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Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

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Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#51

Post by whiddershins »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
djrogers wrote: post #25

Not a big fan of this headline - it's inflammatory and incomplete. This is one (unproven and completely unsubstantiated) accusation from one side of the story, made in a handful of tweets. Kickstarter also tweeted, and of course denies this: https://twitter.com/kickstarter/status/1172230162588536833 The problem with this type of link on HN is that it's not a 'story' - there's no investigative reporting - heck there's…

What are the chances of three people trying to unionize in a company being fired in a very short span of time for 'performance' reasons? Are you holding out until the company says 'Ok, caught, yes, we did fire them for trying to unionize'?

Maybe if I was having unrelated problems at my job, me personally, I might consider trying to start a Union so as to make my employer terrified of firing me.

I’m saying thus not theoretically, but a buddy just the other day was joking-not-joking about doing that at his job.

So who knows?

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#52

Post by tptacek »

download13 wrote: post #31
comex wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retaliating against someone for trying to unionize is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act, as well as New York state law (Kickstarter is headquartered in New York) – hence the need for a cover story.

Yeah, but for legal purposes it doesn't matter if "everyone knows" about the real reasons. The company gets to have it both ways. Send a message that unionization isn't tolerated, while saying in court that unionization had nothing to do with the firings.

The whole court case will be about the plausibility of the company's performance claims. So, responding to the root comment: yes, the company very much needs to establish plausible reasons for firing.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#53

Post by jher17 »

baron816 wrote: post #18

Why are American companies so afraid of their employees unionizing? Because American unions have a history of creating an adversarial relationship between managers and employees. They’re self serving and have a zero sum game outlook where they try to grab as much as they can from a company. The unions were a major contributor towards the collapse of the American auto industry. European unions differ in that they are…

You clearly don’t understand the history of the American labor movement if this is what you believe.

Unions in America have been both conservative (e.g. AFL) and radical (e.g. IWW). The radicals were crushed by big business and the US government, while the conservatives are still around, but haven’t fought back enough against the continuing assault on American workers because of this inherently conservative nature. Their strategy has always been to make the labor movement in America part of the establishment, but the corporate grip on America won’t let gains for employees last without a continuous fight. It’s greed by companies, not workers, that makes labor relations so adversarial.

What you perceive as “greed” by workers is workers asking for basic rights on the job. Why is it wrong for employees to ask for their share but right for companies to ask for as much as they can? I see this far too often on HN and I believe it’s a symptom of how corporatized our society has become.

Unions don’t just fight for higher wages, they fight for dignity and respect on the job. That means workers get a say in their conditions. That’s a good thing for both workers and companies—even if companies are too blinded by greed to see it.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#55

Post by manfredo »

This article was posted to HN yesterday or maybe the day before: https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/kickstarter-turmoil-uni...

It looks like unionization wasn't the only point of contention. In particular, a segment of Kickstarter's workforce conflicted with company leadership over an "Always Punch Nazis" comic book kickstarter project apparently made in reference to violence against Richard Spencer. Employees pressured leadership to reverse this decision.

The Slate article mentions that some employees saw a union as a means to exert more pressure over leadership on these sorts of decisions:

> Afraid that they would be dismissed next—and that they didn’t have enough leverage to pressure Kickstarter over ethical issues the next time there was a disagreement—employees started discussing a union. Since March, the organizers haven’t requested recognition from the company nor have they held a staff vote through the National Labor Relations Board. But the topic has been ever-present.

My guess is that the company leadership doesn't want to be associated with this sort of promotion of violence against purported "Nazis" and took note of which employees were most vocal in drumming up support for keeping the project. While there is a far left segment that likes this kind of content, most people are adverse to promotions of violence - even against purported "Nazis", given how liberally that term is applied these days. Kickstarter probably doesn't want to have to go through employee drama every time this sort of content gets taken down.

Reply to PorterDuff, HN isn't letting me reply to your comment:

The solution is to push back against tribalism, which is exactly what Kickstarter is doing here.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#56

Post by macspoofing »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
djrogers wrote: post #25

Not a big fan of this headline - it's inflammatory and incomplete. This is one (unproven and completely unsubstantiated) accusation from one side of the story, made in a handful of tweets. Kickstarter also tweeted, and of course denies this: https://twitter.com/kickstarter/status/1172230162588536833 The problem with this type of link on HN is that it's not a 'story' - there's no investigative reporting - heck there's…

What are the chances of three people trying to unionize in a company being fired in a very short span of time for 'performance' reasons? Are you holding out until the company says 'Ok, caught, yes, we did fire them for trying to unionize'?

>What are the chances of three people trying to unionize in a company being fired in a very short span of time for 'performance' reasons?

I don't know. What are the chances? Did anyone verify their stories?

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#57

Post by benj111 »

ezoe wrote: post #14

The moment I read the title, I came up a very satirical comment which I believe everybody came up so I don't bother to write it.

Was it a comment about running a kickstarter for these guys? Cos that's why I checked the comments, and was sorely disappointed :(

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#58

Post by rolltiide »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
djrogers wrote: post #25

Not a big fan of this headline - it's inflammatory and incomplete. This is one (unproven and completely unsubstantiated) accusation from one side of the story, made in a handful of tweets. Kickstarter also tweeted, and of course denies this: https://twitter.com/kickstarter/status/1172230162588536833 The problem with this type of link on HN is that it's not a 'story' - there's no investigative reporting - heck there's…

What are the chances of three people trying to unionize in a company being fired in a very short span of time for 'performance' reasons? Are you holding out until the company says 'Ok, caught, yes, we did fire them for trying to unionize'?

What are the chances that 3 of the 435 fired Uber engineers had considered the concept of unionizing as its a general topic now?

With that perspective I think its highly probable of such firings happening in a short time span

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#59

Post by commandlinefan »

unions23143 wrote: post #9

Aren't Kickstarter salaries quite high already? https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Kickstarter-Salaries-E49199...

I don’t know what the work environment is there, but I know that the work environment for a lot of software developers is pretty miserably: unpaid overtime, constant on-call, layoffs with no severance... they may be trying to tackle some of that.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#60

Post by macspoofing »

deogeo wrote: post #28
unions23143 wrote: post #9

Aren't Kickstarter salaries quite high already? https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Kickstarter-Salaries-E49199...

Ignoring for the moment the non-salary benefits of a union: Look at it this way - aren't corporate profits quite high already? Yet they still merge and consolidate and cut costs and try to increase them further. Why should labor not do the same? Also, this seems like a reasonable question (with source for the claim!), that no doubt many others would share. I don't think the downvotes are warranted.

>Look at it this way - aren't corporate profits quite high already?

Are they? What do you consider high?

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