Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#411

Post by cableshaft » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #386

segmondy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The amount of crap I've had to do outside of my contract to keep the business running, I totally believe it. People in the right positions doing this and you're going to have swarms of angry clients and customers in minutes.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#412

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

mverwijs wrote: post #400

jessaustin wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many family businesses are "us", at least in the good times. Non-family employed by those businesses are seldom under any illusions about being included in that...

> at least in the good times Exactly.

Those can last for decades, however. A profitable family business is less likely to get bought out and fire everyone. No one's job is safe in an unprofitable business, family or not.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#413

Post by anth_anm » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #211

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…

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.

Doctors and Lawyers protect themselves with professional organizations. Actors too.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#414

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

eqdw wrote: post #339

gamblor956 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not true. At-will is state by state. And, of course, there is nothing stopping either you or your employer from negotiating different terms.

You're right.

Montana isn't at-will after 6-months of full-time employment and follows the French system.

The other 49 states are at-will employment, with generally the same rules with limited restrictions.

I stand by my original comment. Even Montana has at-will employment for the first 6 months.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#415

Post by bendbro » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #355

Veelox wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think spending years working hard to develop a skill set that is highly sought after counts as privilege...

I regard it as a privilege because most people outside of programming work a lot harder and get paid a lot less.

My experience has been that most people work a lot less and get paid a lot less. Some obviously work more, but in general I’d say programming is a job where you spend most of your time working and little of your time idle. Many entry level jobs have workers spending significant time doing nothing. Salaries and work expectations are built around that.

I’d agree it is a privilege to be able to hold a job that works you harder and pays you harder, because I feel most people are not satisfied doing jobs that have them frequently idle, and would choose something with a work-level similar to programming

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#416

Post by EpicEng » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

iscrewyou wrote: post #182

WillPostForFood wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Union will help. Unions usually have probationary times before they start representing a new employee. For a year of probationary time, it's plenty to know if the employee is a good fit. If not, the employee can be let go and doesn't get the help of the union. And union is by the employees, for the employees. If the person is truly disruptive and slipped through the 1 year mark, unions don't just back you up regardle…

In my second hand experience (friends and family, IBEW and automotive workers) this is not at all the case. Admittedly, second hand information and only two locals, but the amount of incompetence and ineptitude that they tell me about is astounding.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#417

Post by vertex-four » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

joemi wrote: post #387

lordnacho wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So what do they do when they do get sick? Die peacefully without costing the rest of us anything? I somehow doubt it - although I’d be happy to see any evidence to the contrary.

EDIT: to be clear, my argument isn’t “we shouldn’t have to pay for healthcare for others”, it’s “if people refuse to pay into the healthcare system when they are able to but still demand treatment when they need it, that’s a broken system”.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#418

Post by anth_anm » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #202

normal_man wrote: post #188

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…

Your friend should have been working 80 hours a week for 20 cents an hour instead.

Ban unions!

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#419

Post by evan_ » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #334

omegaworks wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd rather your friend be worked harder for his minimum wage? You'd rather he be liable for the things people steal from the store? You'd rather him be fired and be without medical insurance if he slips and falls at work? Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.

How does a part-time cheese monger get "worked to death," and what is Kroger's union doing to prevent this from happening? I ask this 100% seriously.

Totally hypothetical but a union may push for safer equipment (cheese slicers/packing machines), thereby avoiding accidental injury.

Re: Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

#420

Post by anth_anm » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #236

enraged_camel wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.)

Well for one thing he got a minimum wage.