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Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

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Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#151

Post by moduspol »

asark wrote: post #93
mises wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely correct. Three of the top 10 election cycle 2018 contributors were unions. * Carpenters & Joiners Union gave $38,366,262 with $37,822,215 to democrats and $529,000 to republicans. * Service Employees International Union gave $28,224,658 with $28,219,509 to democrats and $132 to republicans. * Laborers Union gave $27,538,080 with $26,810,870 to democrats and $708,100 to republicans. Source: https://www.open…

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."

> Seems no worse than an employer doing the same, directly or via interest groups.

Well, in one scenario it's their money being spent. In the other, it's yours. You don't draw a pretty clear distinction there?

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#152

Post by duxup »

mlillie wrote: post #134
duxup wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm highly skeptical of US style unions, but if any tech industry seems to need unions... it's the game industry.

How would you qualify US style vs non-US style unions? The prevalence of business unionism here?

Previously I've expressed my skepticism of US unions that rely heavily on seniority to determine pay and opportunity and work out very... overarching type deals that leave little room for personal advancement or even change beyond the prescribed path. The senior folks who have their seniority and refuse to change / don't have to is a real thing.

I've heard European trade unions are more flexible and are as far as technical aspects allow for more more individual progress outside of say a union / employer agreement.

To be clear, this is just what I've heard about European unions. I've had no personal experience with them.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#153

Post by edoo »

I've been in a union before. The work ethic wasn't good. They had seminars on how to work less and push back against complaints. They directed the members to engage in behavior that was best for the union while bad for the workers and the company. The union itself is a big business, what would they think of unionizing the union? Unions allow substandard work for equal pay. That tends to hold back the major opportunities for individual success.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#154

Post by StudentStuff »

gtirloni wrote: post #135

Maybe the US has a different experience with unions but in Brazil, they are simply hated. They were made mandatory by law and very rarely (never?) step in to help employees. It's only at big factories that they show up when more than X number of people are fired and do a big show out of that. Meanwhile, all the employees not working for big factories paid their union fees and saw nothing back. It's often a platform t…

Unions are voted on by workers at each workplace (and can be ejected and replaced) in most countries, sounds like Brazil had something similar to the mandatory, toothless union that China enforces on larger businesses like Walmart.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#155

Post by erikpukinskis »

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?

> aren't tech staff reasonably to well paid

Some are. You're probably imagining some Python engineer who is making $140k and can work normal hours, drink craft beer and take advantage of "unlimited time off" policies and such.

Think about operations staff who are doing mission critical work, like discovering and removing spam clusters. People like that often make an hourly wage, often are expected to pick up extra volume as a company grows, and are often the target of layoffs and wage controls because they are considered "variable cost" not "overhead".

Also think about people doing traditionally woman's jobs, like customer support or office support. These people make or break customer relationships, make or break team dynamics, or set the bar for content quality. But senior people on those teams often make less than junior engineers right out of school, because companies can exploit the popular idea that these kinds of workers are just less important.

Even coders, especially in production-based industries like video games or special effects, can work under semi-abusive conditions. Many of these firms dramatically staff up and down cyclically which gives employees little bargaining power.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#156

Post by WillPostForFood »

geofft wrote: post #112
msghacq wrote: post #45

It will be interesting to see what this does for developer salaries at Kickstarter. If, as a top performer, I get penalized by joining the union then obviously Kickstarter looks less attractive to me. For unions in our industry to work they are going to have to be very explicit about how they are going to raise developer salaries.

As a top performer: 1. I do my best work when my colleagues are also doing their best work. It doesn't matter how good I am at my job if I can't use the leverage of having teammates. I will be happier if the company can compensate all of my coworkers well and make them happy and hire good coworkers - both in terms of intrinsic motivation / happiness and in terms of whether the company is profitable enough to compensa…

You do best when your colleagues do the best, for sure. Do you think the union is going to help or hurt when you have underperforming or disruptive colleagues?

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#158

Post by dmos62 »

segmondy wrote: post #111
czbond wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not a popular opinion, but these are usually non CS types that have flooded the fields later due to money. Not very skilled, but very entitled. The sense of entitlement is very ridiculous these days. I see folks outside the Bay asking why shouldn't they get paid the same as Bay area folks, when they want to remote from somewhere that has 1/3rd the cost of living. Or people outside the country with 1/10th the cost of…

Unionization has nothing to do with wages reflecting skills or living costs. Also, your anti-entitlement rant, ironically, gives off a strong scent of entitlement.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#159

Post by StevePerkins »

praptak wrote: post #91
msghacq wrote: post #45

It will be interesting to see what this does for developer salaries at Kickstarter. If, as a top performer, I get penalized by joining the union then obviously Kickstarter looks less attractive to me. For unions in our industry to work they are going to have to be very explicit about how they are going to raise developer salaries.

Companies in general are crappy at recognizing top contributors anyway. Tech companies are no exception.

Contributors in general are pretty crappy at recognizing top contributors.

How many people in this thread honestly DON'T see themselves as a "top" contributor? Tech is like Lake Woebegone... all the kids are above average.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#160

Post by chrisseaton »

asark wrote: post #137
chrisseaton wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

What do you do when all the best-paying companies in your industry lobby for things you don't like, leaving you few, poor, options for employment? If we must solve this problem for unions, it's surely at least as important to solve it for companies. As for closed shop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_shop#United_States It's illegal, so's the similar "union shop", and you can opt out such that you still pay dues b…

> What do you do when all the best-paying companies in your industry lobby for things you don't like, leaving you few, poor, options for employment? If we must solve this problem for unions, it's surely at least as important to solve it for companies.

But the thousands of companies I could work for have healthy competition and diversity of approach to issues. An industry-wide union has no competition and no diversity.

> Maybe leaving others, sure, but this issue's... not an issue.

Say you were a Green supporter, and had a strong conviction against military intervention. How would you feel funding a union leadership that campaigns for Labour, following Iraq?

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