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Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

latimes.com

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Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#231

Post by chobeat »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #228
chobeat wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All three of these are provided, I don't have a union. You said it right, they are provided. In Europe they are not provided: they are your right and it cannot be taken away by your employer. Also an anecdote doesn't invalidate something that is true for a vast majority of the american workforce. But even if it was just a single person, it would still be a tragedy and a problem to solve.

>Also an anecdote doesn't invalidate something that is true for a vast majority of the american workforce. You just love your wide sweeping claims don't you? No it is not true for the vast majority of the american workforce. >You said it right, they are provided. In Europe they are not provided: they are your right and it cannot be taken away by your employer. Can we please not move the goal posts, I thought this was…

Unions were always the way to gain those rights: weekends, 8hours a day, abolition of child labour, they were all fights won by unions. Now USA have weak business unions and no more rights are gained. Same is happening is happening in Europe where neoliberal governments are disgregating the rights won by unions in the last 2 centuries.

It's not moving the goal post: unions are about improving the conditions for workers and when they are powerful enough, they can demand the State to crystallize their rights in law so that the battles don't have to be done over and over in each factory and office. That's the endgame, the rest is just preparatory.

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#232

Post by unapologetic »

This is good. I probably won't bother engaging with people who disagree.

Also going to say to the "i can organize a better deal myself" types. Google and other companies with a combined market cap of trillions spent years illegally conspiring to keep you wages lower.

You can't compete with that.

The current situation is an artifact of extreme demand. We already have worse protections than the average worker. When things start to turn they will get bad.

I want proper overtime laws and proper pay for oncall. If you work overtime or oncall for a salary, factor that in and then recalculate your hourly rate. Not as great.

The games industry is a good example of the future of tech. They have a surplus of workers and they routinely treat them like garbage. This is after years of negative publicity and pushback. That's what it took to even get things improved to the point where spouses aren't writing open letters to EA about how awful their conditions are.

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#233

Post by unapologetic »

hpoe wrote: post #97
Tiktaalik wrote: post #54

I would strongly consider supporting a video game union, if only to help formalize the things that the good shops do and bring those practices industry wide. Personally I haven't done a day of overtime in seven years and I feel reasonably compensated but there are clearly other places out there that are still exploiting their workers. Improving worker input into production schedules and creating clear guidelines arou…

> creating more opportunities for young new grads to break in Just going to point out, everywhere, I have ever heard of a union it generally made it harder for new people to come in, not easier, by increasing the commitment an employer is expected to make to an employee, and by making it harder to remove employees that need to be removed but can't because of their seniority with the union.

you still need people.

Less open jobs because people aren't switching every 18 months doesn't sound like a bad things.

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#234

Post by unapologetic »

uerobert wrote: post #180
false-mirror wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely a tension. When employers can treat employees as disposable, there is more firing and thus (sometimes) more hiring. However, unions increase the value of jobs. Union workers enjoy a better QOL and career stability, and they can actually build a life for themselves without worrying about being fired on a whimsy. Luckily for something like game development, it is a growing industry with a low barrier…

Game dev is not a low barrier to entry industry. It is WAY easier to get a SDE job at a FAANG straight out of college than it is to get a job as a programmer at a big name studio, even with experience.

lol, no.

Maybe at a place like Valve, but that's a special case. a private company swimming in cash and having basically zero urgency to innovate or produce even derivative content.

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#235

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tomtheelder wrote: post #186
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A labor union gives union leaders bargaining ability. Even if we assume that leaders are properly aligned with the employees as a whole, which is not something I think can be taken for granted, I’m not sure I want a handful of representatives with no personal relationship to me deciding how valuable my work is.

> I’m not sure I want a handful of representatives with no personal relationship to me deciding how valuable my work is This is precisely the situation that most non-unionized workers already have, except that no one is even nominally trying to advocate for their interests. The theory that corporations should be beholden exclusively to shareholders and not to all stakeholders took over completely, and has failed work…

How does anyone say that the US tech industry has “failed workers spectacularly” with a straight face?

