New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat
I used to work at Facebook, and it was always interesting to me to see just how many engineers were actively against - aghast, even - at the idea of unions.Whenever it would come up on the internal boards the arguments were usually along the lines of:* "People who don't deserve to be paid more will get more money under a union"* "I'll be paid less under a union"* "Unions will slow us down, and we'll become more bureaucratic"* "Unions are corrupt, and only care about themselves"It was always clear that there was a huge misconception about what unions are, and how they work, based on the depiction of unions in popular culture or the past. When you talked about unions, people would think about the Teamsters, the police unions, etc.Myself and others would end up pointing out that yes, that's true of some blur collar unions, but that's not what we're talking about. Think about the Writers Guild, or SAG. Dwayne Johnson earned $90 million last year - he still pays his union dues. You'd struggle to find any writer who didn't think the Writers Guild had actively improved their working conditions.Are the various Hollywood unions perfect? No, they're not. But I think you would really struggle to argue that working conditions would be better for those in the creative arts without them.Tech companies have spent a long time cultivating an image of benevolence towards their employees, but ultimately they are not your friends. You need somebody to fight your corner. Hollywood found this out years ago with the studios - hopefully Silicon Valley will discover it too, however unlikely it seems.