Silicon Valley Anti-Unionism

[Teamster Jeff]

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Last week, BART workers went on strike, shutting down the region’s major mass transit service for a few days. The strike has ended with what will ultimately be a victory for labor. What’s notable here though is the response from the Silicon Valley plutocrats who actively wanted the union crushed.

Tech blogger Sarah Lacy summed up her own attitude and that of many others in an interview with Marketplace:

Sarah Lacy, founder of tech news site Pando Daily, which is based in San Francisco, said “If I had more friends who were BART drivers, I would probably be very sympathetic to their cause, and if they had more friends who were building companies they would probably realize we’re not all millionaires, and we’re actually working pretty hard to build something.”

She said the BART strike exacerbated what she sees as a philosophical divide in the Bay Area. “People in the tech industry feel like life is a meritocracy. You work really hard, you build something and you create something, which is sort of directly opposite to unions.”

If I only cared to know working people, maybe I’d understand. But I’d never slum that much since my vision of meritocracy sees working-class people as below contempt. It’s hardly a wonder that Sam Biddle at Gawker calls Lacy “a free market monster.” But at least she has the right friends for a free market monster!

Kevin Roose has the big picture here:

Anti-union views aren’t unique to Silicon Valley gazillionaires — they’re shared by free-market boosters everywhere. But comments like Lacy’s and White’s in response to the BART strike revealed something new. Namely, portions of the tech community are not only observing the destruction of unions as a long-term sociopolitical trend, but actively cheering it on as an example of an intellectual “maker” class beating out working-class “takers.” The old Silicon Valley anti-unionism came from narrow corporate self-interest; the new seems more broadly ideological.

“The notion that ‘These workers are expendable’ is a fundamentally different attitude toward workers than ‘Let’s make sure they have these benefits so they don’t want to unionize,’” Berlin said.

In other words, it’s not Silicon Valley’s rejection of organized labor that should surprise us. It’s the class hostility that now often rides along with it.

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http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2013/07/silicon-valley-anti-unionism

[CatholicEdHead]

1. It is common all over in IT

and not just in Silicon Valley.

[mountain grammy]

2. I remember a member of management whining..

If you union people keep getting 5 to 6% raises every year, where will it end? The fool never realized our raises and benefits effected his raises and benefits, but that's really how they feel. We were getting paid too much. A living wage is too much. Good benefits are too much. Job security is too much.

[stuffmatters]

3. Is this the same Sarah who was on the Bravo Show about "Young Silicon?"

They were all pretty unbearable, but Sarah was so selfish that she'd parlayed her narcissism into paranoia.

[Starry Messenger]

4. David Bacon has done good articles on this too.

It is pretty bad here. I live here.