Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration

www.businessinsider.com Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration

Some tech workers questioned whether UPS drivers deserved high pay — others jumped in to note the importance of the jobs and harsh working conditions.

Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration::Some tech workers questioned whether UPS drivers deserved high pay — others jumped in to note the importance of the jobs and harsh working conditions.

109

You're viewing a single thread.

109 comments

Pushing tens of pounds around in the heat everyday is hard, expecially inside a van without AC.

Let's just hope tech workers will be smart enough to unionize and organize like the UPS Chads did.
- It's a good objective, but it would take a lot to make it happen. It's significantly more challenging for tech workers to effectively unionize en masse for several reasons:
  
  Tech isn't monopsonistic, or even close to it; there isn't a single large employer... even the biggest tech companies employ only a relatively small fraction of the tech workforce. That means separate unionization efforts at thousands of big companies, not at one.
  
  Tech job functions are much more widely varied than "delivery driver"; job responsibilities differ greatly, complexity and education requirements differ greatly, workplace expectations differ greatly ... think of the difference between help desk, front end dev, network security engineering, data science and DBA. Collective bargaining is harder the more varied the needs of the collective are.
  
  Job mobility is really high in the tech sector ... in other words, tech employees (by and large) have access to many prospective employers (especially with the prevalence of remote work), and tech employers to a wide geographic pool of talent. That means if your San Francisco office seems on the path to unionization, you can shift work to your Chennai office.
  
  It also means that, when the working conditions at a tech company suck, a lot of tech workers can easily jump ship. It's hard to get a union going when your voters can easily quit and go work someplace nicer, rather than take the more difficult path of staying and trying to force your employer to improve.
  
  Again, I think highly of unions and would really like to see more effective unionization efforts in tech -- I just want folks to go into it eyes wide open and intelligently, vs throwing up their hands and saying, "Why don't tech workers unionize?"
  
  Yea i understand, for reference my father works and worked his whole life in IT, my grandma worked as union rep and I'm interested in both worlds, I get that the struggle is real, the sector is young. Even just 30 years ago there was no IT market, for reference the transport industry is as old as time and yet this historic contract was won in 2023 AD, we just gotta push and organize.

You've viewed 109 comments.