If any industry has not failed the workers, it’s the tech industry.

The idea that some union rep can negotiate a better outcome for me than I can is, frankly, pretty laughable.

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#236

Post by quotemstr »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #192
jakelazaroff wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's use Facebook as an example. The median employee salary is $240,000 [1], but Facebook makes an average of $1,620,000 in revenue per employee [2]. Why is it okay for a company to extract a so much more money from an employee than they pay them, but not okay for employees to band together to get paid what they're worth? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-median-pay-240000-2... [2] https://www.businessins…

This is the wrong number. The average revenue per employee isn't what determines a wage, even when the employees are fully interchangeable: it's the marginal revenue brought in by each extra employee.

One of the persistent sources of economic misunderstanding is the difficulty of marginal thinking. It's frequently counterintuitive and leads to a false sense of injustice, e.g., "If teachers are so important, why are they paid so little?"

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#237

Post by [deleted] »

username90 wrote: post #178
tomtheelder wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live at the absolute _extreme_ of capital power over labor power. Unions can certainly do harm, and you are right that they shouldn't be seen as a pure and irreproachable force for good, but small anecdotes about individual bad decisions made by unions are not useful in discussions about this. In fact, they play to the already ridiculously anti-union sentiment that the vast majority of Americans (this article is a…

> We live at the absolute _extreme_ of capital power over labor power. No we don't, that is called slavery.

[deleted]

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#238

Post by unapologetic »

bob1029 wrote: post #5

I read all of this as "Major union seeks to extract rent from an additional sector". I agree that putting developers on death marches is antithetical to everything that is human, but it's not like you don't have options in this industry... Tech work isn't like coal mining where your health is legitimately at risk on a daily basis, and where the number of alternative options available to the average worker is low to n…

> Tech work isn't like coal mining where your health is legitimately at risk on a daily basis

The way the game industry drives people is absolutely devastating to your health.

> Anyone who works in tech on one of these salaries, and then turns around to complain about their collective rights... It all just feels incredibly childish to me.

I mean, if we want to start insulting people for having really dumb opinions we can go that route.

Personally I don't think people who want to fight for their standard of living are being "childish".

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#239

Post by unapologetic »

reaperducer wrote: post #48
bob1029 wrote: post #5

I read all of this as "Major union seeks to extract rent from an additional sector". I agree that putting developers on death marches is antithetical to everything that is human, but it's not like you don't have options in this industry... Tech work isn't like coal mining where your health is legitimately at risk on a daily basis, and where the number of alternative options available to the average worker is low to n…

I read all of this as "Major union seeks to extract rent from an additional sector". All the video game industry has to do is to give its workers better treatment than they would get under union stewardship. Problem solved. But I expect video games will follow the path of many other industries, and keep beating their mules until the mules revolt. It's a lesson that has played out publicly hundreds of times over the l…

Apparently if you just pay people a bit more and give them free lunch that's enough to placate people to the point they regard the very notion of collective bargaining as 'childish'.

Re: Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers

#240

Post by unapologetic »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #201
jakelazaroff wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's use Facebook as an example. The median employee salary is $240,000 [1], but Facebook makes an average of $1,620,000 in revenue per employee [2]. Why is it okay for a company to extract a so much more money from an employee than they pay them, but not okay for employees to band together to get paid what they're worth? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-median-pay-240000-2... [2] https://www.businessins…

1. Using revenue comparison is incorrect. Profit is more complicated because you have to add back in compensation (and if necessary be able to know when r&d comp is capitalized and be able to break out r&d versus sg&a if you only talking about comp for particular groups of employees) but it is the correct per-employee stat to compare. 2. Median employee salary is wrong, you should look at average salary if you are co…

That sounds insanely bad.

Why should they get 40% margins? Form a union, demand more money.

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