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

#471

Post by scaryclam » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 8:27 AM UTC

vvanders wrote: post #288

iguy wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would have cost them nothing to do proper crediting How much does this matter? (Really asking, I know nothing of this industry, nor film.) What I mean is, beyond enjoying seeing your name, does it make a big difference in landing subsequent jobs to have your name publicly listed at this size / under this heading / etc. on past work? Do companies hiring you go and check what you say against the credits, or how do…

Yes, very much so. First game I got credited on opened up a ton of doors because everything in that industry is based on what you've done and not your qualifications.

But was it the fact you were in the credits, or that you put it on your CV?

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

#472

Post by friendlybus » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 8:45 AM UTC

Can_Not wrote: post #460

friendlybus wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He should have targeted your cherry picking and hasty generalizations.

Finding sources to support my arguments is good practice. I do not have the resources to do multi-variate analysis of the problem within the scope of a hackernews thread.

The generalization about utopias is something I've lived through.

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

#473

Post by jahaja » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 8:51 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #426

unapologetic wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because brining up youth unemployment and nothing else is an honest argument about the merits of unions? It's low effort. It's not useful. It provides no evidence for the argument being put forth. Really it's not even making any sort of argument. It's just a fact presented in the hopes that people will buy a tenuous at best relationship without further insight.

So jahaja raised the question, "What do you have to lose?" (by unionizing). And in response, Kalium said, "Our industry". That is, unionization often raises costs for companies (better pay, fewer hours and more benefits cost), and those costs could result in fewer jobs. jahaja replied that "this doesn't hold up to a straight forward comparison to many European countries. If labour costs would be so detrimental to emp…

I did however say "many countries" not Europe as a whole. Since there's vast differences both in unionization and recent economic developments. There's clear and obvious reasons why for example Greece is where they are.

I mean, if unionization (and in the end high labour costs) really significantly hurt the economy and employment numbers it would be trivial to see through comparisons and we would already empirically know it.

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

#474

Post by thu2111 » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #449

midnightclubbed wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 simply an issue of respect. That's it. It's incredibly disrespectful to sweep away the efforts of workers that are responsible for the product and to pretend it didn't happen.

This is very specific to gaming though. The vast majority of people are never credited for anything. If that's the best justification for a union then it's not gonna happen.

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

#475

Post by thu2111 » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 9:36 AM UTC

unapologetic wrote: post #348

ticmasta wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Why should they get 40% margins? Form a union, demand more money. Why should they pay you more? Form the next FB and pay your employees 3x what they currently pay. Pretty ridiculous response, right?

Because if they don't then the union has the capability to severely harm the company. This is why we need unions.

I think you radically underestimate how over staffed these firms are. The only sorry of strike that could harm Facebook is if the SREs actually shut down all the servers. But you can get DevOps people anywhere and management there is technical do could easily run the firm themselves for a while. All the strikers would do is get themselves fired

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

#476

Post by friendlybus » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #453

friendlybus wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

That is the dream that we can unionize without it becoming an all-encompassing force. Hollywood has not experienced that.

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

#477

Post by uncle_j » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 12:32 PM UTC

unapologetic wrote: post #348

ticmasta wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Why should they get 40% margins? Form a union, demand more money. Why should they pay you more? Form the next FB and pay your employees 3x what they currently pay. Pretty ridiculous response, right?

Because if they don't then the union has the capability to severely harm the company. This is why we need unions.

Which is basically blackmail. Unions tend to make things worse in the long run.

If you don't like the company find a job that gives you a better deal.

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

#478

Post by uncle_j » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 12:41 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #181

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…

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…

No they are worth whatever the going rate is for their position. The market decides the salary. If programming was a unskilled job you would get supermarket salaries.

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

#479

Post by bluGill » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 12:47 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #470

bluGill wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The film unions are the perfect thing to bring up because they are the most like video games. Thus both the good and bad from those unions are likely to apply. Apply the rules for a coal miners to video game workers and the union will die quickly as workers realize the rules coal miners need are not helpful for their situation. Apply the rules for the actors union to video game workers and you have a chance of succes…

I meant in reference to the argument that “so many people want to do the job, ergo companies have little incentive to treat employees well.” The point being: the film industry has a huge potential workforce yet still manages to have functional unions.

For some definition of functional. In hollywood actors commonly should really be called waiters with an acting hobby. The union is not able to get their members a living wage.

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

#480

Post by animal531 » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #439

burntoutfire wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this obsession with credits in the game dev industry. There's no credit list in GMail for example, and yet everyone is fine with it?

The most cursory thing an employer can do is Google an prospective employee, and that will bring up title credits on games you've worked on. If you were to Google my name, for instance, as I don't have any social media presence other than LinkedIn, you only get game titles I'm in the credits of.

But it's a silly system. As a corporate worker I have no social media presence, so you won't find anything I've ever worked on.

Instead I have a resume and references which can be checked to determine if what I'm saying is true.

Now being able to do that automatically is great, which means we should just take the whole process on our own hands as software developers and create something that represents us?