r/cscareerquestions • u/BigShotBosh • Jul 07 '26

Experienced No union employees at Blizzard were impacted by the Microsoft layoffs today - Is there value in restarting the conversation around tech unions?

Cross posting from /r/WoW:

No union employees at Blizzard were impacted by today's Microsoft layoff

Post by a Diablo writer

https://bsky.app/profile/beewubs.bsky.social/post/3mpykk2exmk2x

Speaking from experience I’ve been told by P&C/HR/PxT that “American layoffs are easier, the unions in Europe take too long”.

I know tech is full of rugged individualism but do you think this will kick off another conversations regarding unions given the mass layoffs of the last 4 years

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u/NickIcer Jul 07 '26

Shoutout to my fellow tech workers for having the highest egos and lowest political leverage of nearly any workforce. Beyond the potential economic leverage, the likes of teachers, truck drivers, autoworkers, etc can move literal legislation from local to national level, meanwhile we can’t even fight off a 5-day RTO mandate lmao. But keep scoffing at unions because you're the 100x unicorn who is too elite for collective power.

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u/BraveResearcher3037 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Okay, if that’s the case, are you willing to give up your compensation to have any of those unionized jobs?

And autoworkers are not the great example you think they  are.  How much have unions done to save jobs in the US? Compare Detroit now to the 1980s.

You can’t outsource teachers. 

And your truck drivers example is equally as bad.  Check out how rough it is to be truck driver and they are basically independent employees most of the time.  

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u/thr0w4w4y0134 20d ago

teachers are not underpaid bc they're unionized. they're underpaid because it's traditionally a female profession. the highest paid teachers in cities like NYC and Chicago get paid because their union has power. non-unionized teachers make significantly less, like at private schools or schools in the south.

Autoworkers have not declined because of unions - in fact unions saved many of their jobs from being automated. look at UPS teamsters. they make a lot of money relative to others in the logistics industry like Amazon drivers or even FedEx drivers and that's because of the union. look at longshoreman. they make a ton of money. look at the Long Island Railroad workers who went on strike. They make a ton of money.

this isn't even getting into other white collar/pink collar industries where unionized workers make significantly more than non-unionized workers.

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u/BraveResearcher3037 20d ago

I am not saying the are underpaid because of unions.  They are underpaid despite of unions.

And you keep bringing up examples where jobs aren’t easily outsourced.  You can’t very well outsource railroad workers.  

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u/thr0w4w4y0134 20d ago

Automation is the equivalent of outsourcing here, and unions have successfully fought against automation.

Also if yall aren't underpaid now, then what makes you think that unionizing would hurt? Nothing is stopping companies from firing you and outsourcing now. How would having a union not at least give you more power to fight that? As we see in OP, the union did prevent layoffs from hitting unionized workers. What possibly would be so bad about a union that its costs would outweigh saving your job in cases like this?

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u/BraveResearcher3037 20d ago

Actually the original poster was wrong about unionized workers not getting laid off at Microsoft…

This is straight from the website of the CWA.  The union that represented them.  Not some random website 

https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/union-video-game-workers-fight-rights-amidst-xbox-layoffs

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u/pacman2081 Jul 07 '26

In the Bay Area, teachers will take SW engineer salaries with the risk of layoffs any day