BubbleSecJul 20, 2023
Peter Cohen

The dismissive tech worker discourse around #WGA and #SAGAFTRA #union workers striking basically fall into a predictable pattern:

a) They think actors and writers are a lot better off than most of them are;

b) They have made careers in an industry without any union protection, and somehow think this makes them virtuous;

c) They have no goddamn clue whatsoever how badly they themselves are being exploited.

Jul 18, 2023 at 8:02pmWeb
Show threadStanley JonesJul 18, 2023
@flargh I had to explain how a union works to tech coworkers before and their response was, “Why would the company allow that?” 😔
Show threadCyber YukiJul 18, 2023
@stanley @flargh hits head against brick wall repeatedly
Show threadPKMKIIJul 18, 2023
@flargh There’s also a sort of mythology with tech bros that being in the STEM realm magically protects them from the sort of capitalist pressures that suppress wages, ruin work-life balance, and expose workers to job insecurity.
Show threadPeter CohenJul 18, 2023
@PKMKII wait until these motherfuckers turn 50 and find themselves unemployable.
Show threadNoel KellyJul 19, 2023

@flargh @PKMKII

And that totally unemployable.
By 40 getting a new job/contract starts taking longer.

It's always been that way. I [25ish] remember being told it would happen at a Christmas BBQ in 88 or 89.

Show threadAlanna 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Jul 20, 2023
@gnoll110 @flargh @PKMKII I'm 39 and it's been a struggle to find new work since being laid off in February.
Show threadDym SohinJul 19, 2023
@flargh @PKMKII
why would you let this happen?
i mean at 50 everyone should retire — not work for 30 more years till senile
Show threadSarahJul 18, 2023
@PKMKII @flargh some think they’re immune, yet they also work for people who exploit them and hold those who have in the past in high esteem—for ex https://mstdn.social/@SarahOestreich/110727930286059888 —and others recognize they are subject to the wills of mercurial billionaire/trillion dollar businesses and think others should have to suffer too, instead of imagining a different situation for all.
Sarah (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Emblematic of #VC #tech brain rot. Celebrating CEOs colluding to keep wages down. These people are gross. Oh, and it was highly illegal. Do these people love #SteveJobs or committing crimes? Either way, putting it in writing is a very stupid move.

Mastodon 🐘
Show threadPixelJonesJul 19, 2023

@PKMKII @flargh

Ask #GameDev developers working 80 hour weeks on $100M games for intern-level wages if they'd benefit from a #union

Likewise, ask contractors working "off the timesheet" on fix-bid projects for months to keep their jobs.

Twice, I've been on terrific teams when vulture capitalists swooped in w/ brutal layoffs, bribing/guilt-ing a few "rockstar" devs into keeping the ghost ship (& their profits) running on developers' sweat & tears. A union might've checked that exploitation.

Show threadDym SohinJul 19, 2023
@PixelJones @PKMKII @flargh
even within film industry CGI studios are basically a throwaway commodity b/c there are so many willing to work for pennies, something a guild would never allow to happen
Show threadsolientJul 20, 2023
@PKMKII @flargh the last bit of that myth has been dispelled by the fad-firing of a massive chunk of the sector.
Show threadtombertJul 18, 2023

@flargh

You know, I'll admit that prior to being laid off in 2022 I might have fallen into that camp; it wasn't until I realized how disposable I was to these billionaires that I started seeing how necessary unions might be.

Show threadCyber YukiJul 19, 2023

@tombert @flargh

Story time: I was one of the fools who bought Robert Kiyosaki's books about getting rich. When watching one of his training videos about his game (it's very informative, BTW), one of the bad cards in the game was "Downsized". Meaning you were fired and lost income for two turns.

Downsized, I thought... what an interesting word 🤔

And that should tell us all about it. Workers aren't getting fired because we're inadequate or because we screwed up at work. No, those were the old times, when having a job was supposed to be perpetual and it was the company's obligations with society to provide you with a job.

Not anymore. The moment the company desires, you're getting downsized and good luck on your own.

Our grandparents never got to see this. They need to understand that you can get fired at any moment because the company's owner fucking wants to. This is one of the rules of today's world. This fact alone should tell us that we need a safety net for society, because corporations don't give a shit about us anymore.

Grandpa won't understand that. He still believes that if you work hard you get paid well and ascend the corporate ladder. It doesn't work like that anymore, gramps. We've come back to the time of robber barons, key-locked factories and whip-equipped foremen.

It's time to unite once again and declare strike.

Show threadEVHasteJul 19, 2023
@flargh meanwhile I desperately wished I had access to a union when I was in tech 😭
Show threadAlanna 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Jul 20, 2023
@flargh Nail. On. Head. People think actors and musicians are paid through the roof, when, realistically, even a lot of well known ones don't make massive amounts of money. A few do, but like every capitalist mountain it's bottom heavy.
Show threadSimon FormanJul 20, 2023
@flargh You can always remind them (us) of that time the tech companies all colluded on a "no poaching" thing and ripped them (us) off to the tune of several billion dollars.:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200304045453/https://pando.com/tag/techtopus/
I used to think we didn't need unions until that came to light.
Show threadteledyn 𓂀Jul 21, 2023

@flargh

As me dear Ma used to say, you can always tell a Marine, you just can't tell 'em much.