The bitter truth is your employer has a lot more lawyers than you do. For all the talk about how well-compensated and in-demand tech workers are, the reality is usually different.
You need someone in your corner to help you fight for your rights.
Well I worked in both EU(Ireland) and US for the same company on the same projects the comp difference is huge. So all the safety nets might buy you more peace of mind but pragmatically you are better off just having an extra rainy day fund from the portion of extra income you get in the US.
This is true, but the number of "hidden" fees associated with living in the US make the difference slightly less stark than it seems at first, and a catastrophic health event can set you back to 0. The difference is biggest when working in tech, of course, and for the most part it is usually still worth it, depending on desired lifestyle.
I'm trying to understand what are the "hidden fees". Different fees, extra fees, annoying fees (when compared to some other country) I can wrap my head around those, but what fees are "hidden"?
If I was sure it would not become just another layer of corporate bureaucracy one has to navigate sure. In my possibly biased experience the people climbing any type of power structure are same type personality wise be it union or corporation or goverment agency
How does joining a union prevent someone from being laid off after a merger? Unions have their place, but I'm skeptical that someone–especially a presumably high-paid employee–could collectively bargain their way out of a planned post-merger mass firing.
It doesn't prevent someone getting laid off. It makes sure that the process is fair and legal. It ensures that at-risk individuals have a chance to apply for available internal roles. A Union can use their legal powers to enforce proper compensation for an individual who is laid off and that remaining staff are protected.
Your question is a bit like asking "how does insurance stop my house catching on fire?" - it doesn't; it makes sure you have some protection if the worst happens.
The tradeoff is that people lose their ability to bargain individually, which is why you rarely see unionization of high-paid workers in the US. I think whether it makes sense for an individual to unionize really depends on their ability to negotiate. The more highly paid that a worker is and the more unique their role is, the less they have to gain from unionization vs looking at internal job postings and hiring an attorney as needed.
It absolutely does not mean that. Unions help set minimum standards, not maximum ones.
I've worked in private companies where the maximum comp is set by management and they do not allow individual negotiations. And I've worked in heavily unionised organisations where I was able to negotiate a better deal for myself.
Do you really think your unique talents will save you from a lecherous boss or protect you from being discriminated against?
And, if you wanted to sue, how much will an attorney's retainer cost? Hint - probably a lot more than you Union dues!
I've negotiated raises without being unionized. I've paid lawyers for contract negotiations. It still stands that in this specific instance it doesn't appear that the suggestion of unionization is relevant. Notably absent from your story is your job title, salary, whether you were personally unionized, and any mention of anything the union actually did for you personally. I'm not saying unions are generally bad, but they aren't magic, and I wouldn't expect one to prevent you from being fired in a merger generally much less in a tech startup.
Sure! Looks like you aren't an American, which explains the disconnect. According to Glassdoor, senior engineers typically earn twice as much in Seattle than London. That's not including the value of stock options that would come from being at a successful startup, which could easily be 10x a person's annual salary on IPO or acquisition, although that is more difficult to generalize. Obviously your individual situation may be totally different. Point being, Yank developers are not usually desperate to form unions.
Anyone have any idea how this would/could work for a company with employees in many different countries? Especially if the number of employees in your own country is low? (Single or low double digits.)
It depends on so many factors. Are you actually employees or contractors? Do they pay you from a subsidiary registered in your country?
I've somewhat seriously looked into this a while ago and my main takeaway would be: a) contractors can't unionize and b) you can unionize locally, as long as you get signatures from X% of the employees in your country.
Also, and I can't stress this enough, reach out to some already established union in your own area and ask for advice. You're gonna find out some things that are not easily googleable.
Each country has its own unique employment laws. So you would need a different Union in each country.
In the UK, for example, it doesn't matter how small your employer is - you still have the right to have your Trade Union representative with you in certain meetings.
Right, having someone in meetings is nice, but I'm thinking more in terms of collective bargaining, being involved in layoffs (e.g. making sure that every effort has been made to move/retrain people) and all that.
It's true that collective bargaining units will be per country, since legally the employer will have an entity in each country that is subject to local laws.
In practice, unions have international links and often collaborate in the case of an action relevant to the same employer in multiple countries. The details are very much case-specific.
> Anyone have any idea how this would/could work for a company with employees in many different countries?
Technically, that company should have a subsidiary for each country they're employing people full-time in. So you'd work with the local union + local subsidiary, just like it was a local company.
Unfortunately like student unions they don't keep the focus on their actual remit and delving into irrelevant politics: https://palestine.utaw.tech/advocate/
The point of a union, to me, is to get society to a point where you are in control of your life. You as an individual but also you as a group, regarding your origins, your gender, your sexual orientation, your skin color, or your place in the employer/employee relationship; in short, whenever you live a situation of oppression, be it small or large.
Having a lawyer helps, because it helps you fight these attacks. But larger than that, changing the situation, the society, the relationships so that you do not undergo any oppression based on your situation.
The goal, to me again, is to live in a more communal, solidarity-based environment. Telling about the genocide happening in Palestine because of their ethnicity, destroyed by their colonizer neighbor, and supporting them is totally on-topic.
Not irrelevant at all, military technology is a large part of the UK's tech sector, and arms exports to countries with poor human rights records are in the billions.
> In IT we have it pretty easy and can rebound without as much hassle as other domains, so we think we're kind safe. We're not.
Seems even people in the US aren't actually that well off, as the author said they'd experience "acute financial stress" if it wasn't for the severance:
> [...] and was told that the severance offered would give me at least a few months free from acute financial stress [...]
I think for most it's not a matter of "can't afford", but rather closer to "don't think it's a use of money that will benefit me over the alternative."
As a parallel: I can easily afford to buy a new car; I choose to buy used cars because it's a better use of money than the alternative.
I believe this discounts the very heavy anti-union propaganda that we've all been subject to since... forever.
I'm not even from the US (I'm from Brazil) but here, similarly, most have a very bad view of unions, fueled by employers that, of course, don't want to give workers any power.
It's always ironic when we see today's workers continuously losing rights that were achieved mostly through unions (with a fair share of blood) actively hate unions without ever truly looking into them.
Smart people always assume they are immune to propaganda, and objectively investigating where those feelings come from is not something most take the time to do. Confirmation bias plays a big role here.
Unions do have to overcome that history as well as the "free rider problem", but I don't think that's particularly unique to them versus any other "If you will give me money and power, I will make your life better" proposition.
We get advertised travel, lifestyle, nutrition, convenience/utility, and entertainment products all the time. Most of those things over-promise and turn out to underperform their promises (yet not their price tags) and so people who are generally happy with the status quo need some activation energy and convincing to give up money and power now in hopes that this new thing being advertised/promised to them will deliver on its promises. That seems entirely rational to me.
The bitter truth is your employer has a lot more lawyers than you do. For all the talk about how well-compensated and in-demand tech workers are, the reality is usually different.
You need someone in your corner to help you fight for your rights.
If you're a tech worker in the UK, you can get three months free membership at https://prospect.org.uk/join/