Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#381

Post by naravara » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #307

geofft wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a wide spectrum in "a union" just like in "management". I've had good management and bad management. There are good unions and bad unions. So, a priori, I don't have an expectation of whether "the union" - some arbitrarily picked union - will definitely help or hurt, any more than I have an expectation that arbitrary "management" will definitely help or hurt. But there are a few things: - Just like I evaluate…

> I have much more of a democratic voice in my union's priorities than my management's priorities. In my experience, the best ideas compete easily to change management priorities. I prefer that system over a straight democracy for changing management priorities.

>In my experience, the best ideas compete easily to change management priorities.

I don't want to deny you your experiences, but this has not been mine. Not by a long-shot. Tons of time and effort get spent at my company trying to work around the idiosyncrasies of our capricious and out of touch management. And we're in a fast growing industry and our management seems to become more out-of-touch about the state of the technology and the market every year.

Their cognitive biases, pickled in their experiences from 8-10 years ago when they were last in touch with the real work, have a much bigger role in their priorities than any rational or dispassionate evaluation of what the "best ideas" are. The one saving grace they have is hiring subordinates who are good at manipulating them for their own benefit. Very VERY few tech companies can find that many people with the necessary soft skills to do it.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#382

Post by annexrichmond » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

What's still unclear to me from the article is what problems employees at Kickstarter is facing for lack of a union and how, precisely, organizing a union will address those problems.

Maybe I'm being presumptuous but being a tech company and all aren't the employees are already relatively pampered?

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#383

Post by jcims » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

eqdw wrote: post #143

maxxxxx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience the US workplace is much more hostile both ways. Either the employer will screw over the employees or the union will try screw the employer. At least in Germany it'a little more collaborative partially because of laws that give employees some say how the company is run.

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…

>It's not hostile, it's professional.

I feel like this is just your experience. As a counter-anecdote I spent a bit of time in the Teamsters in the 90's and it got very hostile and extremely unprofessional. There was zero material communication with management and any influence on the part of the union as a $9/hr entry level employee was equally zero. The scab situation was super dicey as well, and while there was clearly no official support for 'extracurricular' enforcement, there was enough of a question about what would happen that you didn't really want to test it.

It doesn't seem like a lot of folks commenting here have direct experience with working in unions in the US. They have done great things in the past and I feel like they are a necessity in industries where individual employees regularly face decisions that affect the physical safety of others or themselves. However, in my experience and in the experience of family members (CWA/NEA), unions in practice fall far short of the promise they hold in theory. User naravara has some pretty insightful comments elsewhere in this thread that i feel get to the meat of the matter and why there might be a disconnect on opinions between those in the US and those elsewhere.

All that said I do applaud the folks working at Kickstarter for trying this out. Maybe they will figure out a way to make a functional apparatus that ensures a positive work environment while minimizing the coddling of parasites and negative impact on Kickstarter's ability to execute, but it's going to be a struggle.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#384

Post by uniondude » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

baby_wipe wrote: post #14

So if they succeed, does that mean nobody can work for Kickstarter unless they are part of the union?

I work under a union (though not this one). Every comment here is almost exactly backwards from my experience. In particular:

- You don't have to be a union member to get nearly all the benefits of the union -- including the pay scale from its collective bargaining, access to legal representation, health insurance benefits, and being able to attend regular union meetings. Basically, the only thing a non-member can't do is vote. (I see on our worker list today that fewer than half of our workforce today are actually union members.)

- Legally, they can't even require members to pay dues, though I imagine everyone here does, because it's inexpensive, and benefits all workers, including yourself. That's why one would vote to unionize in the first place!

These rules can and almost certainly do differ according to your union, local, contract, and state and federal law.

Unless someone responding here has specific knowledge of OPEIU, Local 153, their Kickstarter contract, or New York labor law, I would not place any trust in it. Many of these answers sound more like anti-union FUD than facts from the Kickstarter United contract.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#385

Post by naravara » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #164

praptak wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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).

>and lower quality (thanks to unions).

You sure it's the unions and not the fact that private schools get to cream-skim children from families with means who want to prioritize their education rather than being forced to take all comers?

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#386

Post by naravara » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

segmondy wrote: post #123

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.

>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.

Certain types of work-to-rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule) would bring most tech companies to their knees in a matter of minutes. It wouldn't just gum up the works as it would in industry, it could literally put systems into failure states.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#387

Post by joemi » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #277

adamrezich wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

This is a bit like being forced to buy health insurance and complaining when you don't get ill. I'm not saying the deal was reasonable for your friend, I don't know the details or his life situation. But like security guards or insurers, unions aren't always in "active" mode.

> This is a bit like being forced to buy health insurance and complaining when you don't get ill.

You're right, it is a bit like that. And similarly, many people don't want to be forced to buy health insurance. Especially if they don't think they'll get sick.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#388

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #162

robocat wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there are way more actors than acting jobs. Yet they have the SAG-AFTRA union which had a strike to force better working conditions from games companies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016–17_video_game_voice_act...

There are "way more" actors in the sense that there are many people who want to act for a living, but the analogy doesn't hold from an education and experience married to that desire standpoint. Further acting is older than gaming, and those unions were given space to form during a period of time that was very different from today.

[deleted]

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#389

Post by diminoten » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #254

diminoten wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are "way more" actors in the sense that there are many people who want to act for a living, but the analogy doesn't hold from an education and experience married to that desire standpoint. Further acting is older than gaming, and those unions were given space to form during a period of time that was very different from today.

>Further acting is older than gaming, and those unions were given space to form during a period of time that was very different from today. In the 1930s back when union organizing was likely to get you beaten by goons or assassinated by hitmen/the mob? Or in the 1940s and '50s, when active membership in the union put you at risk of getting brought up in front of the House Unamerican Activities Committee and blacklist…

That's not at all how the film industry's unions formed or any of its history, and blackballing a statistically small number of writers was wrong, but completely unrelated to what we're talking about...

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#390

Post by ken » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #378

matthewowen wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to work at a company there are lots of aspects of corporate culture and working environments that you have to accept if you want to work there. Presumably if you don't want to work in a union shop... you won't? And to put another way: would it be reasonable for you to benefit from the work the union does for all employees without also contributing to that union? All this is besides the point that requirin…

> would it be reasonable for you to benefit from the work the union does for all employees without also contributing to that union? If I never asked for the union or their collective bargaining, then yes. It's like cleaning my windows when I never asked you to and then demanding cash for it.

No, it's not like that at all. You are legally allowed to opt out of paying union dues.