Why Labor Unions and Silicon Valley Aren’t Friends, in 2 Charts
30th July 2013
None of the Internet giants have unionized employees, which has made Silicon Valley a favorite target for civil libertarians.
Ponder the assumption that not having unionized employees makes you a target for ‘civil libertarians’. Ponder what that says about those who pass as ‘civil libertarians’ today.
There’s a very good reason why unions have never had a presence in Silicon Valley: they aren’t fans of technology. Labor unions have aggressively fought Uber and Lyft, which threaten taxi drivers with increased competition. They’ve effectively paralyzed a multi-billion-dollar sharing economy industry from spreading around the country.
Unions — dinosaurs from an earlier age. And it makes perfect sense; unions are about getting benefits for workers, and modern technology is focused on machines doing work that people used to do. Unions and technology are natural enemies.
Not to be outdone, one of the largest labor unions in the country, AFL-CIO, is the leading opponent of more high-skilled immigrants, calling the tech community “greedy” for wanting to make it easier to hire foreign engineers.
While, of course, unions aren’t greedy for wanting to stick the ‘tech community’ with higher costs.