It is without doubt one of the oddities of the US that we rejoice the labor motion on the primary Monday in September when a lot of the remainder of the world celebrates it on Could first… and all of the extra so as a result of the Could first date, for labor a minimum of, commemorates a basic strike right here within the US to push for an eight hour work day.
Although, to be sincere, I’m shocked that right here within the land of capitalist extra we’re allowed to have a Labor Day vacation in any respect, be it in Could or September.
Within the US the place billionaires overtly purchase elections, purchase the media shops that form public opinion, purchase supreme court docket justices, and spend their idle hours spending cash on rocket applications which can be barely disguised expressions of their manhood to rub in our faces, the concept of a day put aside to honor the employees they so despise for daring to need something for the privileged of serving them appears positively quaint. We’re in a brand new gilded age and the powers of wealth are being moved to impoverish the plenty as a result of it has been made clear being a billionaire isn’t adequate, you could additionally make others undergo to actually really feel the ability of your wealth.
The irony is that many of those billionaires declare fondness for the 50s in a barely coded white nationalist clarion name, conveniently forgetting that the 50s weren’t only a time of prosperity within the US, but additionally a time of robust unions, a lot of laws on firms, excessive wages, and heavy taxes on the wealthy.
I imply, I might advocate for that too… simply with out the segregation and racism and lynchings and McCarthyism and all of that.
What do I, a product of Silicon Valley, find out about unions?
Really, I do have some first hand expertise with unions. However I’ve additionally been on the “we don’t want a union” facet of the fence as properly. My grandfather was a small enterprise proprietor and fairly conservative, and my father and uncle went to work for him and ultimately took over the enterprise, so that they too inherited that outlook and proceed to this present day, lengthy after having bought off the enterprise and retired (no room for a 3rd era there), stay rabid Fox information followers with all that goes with it.
So my basis was that unions had been dangerous and corrupt, one thing that we illustrated by my time working at Safeway, then a union chain right here within the valley. All of the grocery shops had been, even the impartial ones over a sure dimension. The facility of the union again within the 50s and 60s was capable of lock that down.
However by the point I landed on the scene, the union was in critical decline. In hindsight, within the late 70s to mid 80s, being a grocery clerk was a good job. You had been by no means going to be wealthy, and even be a one earnings family in case you needed to purchase a home and have a household, however there have been heaps of people that did purchase homes within the valley… out within the periphery, within the low-cost finish of city to make certain, but it surely was critically a factor.
We additionally had astonishingly good well being care protection. I had a Kaiser card, didn’t need to contribute to the associated fee, had no co-pay… it was a disgrace I used to be younger and wholesome and didn’t want it.
However as with a lot of my youth, I used to be there simply in time for issues to disintegrate. The present contract had already bought out new workers, making a two tier wage system to guard extra senior workers and created new, decrease paid class of worker who couldn’t do all of the issues the meals clerks may… no operating the money register or doing stock management… however may inventory cabinets for particular classes.
UFCW Native 428
The following one hit onerous as properly. Shops had been solely closed 4 days a yr, New Years Day, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Labor Day, with the latter being the day for the annual union member picnic occasion. That each one went out the window. The union instructed us that we’d be open these days, however that it might be a voluntary project with vacation pay. They failed to say that if there weren’t sufficient volunteers that the shop may simply let you know to work… it was there within the contract… so it primarily as a result of one other day and the boss may put anyone they needed on the schedule.
Then Safeway was purchased in a leveraged buyout by KKR within the type of Gordon Gecko model of deal that meant stripping the corporate of belongings to dump and ultimately promoting the corporate to a competitor. In the meantime different chains had been consolidating, giving them extra energy, and WalMart began displaying up on the scene and providing grocery companies… and no one hates unions or their workers just like the greedy Walton household for whom billions in riches are by no means sufficient. (Severely, until you’re employed at WalMart HQ, the corporate despises you and isn’t shy about letting you understand.)
However I didn’t dwell on that as a result of I went off to excessive tech, the place the demand for talent, semi-skilled, and even enthusiastic followers was virtually bottomless. They needed to pay us properly as a result of we may… and sometimes did… simply transfer to a different firm if needed a pay increase. You had been unusual in case you stayed at one firm for greater than a few years, until you had been at some firm like Apple the place the pay and advantages had been on the prime of the heap.
Certain, we labored lengthy hours. Crunch time isn’t only a online game improvement factor. I spent plenty of nights and weekends getting issues collectively to satisfy arbitrary deadlines. And the execs knew they couldn’t push folks too far until they expanded the pool of expertise. HP, for example, funded an enormous growth to the pc science program at my alma mater, San Jose State, which is the place plenty of the devs within the valley come from.
That, nonetheless, was not sufficient and because the dotcom bubble was reaching its peak, plenty of new grads had been displaying up asking for hubristic beginning salaries. I keep in mind working the sales space at an month recruiting occasion referred to as Brass Ring and the temper being very a lot that the candidates held the higher hand and will demand greater than they had been probably value.
That was not a sustainable state of affairs, and Silicon Valley went in search of a cheat code.
The primary was to offshore improvement, to have engineering in locations with a lot decrease pay scales do the work. And this has been profitable for a lot of firms… however was an abject failure for a lot of extra as a result of, within the typical Silicon Valley approach, no one needed to put money into these abroad teams, they only needed to purchase code like they had been ordering a sandwich, and never give a shit concerning the folks doing the work.
