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hot take: software people are going to regret not unionizing when we could

Seeing this take a lot in last couple hours but when exactly was this most feasible? IMHO any labor action taken in last 30 years leads to workers immediately being replaced by scabs and the action failing. Any sort of labor actions probs have lead to more firing than we realize, & I would argue...

skyking

@jkachmar.com

if you wanted the most leverage; some time between 2020 & 2022 we had by far the most leverage as labor in this industry. honestly though collective action could have been effective with a hostile admin any time from 2015 - 2022 (excluding the first 6-ish months of COVID?)

1/10/26, 3:03 am0 reposts20 likes

Rhoman¢er🧌

@angussoftware.dev

By the 2016 it was probably too late IMO, India had more than enough workers to scab by then. I'm thinking the answer is closer to 2012-2015 but even then it's dismal

Singularity's Bounty e/CC@catblanketflower.yuwakisa.com

Esp now with remote work The owners would just move up their plan to offshore the shop by 5 years

skyking

@jkachmar.com

i think the biggest barrier isn’t actually any external force like evil DOJ or nega-NLRB, but the tendency for the software industry (and its financiers) to struggle with cooperative business models. a lot of software engineers are very liberal and also think CEO is a job that makes sense to exist.