Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#231

Post by paulcole » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:05 PM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #169

I wish them well, but having family members and friends work in unionized workplaces, it's not something I would ever do. It always seems to degenerate into an "us vs them" sort of thing whenever I talk to them about where they work. Why would I ever work some place where things are so adversarial? You also end up with this 3rd party involved in everything, creating all kinds of "rules" to make things "fair". Want to…

> Why would I ever work some place where things are so adversarial?

If you're like the vast majority of people working here you get paid a shitload of money and other benefits and have your pick of where to work.

Unionized employees often work in fields that aren't quite so rosy.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#232

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:05 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #185

eqdw wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hostile, it's professional. I advocate for my interests, you advocate for your interests, and we negotiate to find out a compromise that works for both of us. During this process, I do not worry about your interests (that's your job), and you do not worry about mine. We trust each other to take responsibility for our own interests and proceed accordingly. I can understand why this would seem hostile to someo…

I don't understand how the union isn't basically holding the company hostage. A company can't fire all their union employees, so if the union decides they'll only accept a deal that includes a 50% raise, what do you do? I'm being serious here, from what I can tell it's not legal to fire your union employees. So what do you do?

It's perfectly legal for a business to fire union employees. The US is an at-will country, and businesses are entitled to terminate employees for financial reasons.

Even public sector unions can't prevent terminations for financial reasons, though they negotiated no-fire clauses into their union contracts decades ago.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#233

Post by czbond » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:05 PM UTC

magissima wrote: post #87

fareesh wrote: post #67

> America’s political climate is changing; among other things, the 2016 presidential election brought up the issue of wealth inequality in this country and made people consider more closely the structural forces that define class here. What is a structural force that defines class in America?

Inherited wealth, disparities in access to education, racism, and a weak labor movement are a few of the many forces that impede upward social mobility.

Whats wrong with inherited wealth? Literally anyone can pass on wealth to their heirs. It takes no brains, and no special access. Just spending less. People shouldn't be taxed more because they have more foresight or impulse control than others. Yes, maybe it doesn't happen in one or two generations - but it can. Also - lots of people have moved up in the world from nothing - and it wasn't "inherited wealth" keeping them down previously. edit: as minikites mentioned below, it is education that wealth can be transferred is what needs to happen.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#234

Post by normal_man » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:05 PM UTC

nichos wrote: post #218

normal_man wrote: post #188

The anti-union rhetoric in America is staggering. You like weekends? Then stop ragging on unions.

You mean the American 5 day work week, brought to us by Henry Ford and not unions?

I assume you got this from an asinine meme designed to deceive people: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep...

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#235

Post by umvi » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

navigatesol wrote: post #225

umvi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it's just a symptom of the Shirky Principle: "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." Even if the workplace is not adversarial, any union will try to preserve the conditions that necessitate its continued existence. No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns."

> No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns." What an odd point of view. Homicides are down; should we loosen the laws? If management are "fair and reasonable", what do they care if there's a union on premises? Everyone just goes about their business.

> What an odd point of view. Homicides are down; should we loosen the laws?

Sure, why not? Why does additional overhead added to systems always need to be permanent? It's like installing Norton Anti Virus and then never being able to uninstall it ever again. Sometimes I think it would be okay to say:

"Wow, aviation has been safe for 20 years since 9/11, maybe locked cockpits and increased public awareness are good enough, let's cut out the most onerous parts of the TSA and make our airports more lean and efficient"

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#236

Post by adamrezich » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #222

adamrezich wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who worked at a grocery store for a few months while waiting for his teacher's certification to get processed and sent to the state he'd moved to. It was a minimum-wage job, yet mandatory union membership at this grocery store chain meant that a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks was taken from him without anything he could do about it. The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is j…

>>The idea that unions are universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are universally bad. You are arguing against a strawman. No one is saying unions are "universally good". However, it is an irrefutable quality of capitalism that collective bargaining is superior to bargaining as an individual. If you truly understand how capitalism works, and the way it puts the interests of employers in conflict wi…

Okay so how did the Kroger union help my friend at all? Once again, membership was mandatory for employment, and a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks went to it, with him seeing zero benefit in exchange. Is there some hidden benefit both he and I (being his roommate at the time) just weren't seeing? (Trust me, we looked.)

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#237

Post by chris11 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

max76 wrote: post #195

WillPostForFood wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a problem everywhere, but it is worse when you are stuck with unionized employees. Compare public school teachers to private school teachers. Higher pay (thanks to unions) for public schools, and lower quality (thanks to unions).

> (thanks to unions) Is there additional information about how unions lower the quality of public education inside the United States?

I'm interested in that also. I don't really see how you can compare public and private education without looking at class and the ability for the private school to select students. At the very least private school students have parents who can and will spend a significant amount of money on their kids education.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#238

Post by rout39574 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

navigatesol wrote: post #225

umvi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it's just a symptom of the Shirky Principle: "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." Even if the workplace is not adversarial, any union will try to preserve the conditions that necessitate its continued existence. No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns."

> No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns." What an odd point of view. Homicides are down; should we loosen the laws? If management are "fair and reasonable", what do they care if there's a union on premises? Everyone just goes about their business.

Try instead: When the last murder was a few years ago, it's possible we can have fewer cops.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#239

Post by naravara » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

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?

One of the big problems in the US is that they're organized at the shop level and consituted to represent the interests of their present membership rather than the interests of the workers in the industry more broadly. This leads to some perverse, short-sighted incentives.

For example the IBEW, which organizes electrical workers, decided to come out against the Green New Deal even though most of what the GND does would create tons of new jobs for electrical workers in the fields of solar and wind power, in developing distributed smart grids, and generally overhauling all sorts of infrastructure to come in line with new energy efficiency regulations. But most of the IBEW members are from the incument energy companies rather than part of the new energy companies that would come to life if we kicked off a Green industrial policy. They have no interest in growing the field of electrical workers as a profession, they're focused specifically on protecting the interests of the people currently employed as electrical workers.

This feeds into a lot of criticisms people have about unions preferentially focusing on creating benefits for seniority and incumbency over actually protecting the rights and status of workers more broadly.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#240

Post by streblo » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

navigatesol wrote: post #225

umvi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it's just a symptom of the Shirky Principle: "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." Even if the workplace is not adversarial, any union will try to preserve the conditions that necessitate its continued existence. No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns."

> No union ever said "Wow, this new CEO and management are super fair and reasonable. We are no longer necessary, let's dissolve and let them take the reigns." What an odd point of view. Homicides are down; should we loosen the laws? If management are "fair and reasonable", what do they care if there's a union on premises? Everyone just goes about their business.

> If management are "fair and reasonable", what do they care if there's a union on premises? Everyone just goes about their business.

Do you realize that you have to pay monthly dues to a union? If I were paying union dues and the union didn't serve a purpose (due to fair and reasonable management practices), then I wouldn't want to pay those dues anymore. Everyone just going about their business still involves me paying union dues.