Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#121

Post by barbecue_sauce » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #70

matthewowen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You're describing a closed shop, and closed shops are illegal in the USA. They _could_ require that _after_ joining Kickstarter either join the union or pay equivalent dues.

> They _could_ require that _after_ joining Kickstarter either join the union or pay equivalent dues. That sounds like exactly the same thing as a closed shop. How is that practically any different?

I suppose it means that you wouldn't even be able to get a job at a closed shop unless you were already a member of the union.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#122

Post by geofft » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

soheil wrote: post #94

untog wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries aren't the only thing unions are good for. I'd be very interested in a job that had cast-iron guarantees about working hours, on-duty overtime, no open offices, stuff like that.

Why can you not ask for those things directly for the company you want to work for? I’m not getting my office? no thank you. I have to be on page duty in the middle of the night? No thank you. There are companies that offer all those maybe you sacrifice salary a bit. Someone has to pay the cost, I don’t think unions magically can give you the same salary or more at the same time you getting everything you wish for ab…

Leverage. As an individual, the response of the company is likely to be "whatever, we can hire someone worse than you who won't make these demands." If hundreds of people are saying the same thing, we're in a better negotiating position.

It is funny that you attack pro-union folks with a comparison to Soviet propaganda when you yourself are spouting better propaganda than the USSR could ever have dreamed: capitalism is miserable, there's no way your salaries can ever be high while you're happy at work, deal with life sucking, workers have only their chains.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#123

Post by segmondy » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

nanokilo wrote: post #3

If this works out, this has the potential to be huge for the industry. I would love to see more unionization in tech, and this could be a first step in that direction.

It's going to end badly, unlike factories where a walkout would but a strain on production. A walkout necessarily doesn't put a strain on tech. Companies are going to embrace distributed teams/remote teams very fast and unionizing will just be a reason to close up shop in that location. That's what I imagine happening, predicting the future is hard tho.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#124

Post by dmos62 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #54

bwestergard wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were all fired in late January. I was the only worker to go on record with my real name before finding another job. I had several offers in February an was sitting at a new desk for a job that paid about $10k more by mid-March. Those who had had less experience prior to the job we were fired from had a harder time getting re-employed. Software employers are not yet collaborating to avoid unions, as employers assoc…

> There is not yet an organized blacklist for outspoken activists. I hope you're right, but it's probably hard to know for sure. My skepticism stems from the no-poach cartel discovered a few years ago.

Wiki article on the "no-poach" cartel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#125

Post by kartan » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

syntaxing wrote: post #110

Is there such thing as "tech" that makes unionizing easier? AI that helps with the paperwork, some sort of app the allows structure organization easier, etc?

> Is there such thing as "tech" that makes unionizing easier?

e-Mail, instant messaging, etc. Any form of communication makes unionizing easier.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#126

Post by mises » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #100

asark wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems no worse than an employer doing the same, directly or via interest groups. Though they do tend to be more equal-opportunity in their support. In both cases the answer to "how do I stop supporting this political action I don't like?" is "Quit. Hope your skills are marketable."

> Quit. Hope your skills are marketable. What do I do when there is an industry-wide closed-shop union, as some people seem to want?

This is exactly the problem. Many of the unions I mentioned above are such ones, where in many places, you must be a member if you work in an industry. They are less unions and more guilds. Let's say you are a carpenter, a skilled trade you have likely spent a large number of years learning. It's quite hard to leave the union, because you will be forced to move to a different profession. This obviously isn't right. Unions can serve a purpose for collective bargaining; I think most agree on that. But they don't need to support political parties.

It seems that some unions have shifted from representing employees in negotiations to representing a profession in all respects. I believe that's contrary to their original purpose and dilutes both their support and their credibility as simply advocating for the worker.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#127

Post by CodeSheikh » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

Unions in tech companies is a very interesting idea. A lot of people never speculate this idea because lets be honest most of them get paid really well or visa workers are simply too scared to join such "abominable" unions etc etc. If any one can start materialize unions would be the workers at FAANG companies. And I am pretty sure rest will follow suit. As a tech worker, I see this as a positive change. As a CTO, this should scare me. As an honest CTO, I would see this as a balanced change for my subordinates and slightly shifting the power dynamics towards them.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#128

Post by untog » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

soheil wrote: post #94

untog wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries aren't the only thing unions are good for. I'd be very interested in a job that had cast-iron guarantees about working hours, on-duty overtime, no open offices, stuff like that.

Why can you not ask for those things directly for the company you want to work for? I’m not getting my office? no thank you. I have to be on page duty in the middle of the night? No thank you. There are companies that offer all those maybe you sacrifice salary a bit. Someone has to pay the cost, I don’t think unions magically can give you the same salary or more at the same time you getting everything you wish for ab…

> And if they do promise that maybe at best it’s their marketing PR and at worst look what communism did in Russia.

Good grief, really? We're pivoting from unions directly to Soviet communism?

The advantage of a union is collective bargaining. If I, on my own, ask my employer to alter the layout of their building so that I might have a private office they're quite likely to say no. And not unjustifiably - altering the entire floorplan of the office to accommodate one person is kind of an unreasonable request.

But if all us employees sat down and decided that we all wanted private offices - or the option of a private office - our request to the company is a lot more reasonable. And no individual employee is going to be singled out as a problematic troublemaker. Plus it's a lot more difficult for the company to say no.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#129

Post by bwestergard » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #71

bwestergard wrote: post #9

This is fantastic news. I'm one of the software engineers who was fired for organizing a union at a SF/DC based startup last year. The National Labor Relations Board found in our favor and we won a large cash settlement. But what we wanted was a union. Seeing others pick up the torch is extremely gratifying. Below are some links to news coverage of our case. https://gist.github.com/bwestergard/a77744dc6f3095fd3fb769d…

Two questions: Why are tech company staff wanting to unionize? For the most part, aren't tech staff reasonably to well paid - with good working conditions and moderate hour expectations (say 40-50)? Management has the right at a workplace to make any decisions, whether someone in non-management sees fit. Can't people who are frustrated with the company just go pursue a position elsewhere?

"You mentioned that the letter to management listed your grievances. Some people find the idea of a tech workers union implausible, because they find it hard to believe that tech workers could have grievances in the first place. After all, software engineers are relatively well paid. What’s your perspective on that?"

"People didn’t even want that much more time off, or that much more time not on call. They just wanted to know where they stood. They didn’t want to have to engage in highly personalized bargaining all the time. It wasn’t that there were rules that favored management — there were simply no rules, and this ambiguity worked in management’s favor."

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/04/lanetix-tech-workers-unio...

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#130

Post by StudentStuff » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

the_bear wrote: post #66

lazyasciiart wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the overhead?

I'll admit I'm not very knowledgeable about the logistics of unions, but I imagine there's some kind of up-front legal overhead. Like, maybe there are contracts between the union and the company, or within the union itself to determine how it's governed? I also get the impression there is some overhead in an ongoing basis in the form of extra meetings, more complicated negotiations, etc. All of those things seem like…

It seems your mis-understanding what a union is, the union will talk with management, forming an agreement as to what the pay scales are, how much paid leave is given at minimum, and escalation processes like grieving an issue when management does shitty things to the workers.

The "overhead" you speak of is to pay someone to negotiate on the workers behalf, save up for a strike stipend, and provide worker training (usually Unions will run or subsidize courses to help workers skill up, get licensed, etc).