I think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as 1x programmers. Conversely, something like airline piloting or being a factory worker or nurse can be done much more equally by everyone in the field, so they are more likely to unionize. Are there wild variations in talent of VFX professionals?
Programmers don’t unionize because they are well paid, and there is no structural barrier stopping people who gain skills and experience from getting better paid in the future.
To contrast that look at medicine. Doctors have no union. They have a huge barrier to entry but once you are already a doctor then how much you get paid is determined by your skills and where you work. Doctors can get paid millions with enough prestige on them.
Nurses on the other hand have a terminal limit. Every pay increase is gated by another nursing exam giving an additional certificate. Then in the end, the only upgrade is to doctor. However that means losing all benefits, retraining, and starting in a new track despite both professions being medical. Nurses therefore need a union.
Another thing that stops unionization is the ability to work on your own. Nurses with high enough qualifications can work on their own, but in most cases they still need a supervising doctor even if that doctor is only a warm body. VFX pros are much the same. They need a team with them to work on a big budget movie.
Programmers and doctors though can break away and start their own practice, serving the public directly and no one can stop them. With a little business savvy they can even rival the agencies that would have hired them as employees. If your profession can double as a stand-alone business then you rarely get a proper union.
Even in cases (e.g. electricians) where a union is formed, it will still conduct training and certification which positions it somewhat like a guild.
Doctors have a guild: the AMA. Lawyers have a guild: the ABA. Neither are the same things as unions but they have similar effects. The ABA and AMA also have large roles in professional education. Both also have major roles in accreditation and regulation of the profession. Unlike unions, they do not collectively bargain on behalf of individual workers. They aren't subject to the many regulations associated with organized labor.
They also enjoy broad exemptions to antitrust law which would otherwise apply. It's why other classes of worker cannot have the same type of protective guild -- it's legal when the ABA or AMA do it and illegal when someone else does it.
The situation with doctors and lawyers is considerably different however.
Doctors, whether MDs or otherwise, tend to be pretty well-compensated in US broadly.
Lawyers are much more of a mixed bag. White shoe law firms--mostly hiring students from top-tier schools with prestigious clerkships? Big bucks though either make partner or are mostly eased out. Some decent corporate law and successful private practices. But it's generally not a particularly well-compensated profession for someone from a mid to low-tier law school. And lots of people who graduate law school and even pass the bar don't actually end up practicing law.
Doctors are well compensated in large part because their unions (professional associations) restricts the number of new doctors unreasonably and advocates against certifying foreign doctors to practice in the US.
My understanding is that in many places, the trade unions (electricians, plumbers, etc.) operate more like the AMA than the UAW. There is a spectrum of unionization.
In addition, programmers have a decent shot at striking it out on their own if they can't stand W2 employment or if they think they can make more money starting a business.
That's one big reason why I am unlikely to support unionization for the foreseeable future. If an employer treats us like crap, we just leave and either find a better opportunity or start our own business with blackjack and hookers. As a programmer, you can start your own business today by simply offering your services and looking for clients. We aren't nearly as enslaved to our companies as many other professions are.
In Germany doctors are heavily unionized. The largest union, Marburger Bund has 131.000 members.[1] The second largest, Hartmannbund has 70.000 members.[2] For comparision: At the end of 2020, there were 409,121 practising doctors (not including dentists) in Germany.[3]
> they still need a supervising doctor even if that doctor is only a warm body.
This is a good thing for standard of care: it's a chain of accountability. Medical supervision is supposed to set local policies and quality gates across a range of different providers. This also extends to EMT's in the field, for example: their supervision says what drugs or procedures they can use, which affects what the ER is expecting when patients arrive.
> This is a good thing for standard of care: it's a chain of accountability.
This is classism in action. There’s no reason a nurse practitioner can’t bear legal responsibility for their actions. As long as it’s unambiguous who is the responsible party whether they are a physician, nurse or physiotherapist there’s a chain of accountability.
Not disagreeing that you need to enable all levels of provider, that's not what I'm saying. I also agree all levels of provider should have an easy career path to the top.
The point is there's a system requirement for interfacing one provider to the next, so that if you're receiving a handoff from someone else you know they prepared the patient for the next guy. There's also a malpractice/liability component.
