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Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

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Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#161

Post by dehrmann »

scarmig wrote: post #155
dehrmann wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Moore, > The company told staff that Moore had been on a performance improvement plan He'd apparently been at Kickstarter for six years. Being on a PIP after that long seems unusual. And Redwine, > But current and former employees with knowledge of the firing told me that management didn’t establish a “performance improvement plan” for Redwine, despite her being told she would have one. Not quite sure how t…

I've known several people at different companies who departed because of performance reasons. Every one of them got a PIP. The PIP was pretty much always pro forma, but I've never heard of a company letting someone go without a PIP, unless there's active malfeasance involved. Rookie move on Kickstarter's part, regardless. Even if Redwine had basically decided to stop working, it's probably less costly in reputational…

The inconsistency with Kickstarter is at best odd, and they either did wrong by that employee or screwed up hiding what they're doing.

But I've been at a place that fired without PIPs, so it does happen.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#162

Post by notSupplied »

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…

I found this point very interesting. Let's accept this claim that the main impetus to unionize is to gain leverage in future "Always Punch Nazis" situations.

That is a radically different use of Unionization compared to the typical "Fair pay and safe working conditions" demands. I'm struggling to see why unionization is an appropriate way to secure this kind of power, and why workers deserve to have any more say besides voting with their feet individually.

Unlike compensation, which is on a continuous scale and has multiple axis (comp, profit share, benefits, PTO), these kinds of decisions are fairly binary and therefor have very little room for negotiation.

Is this something where workers deserve the power to collectively bargain? To me, whether or not to support "Always Punch Nazis" is a truly nuanced and difficult choice and I'm not sure going one way or the other qualifies for "exploitation" of the workforce.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#163

Post by [deleted] »

tomnipotent wrote: post #137
xnxn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been over this, Jeff. https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1172279395035308032 https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1172349293216186368

Pretty sure I just lost most of my faith in my fellow liberal techies after reading these responses. It's amazing how little substance their is to the responses, and how much outrage and throwing out of the word "privilege" there is. When did being outraged become a valid stance, without having to back it up with any reason position?

[deleted]

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#164

Post by Frondo »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #144
jacquesm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is collective bargaining any more useful and individual bargaining Because collective bargaining means that the party with the largest resources and the power, in this case the company, will have to at least take into account their ability to operate. > Collective bargaining gives employees leverage over employers by drastically reducing the supply of labor available to the company if their bargains are not met…

> Note that such niceties as workplace safety; medical coverage and 5 day workweeks were in large part due to union involvement. Those things always get brought up but that's history from 50-75+ years ago. Got any more recent examples?

Medical coverage is still very much a concern; Whole Foods just announced they were cutting benefits for part-time workers.

Parental leave, workplace conditions, scheduling are other common things that are still very much up to unions to negotiate for, on behalf of their members.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#165

Post by deogeo »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #147
deogeo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> " 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. " Imagine your waiter at a restaurant found out that you are a well paid programmer and tried to charge you extra on the bill for your meal because "aren't programmer salaries quite high already". Does th…

I'm not saying that, because capital makes a lot of money, they should be charged more. I'm saying that labor and capital should be allowed to play by the same rules.

If you want to limit unionization only to jobs that are "bad" by some metric, fine - but then also limit the size of corporations unless they are struggling. Why should they be free to merge and consolidate and organize, but workers shouldn't?

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#166

Post by pteredactyl »

double0jimb0 wrote: post #159
pteredactyl wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe is what I've heard summarizes the state of KS. Both sides are entrenched and talking past each other while the actual product and company continue to slide into the gutter. Seems to me both sides would rather plant their flags and signal allegiance to the outside world than come up with a real solution. Kickstarter is on its way out.

Very interesting theory. Virtue signaling instead of solution finding at the company level.

It's the same thing happening in Politics. But it's also why I'd argue people are realizing how fake this whole charade is as our society falls further into the gutter.

And truly it is more fun to work together solving hard problems rather than screaming past each other. We've been so isolated, our whole lives, only now are we realizing what it means to be in the public. Vulnerable yet strong (I may be projecting here).

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#167

Post by fish_taco_man »

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.

If you're a poorly performing employee, why would you even bother going to all the effort of forming a union? Besides that, they'd been there for a very long time, awful weird that they suddenly have performance issues in tight correlation with the unionization effort. The employees were rightfully upset about the company protecting the feelings of Nazis and unionization would allow them to actually have a say in decisions like that.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#168

Post by Apocryphon »

nickjj wrote: post #97
shakezula wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

> Sounds like 30+ years of anti-union propaganda working its charm. I dunno. I see it all over the place. Look at the US government. Most of the govt. run customer facing services are abysmal when it comes to efficiency (DMV, etc.). From my quick Googling the DMV is unionized. It doesn't end at the DMV either. I know some types of construction jobs are usually sequential but I don't understand how in any circumstance…

Aren't government contractors, which are private corporations that probably don't have unions, also notorious for inefficiency?

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#169

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bgilroy26 wrote: post #140
wernercd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't American's like unions? Unions are a layer of bureaucracy, red tape and an entity that cares more about the Union than anything else. Add to that, as a conservative and right leaning individual, the last thing I want is be forced to donate to left leaning organizations that go against my best interests. Color it for what you will... I think there are cases where Unions do important things. But most of tho…

>Unions are a layer of bureaucracy, red tape and an entity that cares more about the Union than anything else. These descriptors cover most human organizations. Churches, clubs, businesses.

Corporations.

Re: Kickstarter’s Year of Turmoil

#170

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #147
deogeo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> " 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. " Imagine your waiter at a restaurant found out that you are a well paid programmer and tried to charge you extra on the bill for your meal because "aren't programmer salaries quite high already". Does th…

It sounds like a ridiculous and misleading analogy.

I don't employ my waiter. The restaurant employs my waiter.

I would be perfectly fine with a restaurant paying a waiter slightly more in return for happier waiters - especially if it meant that I didn't need to feel that my tips were keeping food on the waiter's table, instead of the restaurant's pay.

But imagine this - suppose a waiter at a restaurant discovered the restaurant was making millions for the owners, while their pay was so low they could barely cover rent and other basics?

Does that sound reasonable to you?

That is exactly the situation many workers in the US and UK are in today.

Essentially there are two kinds of people - those who understand that this is a real problem, and those who don't.

The economy is run by those who don't - and it's much the worse for it.

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