A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize
When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve. People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn&#x27;t true.<p>For example, I&#x27;ve had people tell me that they don&#x27;t support unions in tech because they&#x27;ll be &quot;paid less&quot;, or less competent engineers will be promoted faster.<p>And it&#x27;s strange, because the <i>other</i> major industry in California - the film industry - is heavily unionised, and you just don&#x27;t see that happening there. You have vocally supportive multi-millionaire card-carrying members of the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, and the Directors Guild to name a few. None of these unions are limiting the work their members are carrying out.<p>This is because those unions are serving a very different purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear. SAG, the DGA, and the WGA aren&#x27;t guaranteeing hours or limiting pay: they&#x27;re simply trying to curb abuse in what it a very abusive industry, and putting in place procedures to protect members and resolve grievances.<p>And they don&#x27;t always get it right, and I don&#x27;t pretend that Hollywood is a perfect utopia of worker relations, but I think it&#x27;s pretty undeniable that the industry is a much better place with the unions around.