothere 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > therein lies the death of free software and owning your devices (That’s what these people want) |
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| ▲ | hluska 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A union could absolutely get involved in something like this. |
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| ▲ | ethagnawl 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > not so much to get better working conditions but ... why not both? |
