Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Game Workers Unite

gameworkersunite.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 199 posts

Re: Game Workers Unite

#41

Post by deft »

brann0 wrote: post #18
ugh123 wrote: post #12

Consider some of the negative affects of unions when working alongside low and high performers in technology: - Protection for under performers alongside high performers. Difficult or darn near impossible to terminate employment. Ability to enforce performance evaluation and plans could be killed by the union. Common in teacher unions. - Without being able to measure performance, pay may be solely based on tenure, no…

That, sir, is just FUD. The dangerous type. Unions protect workers from being exploited and abused. If you're not happy with how some employee performs, you can still fire him in place. But be ready to prove it. No more firing people on a whim just because. If game industry isn't sustainable without exploitation, then we need it to adapt, and not the other way around.

Of course it's just FUD. Millions of dollars are spent every year to stop people from organizing and to break up existing unions. Finally someone is trying to help tech workers organize, expect more of this.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#42

Post by wonton2 »

humanrebar wrote: post #20
brann0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, sir, is just FUD. The dangerous type. Unions protect workers from being exploited and abused. If you're not happy with how some employee performs, you can still fire him in place. But be ready to prove it. No more firing people on a whim just because. If game industry isn't sustainable without exploitation, then we need it to adapt, and not the other way around.

> But be ready to prove it. How do you prove that an employee took two weeks to find a bug that should have taken one day to find? How do you prove that writing a domain-specific language was a bad decision compared to defining a complex XML schema? How do you prove that an engineer is bad at explaining technical concepts?

You could use the exactly these arguments for union and against. But in modern justice systems you are innocent until proven guilty, simply so anyone cannot just scream witch and have someone burned.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#43

Post by Gabriel_Martin »

robbomacrae wrote: post #39

I've seen first hand how terrible dev environments such as EA are compared to startups and tech giants in SV. But that said.. in an industry where the barrier of entry for new games companies is so low, why is this even necessary? Any group of disgruntled employees with some ideas for games can say enough is enough and go start their own games company where they treat people better and subsequently attract talent (wh…

"Have you ever felt exploited by the game industry? Are you in a precarious situation? No job stability and in desperate need of support? Are you losing hope that you can work in a landscape you love at all?" I'm not sure that your point actually is relevant to what they're hoping to address. Everyone having the opportunity (nevermind the intent or will) to start their own game company does not address exploitation in any way.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#44

Post by ovao »

giantsloth wrote: post #29
humanrebar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are reactionary organizations. They tend to create and enforce rules around how things work now . Unions don't like it if new technology lets two workers do the work of forty.

All organizations are reactionary and necessarily settle on the state of the world at the current moment. This is an extremely bizarre line of logic you are using. There is always version lock in at some point, and NO workers like change if it's going to cause them to lose their livelihood. This has nothing to do with unions. Why do you care more about protecting artificial constructs like companies at the expense of…

A company is comprised of many parts — including its employees. Calling it an artificial construct may be legally and semantically valid, but it’s also dismissive to the reality that any company is more than just the ink on its articles of incorporation (or whatever).

The argument is much more nuanced than you’ve proposed.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#45

Post by ramy_d »

robbomacrae wrote: post #39

I've seen first hand how terrible dev environments such as EA are compared to startups and tech giants in SV. But that said.. in an industry where the barrier of entry for new games companies is so low, why is this even necessary? Any group of disgruntled employees with some ideas for games can say enough is enough and go start their own games company where they treat people better and subsequently attract talent (wh…

I don't think the everyday alternative to a bad job should be a startup. That's such a different level of commitment it's not even comparable.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#46

Post by 49531 »

robbomacrae wrote: post #39

I've seen first hand how terrible dev environments such as EA are compared to startups and tech giants in SV. But that said.. in an industry where the barrier of entry for new games companies is so low, why is this even necessary? Any group of disgruntled employees with some ideas for games can say enough is enough and go start their own games company where they treat people better and subsequently attract talent (wh…

Companies are typically careful to keep employees atomized enough to prevent the disgruntled from organizing. Typically they suffer in isolation and just job hop until they find a place they enjoy working at.

There are also small things companies can do to make the lives of their employees better that are sometimes impossible to negotiate as an individual. Unified teams can negotiate some of these things.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#47

Post by casiotone »

robbomacrae wrote: post #39

I've seen first hand how terrible dev environments such as EA are compared to startups and tech giants in SV. But that said.. in an industry where the barrier of entry for new games companies is so low, why is this even necessary? Any group of disgruntled employees with some ideas for games can say enough is enough and go start their own games company where they treat people better and subsequently attract talent (wh…

Read the first sentence of your post. That's why it's necessary.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#48

Post by walshemj »

ttoinou wrote: post #24

I have read the whole website and failed to see one concrete example of action that the union could take to make game-industry employees' life better Game Workers Unite is a broad-reaching organization that seeks to connect pro-union activists, exploited workers, and allies across borders and across ideologies in the name of building a unionized game industry. Even compatible with the libertarian ideology :p ?

Off the top of my head:

Lobby for improvements in labour laws to protect employees -scrapping non competes for example:

Representation: In Discipline & Grievance, labour or employment triburnerals.

Also as a source of pay rates etc ala BECTU, IATSE who also represent a lot of freelance workers and managers.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#49

Post by Meph504 »

I see a lot of people arguing about how unions protect workers, and in some cases that is true, but in my experience many have been corrupted. You only have to look at the coal workers, steel workers, and several other unions, that's leadership has been corrupted, and serve their own interest at the expense of everyone else.

Additionally, things like agency fees, where even if you work somewhere with a Union, and you are denied membership, and member only benifits you can still be required to pay the union, for their "collective bargaining benifits."

There are also the nightmares of union fiefdom, if a light bulb burns out in your office and you want it changed, you can wait till a union employee comes to do it, or you can pay the union the minimum call out fee (usually a couple of hours) after doing it yourself.

Unions have completely failed at protecting retirement plans, and preventing age discrimination across the country.

I can't understand how anyone can honestly evaluate the performance of unions in the last several decades and think that implementing one would in anyway make for a better work life situation.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#50

Post by 49531 »

ttoinou wrote: post #24

I have read the whole website and failed to see one concrete example of action that the union could take to make game-industry employees' life better Game Workers Unite is a broad-reaching organization that seeks to connect pro-union activists, exploited workers, and allies across borders and across ideologies in the name of building a unionized game industry. Even compatible with the libertarian ideology :p ?

All unions have concrete ways to make people's lives better. That's why they exist. This website glosses over them but they are pretty basic.

Things like open salaries, control over agile process, overtime for on-call, overtime pay for crunch times, more control over hiring / firing.

Post reply on HN