Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by wang_li » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

unapologetic wrote: post #347

wang_li wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also the historical union attitude towards scab labour is another way to prevent this. You mean violence? This is one of the reasons many people don't like unions.

Yes, I do mean violence. Employers have also heavily utilized violence. Then they turned to the law and misinformation. Violence is a last resort.

> Employers have also heavily utilized violence.

According to Wikipedia (not definitive I know) anti-union violence ended in the 1950s. Justifying current day violence with cites to events 70 years ago is absurd.

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

#392

Post by friendlybus » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

unapologetic wrote: post #340

friendlybus wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These utopian goals turn into dystopias.

They don't. They exist all over and work fine.

Except for all the times they don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Trade_Un...

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/20...

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tsg3e/e...

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

#393

Post by friendlybus » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

midnightclubbed wrote: post #378

friendlybus wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key engineers who left Ferrari in '61 became the key engineers that lifted Lamborghini into existence. They didn't start a union and stepped away from deaths of Ferrari drivers and verbal abuse to start something new with Lamborghini. Both companies survived and no unions were started. https://www.gptoday.net/en/news/f1/207607/history-ferrari-an... Disgruntled employees are the birth of something new, not a call…

Both Ferrari and Lamborghini are unionized. Indeed the financing that helped start Lamborghini in 1963 was contingent on there being a workers union. I don't understand your point.

Lamborghini wouldn't exist had those five engineers unionized at Ferrari instead of leaving.

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

#394

Post by friendlybus » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #373

friendlybus wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to replace Steam, they have 80 million active users from Fortnite alone. Steam has 90 million active users. Were they to compete with Steam properly they would crush Steam's store feature set. The Epic store is still under-developed compared to Steam by a lot. Regardless of their perceived intent the entire point is that the little guy is being rewarded and the system works even if it appears 'evil'.

So this is an argument for trickle-down economics within an industry, except used to rationalize fighting unionization, instead of increased taxation.

This is an argument that workers are supported. I make no grand economic philosophy claim.

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

#395

Post by yibg » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #367

yibg wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should there be a direct correlation between company profit and salary? If a company is losing money should employees pay the company?

They already do as their equity comp loses value. And the management can, by taking smaller salaries.

Sure, and you can tie the two together more with higher equity component. But the argument here is that Facebook should pay engineers more because they make a lot of money. My point is, then should a company that doesn’t make as much money (which is most) pay their employees less? Or in the cases of companies that don’t make money, not pay their employees at all?

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

#396

Post by friendlybus » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

unapologetic wrote: post #360

friendlybus wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advocating for violence is the one thing you can't do with free speech in the West. Everybody apologizes for that.

Incorrect. Advocating for direct violent action is illegal. Indirectly, saying that violence can be justifiable depending on circumstance, etc... all legal.

You supported your statement that scabs should be physically stopped by advocating for violence. I don't see how you get out of this.

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

#397

Post by claudeganon » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #353

unapologetic wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: Large segments of the american population don't even real realize they have foolishly internalized decades of anti-union propaganda. They just think they are smarter/better/more rational. I disagree. I think you have just eaten up the propaganda pushed by billionaires. There is an entire industry that is dedicated to pushing anti-union propaganda.

The union bosses do it to themselves: Misuse of union funds and a union boss passing over union workers for private workers because they cost less for the job. Utopian unions don't happen. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/20...

Yup, and every person on welfare eats caviar and drives a Cadillac.

The fact that this is your go to story on unions vs. the millions of well-protected and empowered workers across the world is just more evidence of how internalized this propaganda is in the US.

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

#398

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #390

midnightclubbed wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For most of gaming's history it has been a niche product without mainstream appeal Really? So the Atari boom was niche? 500,000 arcade machines sold in 1982 was niche? 30 million Nintendo Entertainment systems in American homes was niche? It hasn't been a fledgling industry by any reasonable measure for at least 25 years if not much longer. How many artists, testers and game designers do you know that moved into fi…

I know one in finance and one in arch viz. There are interviews of Bethesda artists looking for work on the side and quoting generous and lazy deadlines for the work. The customer is amazed they can do in two weeks what takes other people a month or more. Games is not in a position of minimizing all risk. What industry is? If you want a safe job get into defense contracting. Go back to university and retrain like eve…

Hacker News is not immune to the vicissitudes of society at large, and there is similar discontent against tech employers in non-game industry as well. There has been both sentiment in support of unionization at large tech megacorps like Google [0], and (non-union-related) sentiment against predatory startups that give misleading promises while forcing employees to assume both greater risk and lesser reward. [1] Not to mention there seems to be less hero worship of founders than there was in the past. [2]

There is a generalized dissatisfaction that the wealth generated by tech is not adequately being reached by its workers. Union advocacy is only a component of it. Tech might pay better than other industries, but its workers are just as affected by costs in housing and healthcare, just as everyone else.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923085

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868022

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21973333

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

#399

Post by unapologetic » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #392

unapologetic wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. They exist all over and work fine.

Except for all the times they don't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Trade_Un... https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/20... https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tsg3e/e...

explainlikeimfive, for when we really want an intellectual discussion.

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

#400

Post by friendlybus » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #397

friendlybus wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The union bosses do it to themselves: Misuse of union funds and a union boss passing over union workers for private workers because they cost less for the job. Utopian unions don't happen. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/20...

Yup, and every person on welfare eats caviar and drives a Cadillac. The fact that this is your go to story on unions vs. the millions of well-protected and empowered workers across the world is just more evidence of how internalized this propaganda is in the US.

I googled it in 30 seconds. There are more too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Trade_Un...

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tsg3e/e...

Discrediting single instances of bad union behaviour is an endless game, there's a lot of history to draw from.