AI obsolescence is “coming for basically everyone in due time,” says one engineer who went from earning $150k to being locked out of the workforce for over a year.
I am very sympathetic to the guy given I expect to be in the same position in year and a half or so, but the article imo is shit. AI has very little to do with this and it’s more of the economic conditions these past two years.
In my experience developers are the least class conscious people I know and the puddle deep analysis expected from that sort of people is perfectly captured in this article.
in my experience developers are the least class conscious people I know
This matches my experience and it’s really frustrating. I remember talking to a coworker years ago and he was just like “I wouldn’t join a union. If a job sucks I’ll go somewhere else”. Incredibly optimistic and myopic.
Well, he’s unemployed now. Working on a video game so maybe he’s still got that bootstraps energy.
Tech workers’ power didn’t come from solidarity, it came from scarcity. When you’re getting five new recruiter emails every day, you don’t need a shop steward to tell your boss to go fuck themselves at the morning scrum. You can do it yourself, secure in the knowledge that there’s a company across the road who’ll give you a better job by lunchtime.
There’ve been half a million US tech layoff since 2023. Tech workers’ scarcity-derived power has been vaporized. Tech workers can avoid the fate of the factory, warehouse and delivery workers their bosses literally work to death — but only by unionizing.
Great article! Really goes to show that even workers making huge salaries need collective agreements. It doesn’t matter how much the company relies on your work, eventually, your boss will find a way to fuck you over.
I’m a Teamster as a school bus driver. When I first joined the Teamsters, I started making a joke about getting a phone call at midnight to go break some kneecaps down at the docks. One of my more psycho coworkers responded to my joke with a dead serious “I’d like that”. Same dude thinks us bus drivers should carry guns.
I am very sympathetic to the guy given I expect to be in the same position in year and a half or so, but the article imo is shit. AI has very little to do with this and it’s more of the economic conditions these past two years.
In my experience developers are the least class conscious people I know and the puddle deep analysis expected from that sort of people is perfectly captured in this article.
IDK maybe I am just in denial and coping.
This matches my experience and it’s really frustrating. I remember talking to a coworker years ago and he was just like “I wouldn’t join a union. If a job sucks I’ll go somewhere else”. Incredibly optimistic and myopic.
Well, he’s unemployed now. Working on a video game so maybe he’s still got that bootstraps energy.
Cory Doctorow just posted something very much related to this. It’s an excellent read.
Great article! Really goes to show that even workers making huge salaries need collective agreements. It doesn’t matter how much the company relies on your work, eventually, your boss will find a way to fuck you over.
Exactly. It’s stuff like this that’s convinced me to join a tech union myself. If you’re in the UK, you might consider the one I joined.
I’m in Canadian manufacturing and am already part of the Teamsters union!
Teamsters, fuck yeah!
I’m a Teamster as a school bus driver. When I first joined the Teamsters, I started making a joke about getting a phone call at midnight to go break some kneecaps down at the docks. One of my more psycho coworkers responded to my joke with a dead serious “I’d like that”. Same dude thinks us bus drivers should carry guns.