- “Value capture,” as called out in the article. If new tools make engineers 10x more productive, that should be reflected in compensation
- End employment law workarounds like “unlimited PTO,” where your PTO is still limited in practice, but it’s not a defined or accruing benefit
- Protection against dilution of equity for employees
- A seat at the table for workers, not just managers, in the event of layoffs
- Professional ethics and whistleblower protections. Legally-protected strikes if workers decide to refuse on pursuing an ethically or legally dubious product or feature.
I could go on. There are a lot of abuses we put up with because of relatively high salaries, and it is now abundantly clear that the billionaire capital-owning class is dead set on devaluing the work we do to “reduce labor costs.” We can decide not to go along with that.
At least in France, the general work legislation is generous enough that people in the industry don't feel the need to unionize. We've got 5 weeks holidays per year, plus additional ones if your work contract has more than 35hours of work per week.
Needless to say, burnouts are pretty rare. When they do, it's mostly because of toxic management which can't fire you because of legislation, so they just make your life miserable until you snap. I've also seen it happen in some startups where people have to take super long holidays after a successful exit because they've worked insane hours. However it was mostly self inflicted.
