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They'd be wise to learn from history: There are many people willing do your job for cheaper, most of them in other countries working for smaller wages.


I hope then you're passing on pay increases and benefit improvements to stay competitive. If not, then you're applying different logic to single employee competitiveness then to group bargaining without any factual basis.


There wouldn't be any programmers in the Bay Area—or, for that matter, the US—if price were the only relevant factor in hiring developers.


That's what Detroit thought.


Sorry, so you're saying that Detroit's auto industry went away because they unionized? The thing they did many decades before that?


SV has the same kind of attitude towards competition Detroit had in 20th century.


I agree with you, but that has zero bearing on whether unionizing is a good idea. If anything it makes it more urgent.


Those same people working for the same cheaper wages have existed for a long time before kickstarter got a union. Running with your logic, it's a wonder anyone is employed in this country at all.


This is a perfect description of a race to the bottom.


And this is what open and free markets will allow for.


Which is exactly why governments regulate “open and free” markets.


If that was true it should have happened years ago, no?


I think that on the contrary, History has proven over the past few decades that wide outsourcing doesn't work. Companies tried it in the 90's and it was a disaster. This is why software devs in the US can command a salary of $100k+


> They'd be wise to learn from history: There are many people willing do your job for cheaper, most of them in other countries working for smaller wages.

Then why didn't all start ups outsource all their IT jobs to India for instance already? They are considerably cheaper than US software engineers.

I mean what stopped all these IT businesses to do that yesterday? I know more instances of businesses that tried to outsource their IT overseas only to go back on that decision, than successful IT outsourcing stories.


Rockwell Collins, which became United Technologies, which became Raytheon, who was responsible for the 737 MAX's MCAS software and outsourced it to a low wage country, agrees.


You would be wise to learn from history: many software companies have tried this and many of those companies no longer exist as a result.


>They'd be wise to learn from history

Seems like they did learn from history. Unions are they only thing that have proven consistently, across the world, to protect wages, rights, and give workers a say in their workplaces.




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