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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

#451

Post by dragonwriter »

strbean wrote: post #343
jahaja wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Under the FMLA, most new parents can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave without the threat of job loss. That’s most parents, not all parents. Employees qualify for leave under the FMLA when they’ve worked 1,240 hours over 12 months at a company that employs more than 50 people. With part-time workers and small business employees left in the lurch, only about 60 percent of American workers are entitled to leave unde…

Not to mention that with at-will employment this is essentially a moot point. If you qualify for FMLA and take paternal leave, they can still just fire you "just because we felt like it".

That's not really true with the civil standard of proof, which is preponderance of the evidence. If you can provide any evidence which tends to suggest that you were fired for an improper reason, the employer must overcome that with greater evidence that the firing was actually made for a reason that is not prohibited.

It's not like criminal law where violations have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, so merely presenting a plausible alternative consistent with (even if not the most likely conclusion from) the evidence is adequate to avoid liability.

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

#452

Post by Can_Not »

CydeWeys wrote: post #408
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…

Your comment is really rubbing me the wrong way. How is it "childish" to band together and fight for better working conditions? Because you aren't literally dying in mines you have no right to demand improvements? Your bar is that low?

That commenter committed fallacy of relative privation.

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

#453

Post by Frondo »

friendlybus wrote: post #427
claudeganon wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a logic error masquerading as an argument. Discrediting single instances of x’s behavior is an endless game, therefore all instances of x are bad. You haven’t provided anything inherent to unions to discredit them that wouldn’t be true of any other form of social organization, from governments to corporations. There’s more history of unions winning protections, better wages, and improved quality of life…

I don't mind unionizing factory work on institutionalized sports, even though that can go poorly in some cases. There are some industries that have finite requirements and no amount of union bending can change the nature of the industry. There's only a few games that employ enough people to become an institution that requires worker protection. Star Citizen, Blizzard, Riot Games are institutions in their own right. T…

The game industry will do just fine with a union presence. It won't die.

Solo game developers will feel no union pressure, nor will small teams.

If there are triple-A studios that are so fragile that they'll go under with their employees getting better working conditions, I will shed no tear for those. I will shed no tear for any employer whose continued business success depends on working staff 80, 120 hours a week, in the game industry or any other.

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

#454

Post by Ericson2314 »

mc32 wrote: post #310
reaperducer wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies to pretty much everything in life — The more you put in, the more you get out.

Hmm. Ok, but let’s not sell it as an egalitarian organization where we all have similar benefits from the get go.

With the huge decline of unions there's no way the old ways are set in stone. A freshly unionized field should take care to make sure new members don't loose the politics and enthusiasm, leading to decline a generation later.

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

#455

Post by CydeWeys »

commandlinefan wrote: post #22
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…

> it's not like you don't have options There's a catch-22 there, though - the more times you exercise your option (to move to a different job), the harder it is to exercise it the next time. Too many job changes is considered a negative.

It's not the total number but the frequency. If your average tenure is around two years then you should be totally fine. Anything between 1-2 years might be fine or might raise some questions. Below one year, then yeah, it might start looking bad.

If you think the total number is a problem, just start dropping the oldest jobs off your resume, and don't list university graduation years.

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

#456

Post by CydeWeys »

midnightclubbed wrote: post #406
CydeWeys wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is unsympathetic to the millions of creative professionals who deserve credit for their work. It's about a lot more than just a list of names. Authors get credit for their books. Everyone who works on a film gets credit for their contribution. This goes into your CV, resume, IMDB, whatever. It's important.

I understand but I don't see the industry going back to boxes 30 page with instruction books. Having an industry approved crediting scheme would be wonderful but for the most part the only people viewing it is going to be people on the credits. No games industry recruiter looks at a resume and verify names against the in-game credits (or even IMDB) - they will check against references and people they know that you ma…

It's not just about having a name listed in an instruction book or in an end roll, and never has been. You know where most TV/film credits are actually seen? On IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and other sites. I can go look up my cousin who works in the film industry and see every film he's ever worked on: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4253724/ That's the primary way that film credits are consumed, and it would be great if we had something similar in our industry (the closest we get is a list of open source contributions e.g. on your GitHub profile). But, for example, I've contributed code to Google Cloud Platform, Android, and the Google Search app, but you'd never know it unless you worked at Google and looked through the monorepo very closely. The closest I can get would be to write my own credits page, but how would anyone verify that?

So it's fine if you don't care, but plenty of other people do care about getting credit for their work, and to them it is quite important. This describes most people in many industries. So yeah, it is important.

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

#457

Post by Ericson2314 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #311
reaperducer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 My observation has been the opposite. I believe because the unions have an interest in increasing their membership, not letting it atrophy and decrease due to time and deaths. A union that doesn't have a growing membership is a union that will disappear. In fact, some unions I've seen ha…

The only union I know much about is IBEW. My dad's family is huge, and everyone in it is an electrician basically. The way it seems to work is that a contractor wants N number of electricians for a contract, so the first N electricians in the queue are laid off get dequeued and sent to work. This is a really interesting system, and I think if there were subgroups of software engineers it would pretty much work fine.…

> Only problem is, I don't see how you're going to get top engineers to join.

You appeal to their boredom. FAANG pays people to not compete more than anything. Rotation is a chance to break the monotony and actually be able to steer the ship for a change.

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

#458

Post by mc32 »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #454
mc32 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. Ok, but let’s not sell it as an egalitarian organization where we all have similar benefits from the get go.

With the huge decline of unions there's no way the old ways are set in stone. A freshly unionized field should take care to make sure new members don't loose the politics and enthusiasm, leading to decline a generation later.

Unions lost for a couple of reasons: their feet were cut out from under them via outsourcing/globalization. They didn’t/couldn’t picket moving factories overseas and both political parties were complicit in this.

Similarly the economy moved toward services and unions didn’t prepare for that.

Three unions ossified, became political and self-serving (not looking after their workers solely but looking after the org for its own sake and its bosses.)

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

#459

Post by [deleted] »

eropple wrote: post #42
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for filling me in. My question wasn’t rhetorical, and if Carmack is right that some games literally couldn’t be made without crunch time, that does seem like a good argument that it’s not a failure even if some people find it intolerable.

He's not. They could be made. They'd just cost more. The race-to-the-bottom pricing effect is not one caused by line developers and it's not caused by customers buying the games. It's caused by management and executives eating the seed corn. It's going to have to stop.

[deleted]

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

#460

Post by Can_Not »

friendlybus wrote: post #409
unapologetic wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

explainlikeimfive, for when we really want an intellectual discussion.

Attacking appearing of argument instead of it's content is a fallacy.

He should have targeted your cherry picking and hasty generalizations.
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