Saying an attending physician and a nurse practitioner are in every way similar would seem unlikely, given the radically different environments they work in. When we compare outcomes they look as good or better than physicians but that’s not to say they can completely replace them.
> A meta-analysis of nurse practitioners and nurse midwives in primary care
> This meta-analysis was an evaluation of patient outcomes of nurse practitioners (NPs) and nurse midwives (NMs), compared with those of physicians, in primary care. The sample included 38 NP and 15 NM studies. Thirty-three outcomes were analyzed. In studies that employed randomization to provider, greater patient compliance with treatment recommendations was shown with NPs than with physicians. In studies that controlled for patient risk in ways other than randomization, patient satisfaction and resolution of pathological conditions were greater for NP patients. NPs were equivalent to MDs on most other variables in controlled studies. In studies that controlled for patient risk, NMs used less technology and analgesia than did physicians in intrapartum care of obstetric patients. NMs achieved neonatal outcomes equivalent to those of physicians. Limitations in data from primary studies precluded answering questions of why and under what conditions these outcomes apply and whether these services are cost-effective.
There are most definitely physician unions, especially in government-operated clinics which are often union shops. I was involuntarily in SEIU for a number of years as a result, though I thought striking was unethical for a doctor myself. See also UAPD and NAVAPD.
The AMA controls medical school certification, and size, and therefore controls the number of new entrants, keeping earnings high.
It doesn't organize medical doctors for working conditions, salary and benefits negotiation, insurance, or most of the other features of a union. A hospital chain doesn't negotiate with the AMA on behalf of their surgeons and hospitalists.
(It would probably be a very good thing if interns and early residents had a union supervising working conditions.)
My number of X's adapt to fit the possibilities and potential of the environment. Right now it's 1x. Actually that's a lie, it's my 1x effort but the company I work with is floating on cloud 10x because I know more of the requirements than they do.
Still have no idea what this mythical 1x - 10x number scale maps to. Inspiration can up anyone's game.
Or we are all well paid diva who, if bored, would just switch companies without much problems nor thinking.
I am unsure if being in union (as in the US type of unions) would bring a lot of wage benefits.
> I think the reason programmers don't unionize is some are 10x better than others, so they don't want to get the same wages as 1x programmers.
Tom Cruise makes (e.g.) $10M for being in a movie, and Jane Doe who plays Waitress #2 gets paid $10K for being in the same movie, and yet they're both part of SAG.
You can create union/guild structures which have a minimum pay scale but not a maximum.
That doesn't make much sense — some actors make much more than 10x over other actors (and they bring the kind of audience to command that extra compensation), and yet they're definitely unionized.
but did they unionize after getting rich or when they were broke?
for screenwriters, most studios will not even review scripts without going through SAG, according to an awarding screenwriter/director who is a good friend on mine.
I can't speak about actors, but there was a time when a major benefit of being in the musicians union was the standardization of contracts that might cover complicated issues such as credit, royalties, re-publishing, and so forth. So it wasn't necessarily the magnitude of the money, but making it humanly fathomable how the money would actually be distributed.
I've heard people say to freelance musicians (like myself), that you don't really need the union until you start working in recording or broadcast.
I've not seen a screen actor's contract but I'll bet the provisions for working conditions and rights are a bigger deal than the pay scale. Also, I've read that in general, unionization efforts tend to be triggered by working conditions rather than pay. Even programmers could benefit from that.
Years ago I felt that programmers didn't need unions because we are so in-demand and already highly paid. Then the whole "no poaching" scandal came out, and now I definitely do think we need some sort of union-ish something. I hate to say it because many of the individuals are actually good people, but the managers/execs as a class are amoral bastards who will do whatever they think they can get away with to make a buck. To me the extraordinary thing is that Apple has more money than Scrooge McDuck and still screwed over their own engineers.
It reminds me of the scene from the Simpsons: Homer and Mr. Burns are chilling together in what will become the rocket-house:
Homer: Oh Mr. Burns, you're the richest man I know.
Mr. Burns: Ah yes, but I'd trade it all... for a little more.
Absolutely 100% agree. I work in a senior role in a vfx company. The adage that 20% of the workers do 80% of the work is more true in vfx than you'd likely believe.
