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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#61

Post by maire »

echelon wrote: post #3

I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly. The only downside I can think of is ageism, but then again, I have colleagues in their 50s and 60s where I work. But I suppose this isn't universal. (I'm in Atlanta and we have a lot of older workers. Age doesn't seem…

The bigger issue is going from Salaried to Hourly employees. I assume (but don't know) that you need to be hourly in order to unionize.

I have been at a bunch of companies that reclassified employees from salaried to hourly. This always came after a single employee filed a lawsuit. It almost never impacted developers, sometimes impacted QA and often impacted other development support employees. I have never seen an impacted employee like it because they could not participate in stock options. I was only at companies with lucrative stock options.

If a company had poor stock options then I could see that somebody might like the change.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#63

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

dangus wrote: post #5
echelon wrote: post #3

I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly. The only downside I can think of is ageism, but then again, I have colleagues in their 50s and 60s where I work. But I suppose this isn't universal. (I'm in Atlanta and we have a lot of older workers. Age doesn't seem…

Just look at their employee reviews. The management there seems toxic. I implore you to also think twice about the way in which you are demonizing unions. Sure, some unions aren’t the best, but what you’re saying is 100% discounting the benefits that a union can bring to employees. Union dues can more than pay for themselves in wage negotiation. They can restrict overwork, unpaid overtime (see the special salaried ov…

>junior graphic designer

I don't think anyone says tech employee and is referring to graphic designers/anyone in that area.

99% sure anyone who hears tech employee is thinking software development.

EDIT: How on Earth can anyone downvote this statement? If you ask 10 people to name 10 tech companies, not one of them is going to pick a game studio.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#64

Post by ditonal »

echelon wrote: post #3

I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly. The only downside I can think of is ageism, but then again, I have colleagues in their 50s and 60s where I work. But I suppose this isn't universal. (I'm in Atlanta and we have a lot of older workers. Age doesn't seem…

Why do people on HN constantly claim that companies are right to consider “a false negative is better than a false positive”, act like insane interview gauntlets are normal and desired, AND claim that people can easily change jobs? It’s not true.

I live in the SF Bay Area, have worked as a SWE for 10+ years including at top companies like Google, and changing jobs is NOT easy and I’m sick of the implication it is.

There are also a LOT of younger kids on HN who have never worked through a recession.

Finally, just because you make an ok salary doesn’t mean a political voice is worthless. Why do doctors have the AMA?

Engineers desperately need to stop boxing themselves out of the discussions, we absolutely need to organize, badly.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#65

Post by celdon25 »

echelon wrote: post #3

I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly. The only downside I can think of is ageism, but then again, I have colleagues in their 50s and 60s where I work. But I suppose this isn't universal. (I'm in Atlanta and we have a lot of older workers. Age doesn't seem…

> I really don't understand this. A career in software is one of the most pampered and lucrative ones I can think of. Due to the shortage of software engineers, we can go anywhere and get a job instantly.

There are dozens and dozens of threads on this site about the cancerous software engineering interview techniques in widespread use in the industry. Despite having 15 years of experience and a lot of accomplishments under my belt, I still had a bad streak a few years back where I had to interview 30 times before getting an offer.

So I have to say it's a fallacy to make this kind of claim.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#66

Post by awb »

dv_dt wrote: post #43
stronglikedan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful Assuming all of the risk is useful. I understand the point, but it's undercut by that woefully inaccurate jab.

Workers assume risk taking on an opportunity cost with their employers, and the very wealthy often mitigate their risk by pushing it onto the government.

But the point is this part: "for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars" is irrelevant. Who has done this besides criminals?

It all depends on your definition of "useful", but anyone who's made that much money legally has probably put in a bunch of work (or put in work to educate themselves to be able to make good decisions), or assumed a lot of risk in an investment.

There's definitely something to be said for reducing income inequality, but we don't have to assume the ultra-rich have "done absolutely nothing that is useful" in order to be pro-workers rights. Capitalism is designed to produce ultra-rich individuals.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#67

Post by Someone1234 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #40
Someone1234 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case because the US Government and industry has spent the last 150 years crushing unions and weakening them. Anti-union propaganda is rampant. It could be the case in the US. Having a single union is a good place to start.

> That's not the case because the US Government and industry has spent the last 150 years crushing unions and weakening them. Anti-union propaganda is rampant. Well, no, the fact that almost all unions in the US use exclusive representation contracts (compared to Europe, where such contracts are range from "unheard-of in most industries" to "illegal") is not due to anti-union propaganda.

Unions being weak in the US is due to anti-union propaganda though, which as you likely know was the point I was making. Very few industries have even a single union let alone competition.

Complaining about the lack of competition when union representation has been decimated, seems like pointless bikeshedding. I'll happily talk about the lack of union representation, but "unions bad because of [trivial complaint]" is a distraction.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#68

Post by _sbrk »

I worked in a union shop once, as a summer intern.

Every day, we were told to be in the break room at 7:59am to begin promptly at the 8am bell. By 4:30 or 4:45pm, everyone was back in there, waiting for the clock to hit 5pm.

One day, I needed to connect two PCs together, which was approved by boss as they would be isolated from the network. So, being the diligent type, I went off and found some network cards and a cable to do this.

About the time I had one PC opened up and was installing the NIC, one of the local IT guys dropped by and told me "You can't do that." 'Why not?', I asked. "That's not your job.", he replies.

Not "you're not qualified", not "you're not taking the proper ESD protection steps" (was wearing a grounding tape strap), etc. This boiled down to the union job classification, which said that I couldn't open up a PC to put in a network card.

Unions, in my experience, exist to help keep mediocre, unmotivated employees employed. One has no incentive to excel, as promotions are based on years "served", much like prison.

I got my degree, went to work for a start-up where ambition and taking on responsibility are appreciated and rewarded. I never looked back...

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#69

Post by fistfucker3000 »

kirstenbirgit wrote: post #15

What's the benefit of being in a union for highly specialized tech workers that are very in demand?

You can actually stop your company from doing shady or unethical things. This can mean holding a person in power accountable to sexual harassment, preventing your company from selling user data to a shady third party, demanding better working conditions for contractors at your company (think apple and foxconn).

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#70

Post by throwanem »

zchrykng wrote: post #57
ughitsaaron wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, New York is not a right-to-work state.

So you are fine with the majority forcing the minority to support something they don't want to support? Never going to get behind that notion myself.

The short name for that notion is "democracy".
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