291–300 of 724 posts
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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?
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> It always seems to degenerate into an "us vs them" That's the point, "us vs them" is pretty good upgrade from "me vs them"
And a clear downgrade from "us and them vs our actual competition"
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> 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?
You get upset that tenants are subsidizing a landlord's political spending without a say? Any time you give money to anyone else for any purpose, for that matter? And "their money" comes from your labor (plus their capital, in some share, yes) as surely as "your money" does. This is a way less clear-cut distinction than you're making it out to be, and may not be relevant anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_sh…
Switching jobs is harder: could you be working for a different company tomorrow, or would it take a few weeks to figure out. Switching unions is often impossible: the same union often covers everyone with the same skills.
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This is senior engineer privilege speaking. A union seems strictly worse when dozens of companies are falling over themselves to pay you in the 90th percentile income bracket.
I see no reason for any workforces at any of the companies I have worked for as a developer to unionize. In my short career before that, however, I thought it would be very helpful for the valet company I worked at to unionize.
A good union would ideally be creating better working conditions for its members.
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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.
The anti-union rhetoric in America is staggering. You like weekends? Then stop ragging on unions.
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…
Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.
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.
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 opportunit…
> what would they think of unionizing the union Unions in the US are democratic institutions, so if there is a problem with your union you can change things.
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You get upset that tenants are subsidizing a landlord's political spending without a say? Any time you give money to anyone else for any purpose, for that matter? And "their money" comes from your labor (plus their capital, in some share, yes) as surely as "your money" does. This is a way less clear-cut distinction than you're making it out to be, and may not be relevant anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_sh…
> This is a way less clear-cut distinction than you're making it out to be It really isn't. I think we can all make arguments as to why we're justified in taking from others, but that doesn't change the reality of what is happening. > may not be relevant anyway: AFAIK this means only public sector non-union employees cannot be forced to pay for unions' political activities. Private sector employees are still on the h…
I'll pick out the part I think's most relevant, since yeah, that's a big ol' wall of text.
"Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act, and held by the Supreme Court in Communications Workers of America v. Beck that in a union security agreement, unions are authorized by statute to collect from non-members only those fees and dues necessary to perform its duties as a collective bargaining representative known as agency fees.[12]"
Collect fees? Yes. Spend those fees on political activities, if you're a non-member? No. Unless I'm misreading this. The public unions bit comes next and says that public sector unions can't even collect the agency fees from non-union members, which is a step farther and into union-busting territory. The original point was that union fees amount to compelled political speech, though (again, so does your company spending on politics, assuming they're making money off you even in an abstract way, but whatever) and this seems to make that moot, best I can tell. If that's wrong I'd like to know—I don't get off on going around spreading incorrect info.
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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?