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Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

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Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#111

Post by Teknoman117 »

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…

Unions exist to improve the lives of workers and provide more work opportunities for their members, not necessarily improve the organizations said workers are employed by.

Unions are responsible for some of the benefits we tend to take for granted - weekends, 8 hours workdays, corporate healthcare, retirement plans, etc. At the same time, any organization with power can become corrupt, or at least have its interests diverge.

Some examples that come to mind are the myriad of stories my mom tells me about working as a teacher.

One thing that annoyed her to no end was the IT labor union at her school. Teachers, even ones with technical skills, were forbid from touching any of the computers (even so much as plugging keyboards back in if students unplugged them). When computer Labs were being set up, one worker would put in all the computers, but a separate worker would come in the plug them in. Seriously, they'd come in for two hours to attach power cables.

However, when the school started 'not renewing contracts' after 3 years of continuous employment but then 'rehiring' after a month, so that teachers wouldn't get tenure, the union got the school to stop.

The union's power base came mainly from holding the school hostage - you 'couldn't' work there without joining the teachers union, else the union would have the teachers strike...

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#112

Post by jacquesm »

nickjj wrote: post #103
jacquesm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were a company I would be terrified that such inefficiencies are protected by a union. You can't 'be' a company. You can run one, at best. And if unionized employees terrify you in a country where unionization is legal then maybe simply do not start a company? > can someone more knowledgeable in this area explain how a unionized workforce benefits both employees and the business hiring them In theory - not alw…

> Collective bargaining means that employers can no longer reduce negotiations by serially negotiating with one employee at the time, but have the negotiate with all employees at once. Now I understand why my original comment is the most down voted comment I ever made on HN in about 5 years. Based on what you wrote it sounds like union vs non-union seems very much related to a political topic of socialism vs capitali…

Unions are present in just about every capitalist society, in fact I'd wager they are far more effective there than they would be on the opposite side of that particular fence, simply because most capitalist societies have somewhat functional legal systems as well as democratic institutions.

In other countries union bosses are found dead with alarming regularity.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#113

Post by jacquesm »

busterarm wrote: post #106
jacquesm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 28 people in the company publicly stated their support for a union (there's 42 needed to establish one). It is not unreasonable to suspect that if 28 people are openly in support that there are 42 in total. > Doesn't look like union busting at all to me, but thanks for putting words in my mouth. You'd have to show that in the 'control' group of 120 other employees 12 or more got fired; not that 14 of the people in…

The company wants the union organizers to vote. It has said as much. The union organizers don't want a vote, they want Kickstarter to voluntarily recognize them. This is in the articles, man...

That still does not give the company the right to fire them, which is the law man... And the company could recognize the union if it wanted. So a vote is not mandatory.

Note the subject of the post: "Kickstarter employees fired for trying to unionize". That's either true or it is not and so far you have not brought anything to the table that suggests it isn't retaliation for exactly that, and in fact substantiated numerically that the chances that it is not retaliation are vanishingly small.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#114

Post by jacquesm »

anigbrowl wrote: post #110
busterarm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you even read that as that? All I said was that 28 people in the company publicly stated their support for a union (there's 42 needed to establish one). 15 of those 28 people were eligible for a promotion or raise. 14 of those 15 received their promotion or raise. Doesn't look like union busting at all to me, but thanks for putting words in my mouth. My comment about the press was because the pro-union group i…

Not critiquing you in particular, but it's not strategically unusual to fire one group of people, buy another off, and tell the rest that it's proof unions are nothing but trouble and if they play nice they might get a raise at the right time. This is how power operates, you can see exactly the same dynamics at work in countries that have been through a military coup.

Aka plata o plomo. Not that the company would literally have anybody murdered but the prospect of 'promotion or termination' has much the same effect. It splits the camp.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#115

Post by lightedman »

jacquesm wrote: post #82
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…

> If I were a company I would be terrified that such inefficiencies are protected by a union. You can't 'be' a company. You can run one, at best. And if unionized employees terrify you in a country where unionization is legal then maybe simply do not start a company? > can someone more knowledgeable in this area explain how a unionized workforce benefits both employees and the business hiring them In theory - not alw…

"You can't 'be' a company. You can run one, at best."

FBN/DBA says otherwise.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#116

Post by mieseratte »

benj111 wrote: post #57
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 :(

Wouldn't it be "start a GoFundMe" - I thought KickStarter was for projects, not causes?

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#117

Post by kmjg88nvf8 »

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 they were trying to unionize to prevent being fired, as they already knew their performance was lacking?

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#118

Post by kmjg88nvf8 »

namirez wrote: post #83
bsamuels wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You need to back up your claim with evidence. In order to establish a union, you'll need at least 30% of the workers signing a petition. Would you sign such a petition if your incompetent colleague put it forward to you in the hope of protecting their job? Honestly, your scenario is far-fetched.

In order to establish a union, you may need 30%, but how much do you need to TRY to establish a union? After all, they didn't succeed? How many of their coworkers signed?

Besides, there may be many people who think having a union is always a good idea, so they would sign without thinking about it much.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#119

Post by jacquesm »

kmjg88nvf8 wrote: post #117
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'?

Maybe they were trying to unionize to prevent being fired, as they already knew their performance was lacking?

After 8 years and counting for at least one of the three? If your performance is lacking you won't get around to unionizing because your co-workers will see through that ruse in a heartbeat. According to one - insider informed - commenter here about 20% of the company was in favor, not enough to put it to a vote but apparently enough of a reason to ask the company to recognize the union voluntarily. So this was not just a couple of people organizing a union to avoid their own termination.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#120

Post by daddylonglegs »

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 think German industry is a good example, it is strongly unionised and the unions have representatives in the board that supervises the running of companies. Apparently the result has been better cooperation between employers and workers: where the employers invest in and are mindful of employees and the employees in turn see the "big picture" and are committed to making sure their employer is competitive. My German colleagues are happy to point out that the more unionised Germany has retained it's manufacturing industry while the UK's has withered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination#Germany

The union I'm part of in the UK regularly arranges on-site events for all employees and pushes for improvements on environmental issues as well as working conditions.

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