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Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

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Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#61

Post by DoubleGlazing »

I think unions have been pretty poor at using technology to circumvent corporate spying and interference. If the employer is frustrating attempts by employees to meet and discuss issues, then they should be able to take their discussions online.

An online forum managed by the union is all that would be needed. But crucially, the union would need to be smart about who they give access to and also have good security people analysing usage/IP addresses and the like. Also make users agree to a declaration that they are legitimate users before granting access. If company spy does get access the union should send lawyers after them for accessing a computer system without permission. Of course it wouldn't be perfect, stuff will leak - but it would be a lot more secure that discussing union issues on company premises and on company equipment.

Maybe I'm looking at the issue too simplistically, but I find it odd that in this day and age unions still try to organise and discuss things the way they did decades ago.

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#62

Post by DoubleGlazing »

ggambetta wrote: post #13

OK, unpopular opinion follows, bring the downvotes. 1) All of my experiences related to unions have been negative. Things become more bureaucratic and inefficient ("oh no, you can't move that box, we need to wait for the union person whose job description is to move the box"), people are promoted because of seniority and not because of merit, bad performers up to and including flagrant criminals can't be fired becaus…

The problem with FAANG jobs is that while the pay is good, they expect a lot out of you. Look at how Googles offices are designed to keep workers on site. Sure the money is good and the perks are nice, but if you're doing 60 hours a week instead of the 40 that you signed up for then the deal doesn't seem all that good in hindsight.

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#63

Post by rayiner »

claudeganon wrote: post #20

Counter to what you see touted on this website, unions are not solely about securing additional material benefits for workers. They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting thei…

> They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting their relations of power to reflect this reality.

I’d encourage younger folks who have an idealized view of American unions to check Scorcese’s new movie the Irishman about the Teamsters and Hoffa.

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#64

Post by o-__-o »

ryandrake wrote: post #50
ggambetta wrote: post #13

OK, unpopular opinion follows, bring the downvotes. 1) All of my experiences related to unions have been negative. Things become more bureaucratic and inefficient ("oh no, you can't move that box, we need to wait for the union person whose job description is to move the box"), people are promoted because of seniority and not because of merit, bad performers up to and including flagrant criminals can't be fired becaus…

Is that example in #1 actually your own personal experience and observation or did you just read about it somewhere? Because it's a classic trope that gets trotted out in anti-union literature. I remember an anti-union guy at one of my old jobs who also railed against that exact "wait for the person whose job it is to move that box" example. It seems so eerie to see two different people who had the exact same word-fo…

Levels includes bonuses, and that is not gauaranteed. But we still make crazy base salaries for the comparative amount of work we need to do (I did 3x the work at my last job for the same faang base-salary)

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#65

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Despegar wrote: post #21
ggambetta wrote: post #13

OK, unpopular opinion follows, bring the downvotes. 1) All of my experiences related to unions have been negative. Things become more bureaucratic and inefficient ("oh no, you can't move that box, we need to wait for the union person whose job description is to move the box"), people are promoted because of seniority and not because of merit, bad performers up to and including flagrant criminals can't be fired becaus…

>I get that unions might be necessary in industries where workers are actually exploited, to protect said workers. But FAANG engineers are pretty much in the opposite situation. I don't like people creating an us-vs-them situation that doesn't exist The us-vs-them situation has always existed and it's always been political. It's been the monolith of management vs an individual worker. If you can't imagine anyone but…

I'd argue Hollywood unions are the perfect example of leaders inventing an us-vs-them situation. I would not want to belong to an organization like the WGA, where union leadership can force me to walk off my job for half a year because they don't think my current compensation structure is good enough.

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#66

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

bluejekyll wrote: post #23
0x445442 wrote: post #14

> They’re part of a three-member Republican cabal Whatever the merits of the article I have a hard time taking it seriously with this kind of language. If this kind of language were used in the other direction the author would immediately be labeled a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist.

Is it the cabal label that bothers you? For context, the sentence before: > Ring and Kaplan want to reconsider the longtime ban on labor spying. It’s a sleazy idea, but typical for these two. So they are working together, and perhaps “cabal” is too colorful of a term, as it also implies doing it in secret. It would appear they’re quite open about it.

What bothers me is the entire framing, that they're agents working in service to corporate overlords rather than honest people making the decisions they think are right.

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#67

Post by claudeganon »

rayiner wrote: post #63
claudeganon wrote: post #20

Counter to what you see touted on this website, unions are not solely about securing additional material benefits for workers. They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting thei…

> They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting their relations of power to reflect this reality. I’d encourage younger folks who have an idealized view of American unions to ch…

Yes, a Hollywood dramatization of a specific incident in the history of American organized labor is definitely the best place to glean this understanding, as opposed to, you know, reading any of the numerous academic works about the history of US or world labor struggle...

Here, by contrast, is a great podcast on the subject spanning many incidents and movements:

https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/

And another recent great book by Alex Gourevitch, “From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth: Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century”

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/from-slavery-to-the-coo...

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/alex-gourevitch-labo...

“Labor Law for the Rank and Filer” by Staughton Lynd (who has written many great works of labor history) is the book inspiring many tech organizers:

https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=325

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/business/economy/labor-bo...

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#68

Post by iudqnolq »

ggambetta wrote: post #13

OK, unpopular opinion follows, bring the downvotes. 1) All of my experiences related to unions have been negative. Things become more bureaucratic and inefficient ("oh no, you can't move that box, we need to wait for the union person whose job description is to move the box"), people are promoted because of seniority and not because of merit, bad performers up to and including flagrant criminals can't be fired becaus…

This is a controversial opinion, but HN appears roughly split on this issue. I doubt this post will be downvoted more than its inverse would. Please don't include pre-emptive comments about your post being downvoted, they're tedious to read.

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#69

Post by threatofrain »

ggambetta wrote: post #13

OK, unpopular opinion follows, bring the downvotes. 1) All of my experiences related to unions have been negative. Things become more bureaucratic and inefficient ("oh no, you can't move that box, we need to wait for the union person whose job description is to move the box"), people are promoted because of seniority and not because of merit, bad performers up to and including flagrant criminals can't be fired becaus…

The purpose of a union is not efficiency but the counterbalancing of power, and power is often odious in its ability to cover wrongs. For some this value is sufficient to spring into action.

Re: Corporate Spies Are Watching Organized Labor

#70

Post by abdullahkhalids »

friedman23 wrote: post #26
claudeganon wrote: post #20

Counter to what you see touted on this website, unions are not solely about securing additional material benefits for workers. They are and have always been about changing workplaces from top-down, authoritarian models to ones where workers have a say in their company’s work and overall direction. They’re about acknowledging that none of these structures function or accomplish anything without labor and shifting thei…

If I buy a sewing machine and hire someone to operate it, outside of basic safety rights why should the employee have any say in what I decide should be created with it?

Let's flip the scenario. Someone comes to you and pays you to borrow your sewing machine. Then by your logic, you should not have any say in what they do with the sewing machine. It seems you are claiming that if A pays B, then A has complete say in what happens.

From a third party perspective, this is just weird. Society sees two people associating, one providing labor, that other capital, no matter how money is flowing within the association. Weirdly enough our system only allows capital owners to have any say in the running of the system (via shares and the board). Within this system, unions are one way in which the owners of labor get a say in the running of the corporation.

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