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Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

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Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#71

Post by cperciva »

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'?

From the slate article: "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."

Sounds to me like they saw the writing on the wall.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#72

Post by manfredo »

fzeroracer wrote: post #64
manfredo wrote: post #55

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 pres…

Alternately, doesn't this mean Kickstarter censored satirical content due to a far-right hit piece? Shouldn't people be decrying censorship at every turn? Because that's exactly what happened in this case when leadership decided to veto the decision and take it down.

Sure, but on the flip side this sets the precedent that promotion of violence is okay as long as it's "satirical". What happens when a far right group sets up a "satirical" comic about violently repelling illegal immigrants along the southern border? I'd hazard the guess that these same people would not want Kickstarter to host that content, and would pressure leadership to take it down - and the result is that Kickstarter is perceived as biased. Kickstarter probably doesn't want to get pushed into this corner.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#73

Post by dmead »

nickjj wrote: post #70

I know close to nothing about unions or the KS story but I am from the US and myself along with almost everyone I know tend to associate unions with extreme wasting of resources. This is coming at it from a spectator's point of view (ie. not a union worker / not a unionized business owner). For example, I've witnessed an overpass taking over 2 years to finish (it was blocked off / limited access / under construction…

that's an extremely biased point of view.

I'm from the US and myself along with almost everyone i know tend to associate unions with the reason they have a decent standard of living. I'm sorry you had to see some construction workers being lazy. I hope you're able to recover someday.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#74

Post by reaperducer »

bsamuels wrote: post #37
jacquesm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'?

I could definitely a envision a theoretical situation where three poorly performing employees decide to unionize to protect themselves, then eventually get fired for poor performance. Is that what happened? I don't know, but I'm not going to trust two tweets from two parties whose interests are against one another.

I could definitely a envision a theoretical situation where three poorly performing employees decide to unionize to protect themselves, then eventually get fired for poor performance.

I've seen similar, and worse.

Any minute now I expect to hear about someone who took a 23-And-Me test to prove they're 3% insert-minotiry-here in order to blame their impending firing on racism.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#75

Post by ukyrgf »

freeone3000 wrote: post #8
anovikov wrote: post #2

I might be missing something, but that's a plain out crime to do it right?

So's operating a taxi without a license or running a hotel in a residential area. If you can get enough investor money to ignore the consequences, laws don't stop this.

Uber drivers aren't driving around picking up fares to take to an unknown destination. AirBnb renters don't have vacancy signs out front. There is a difference.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#76

Post by RHSeeger »

jher17 wrote: post #53
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. T…

> Unions don’t just fight for higher wages, they fight for dignity and respect on the job.

And they also fight for as much as they can get, sometimes to the detriment of the company. And they also fight to do what is best for the company because it's best for them. And they also fight for a wide variety of other things depending on the time and the place and the people. And sometimes they just fight; and threaten people.

Sometimes unions are good and sometimes unions are bad. There have been places where people would be in a much worse state had it not been for a union. There are other places where people are in a much worse state _because_ of a union.

It seems like most times people present an opinion on unions, they highlight either only the good or only the bad. Balanced discussion seems very rare.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#77

Post by drhodes »

nickjj wrote: post #70

I know close to nothing about unions or the KS story but I am from the US and myself along with almost everyone I know tend to associate unions with extreme wasting of resources. This is coming at it from a spectator's point of view (ie. not a union worker / not a unionized business owner). For example, I've witnessed an overpass taking over 2 years to finish (it was blocked off / limited access / under construction…

I don't know much about unions either, but found this recent NPR interview to be informative. Like many interviews, the guest is selling a book.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2019/08/14/labor-unions-beaten-...

Steven Greenhouse, author of "Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor." Reporter at The New York Times for 31 years, who covered labor and the workplace for 19 years. (@greenhousenyt)

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#78

Post by jacquesm »

manfredo wrote: post #68
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…

I don't think the perspectives on unionization in tech are representative of the perspectives of unionization in other industries. Unionization's primary purpose is to increase the price of labor (in the form of wages, or in the form of increased benefits) by constricting supply. The going rate for job Y is $X, but if everyone that does job Y goes on strike and demands $X + $N then they can get higher wages. In tech,…

> Unionization's primary purpose is to increase the price of labor (in the form of wages, or in the form of increased benefits) by constricting supply.

That's an interesting theory, but no, that is not Unionization's primary purpose. The primary purpose of Unionization is to make it possible for employees to collectively bargain about whatever subjects they see fit through a horizontal link between all employees in order re-balance the vastly asymmetric employer-employee relationship.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#79

Post by shakezula »

nickjj wrote: post #70

I know close to nothing about unions or the KS story but I am from the US and myself along with almost everyone I know tend to associate unions with extreme wasting of resources. This is coming at it from a spectator's point of view (ie. not a union worker / not a unionized business owner). For example, I've witnessed an overpass taking over 2 years to finish (it was blocked off / limited access / under construction…

That type of inefficiency isn’t exclusive to unions, you realize that right?

You realize that maybe there were other factors involved that caused the bridge to take that long?

You realize that construction is often a very sequential process that can block other steps from being completed until the first is done?

Every part of your comment is completely anecdotal and could be due to myriad other factors.

> associate unions with extreme wasting of resources

sounds like 30+ years of anti-union propaganda working its charm.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#80

Post by manfredo »

jacquesm wrote: post #78
manfredo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the perspectives on unionization in tech are representative of the perspectives of unionization in other industries. Unionization's primary purpose is to increase the price of labor (in the form of wages, or in the form of increased benefits) by constricting supply. The going rate for job Y is $X, but if everyone that does job Y goes on strike and demands $X + $N then they can get higher wages. In tech,…

> Unionization's primary purpose is to increase the price of labor (in the form of wages, or in the form of increased benefits) by constricting supply. That's an interesting theory, but no, that is not Unionization's primary purpose. The primary purpose of Unionization is to make it possible for employees to collectively bargain about whatever subjects they see fit through a horizontal link between all employees in o…

Right, and why is collective bargaining any more useful and individual bargaining? Because when individuals rejects the company's offer, the total supply of labor is nearly unchanged. When whole industries reject the companies offer, the supply of labor drops to zero (or to the subset of workers that aren't part of the union). Collective bargaining gives employees leverage over employers by drastically reducing the supply of labor available to the company if their bargains are not met.

Saying that unionization is about collective bargaining is a more long-winded way of saying the same thing.

Reply to your comment below, HN is not letting me respond:

So in the end, you don't actually disagree that constricting the supply of labor is the primary purpose of unions. I agree that this discussion has been non-productive, so why did you bother kicking it off by trying to claim that this isn't how unions operate in your first reply?

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