Ask HN: What can software engineers learn from pro athlete unions?

2 points

4 years ago

The National Basketball Players Association has negotiated 51% of the NBA’s revenues are shared with the players.

While Major League Baseball has spent as much as 54% of revenue while growing in profitability.

In each of these cases, you have billionaire owners willing to pay their employees more equitably and fairly due to collective bargaining.

If software engineers and similar workers were to unionize could they not accomplish the same and obtain even concessions for better interviewing and coding standards (ie. privacy, security, less dark patterns) within the US tech industry?

SOURCES:

- https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/01/11/economic-data-shows-mlb-spent-less-on-player-salaries-compared-to-revenues-in-2018/

- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Collective_Bargaining_Agreement

5 comments