It seems that, efficient off shore improvement initiatives require funding and a powerful partnership together with your distant groups.
When that wasn’t a easy “I win” button, they discovered the following cheat code, the one at the moment in favor, which is the H1-B visa, which permits an organization to sponsor an worker able for which they can not discover appropriate native expertise. The sponsored worker is caught with the corporate… you possibly can change employers, however it’s tough… at a reduction fee of pay. It isn’t fairly indentured servitude, however it’s a must to look shut to inform the distinction.
I’ll say proper right here that my brothers and sisters in tech who got here right here on these visas are welcome in my e-book. The nation has reaped the advantages of their expertise.
However the firms needed to show they wanted these H1-B visa workers, that they may not discover appropriate native expertise. So the began to control the state of affairs. One tactic, favored by IBM, was to switch at the moment staffed jobs to a distant location, removed from the present workplace. You gained’t transfer? You’re fired!
In the meantime, it seems that there isn’t a prepared and ready cadre of devs in search of jobs at a facility outdoors of Ames, Iowa. So IBM goes to the federal government and pleads that they’ll’t discover workers and please may they’ve a pair hundred extra H1-B visa slots? They’re at all times granted them, it doesn’t matter who’s in workplace, massive enterprise at all times wins, after which they rent them and put them again within the unique workplace as a result of it seems they didn’t have house for them on that campus outdoors of Ames.
The opposite tactic, favored by many firms, is simply to have HR write impossibly steep talent necessities relative to the pay fee, reject all native candidates as a result of none of them will meet each single merchandise on the checklist, then go ask for extra visa slots.
This one occurs all the time. HR is aware of get round laws round hiring practices and does it each day of the week. So, for instance, the final time I used to be laid off, my place was eradicated, all of the justification wanted, however one other place doing my very same job was created, solely it required a masters diploma in pc science. No job for me. So it went to any person on an H1-B visa. A great particular person and a discover for the corporate, however paid much less and unable to search out one other job simply.
That’s the approach it goes.
Which brings us to now, when I’m as soon as once more in a union. State staff are represented by numerous unions, however we’re nearly all in some represented bargaining unit. My union, which is considerably weak, has all of the union issues I’m conversant in. They’ve been undermined by legal guidelines permitting folks to say no to be a part of the union, although they get all the advantages. However they’ve additionally fallen prey to what occurs with any group after a sure time, an obsession with preserving themselves changing into the best precedence.
In order that they spend plenty of time promoting their worth to the members and sometimes really feel like the one approach they’ll present that’s by having an especially adversarial place relative to the state, which isn’t at all times useful or good for his or her members. And, like my outdated union at Safeway, they lie by omission. Our present contract had a 3% pay increase in it for the present fiscal yr, which the governor needed to take again… and which he can do with a easy vote within the legislature… as a result of present funds disaster. (The state is in a funds disaster three out of each 4 years… and the fourth yr is largess which makes them increase applications, which results in the following disaster… our representatives at work!)
After some negotiation, the union got here again and mentioned they saved the three% increase and acquired the state to again off on its return to workplace initiative. Properly, in knew the RTO factor was a bust as a result of the state let go of so many leases throughout Covid there was no place for all of us to sit down. So hardly union magic. In the meantime, the three% increase was not, in reality, saved. As a substitute we acquired some particular trip time for this fiscal yr. Wonderful, I don’t thoughts just a little extra break day, however don’t inform me I acquired a increase then, within the fantastic print, say that the increase wouldn’t be coming within the type of precise cash.
So it goes. Nonetheless, a 3% increase, even in trip time, beats plenty of what we had been seeing right here within the valley during the last decade, the place 3% is within the realm of a particular excessive achievers fee and lots of people had been seeing 1% raises if any. And as firms drink the poisoned AI Kool-aid, that’s solely going to worsen.
The union doesn’t make me joyful, however I nonetheless allow them to take some cash out of each paycheck. They’re working towards the VCs and billionaires. I get unsolicited mail each month from a billionaire backed union-busting political motion committee that has a tear off submit card that I would like solely signal and put within the mail to withdraw from the union. These playing cards typically level out issues I may do with that cash, like purchase the children an XBox. I’d fairly ship cash to the union that permit these terrible folks win.
Unions are an imperfect instrument, and one with out a lot energy as of late, having been always undermined by regulation for the final 50 years. My outdated union has consolidated sufficient that the outdated Native 428 down on Market Avenue in San Jose that represented simply Santa Clara County was a part of a consolidation such that it’s now UFCW Native 5, which represents all of Northern California.
Jobs at Safeway are nonetheless union jobs. However whereas I used to be making $13.78 an hour in 1985 as a journeyman meals clerk, a place obtained after 2,080 hours of labor by three ranges of apprenticeship, the equal place in 2025 makes $23.48 an hour after 7,800 hours rising by 9 ranges of apprenticeship. Evaluate that to the value of housing within the valley over the identical 40 yr interval.
A reckoning will come some day. It at all times has previously. It should take a while. Most likely extra time than I’ve left. And it is going to be accompanied by violence because the billionaires will use their purchased and paid for presidency to crack down on something that might preserve their very own private wealth line from going up. However it’s going to come.
