Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#171

Post by NhanH » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

mempko wrote: post #128

umvi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy is cool, until we look at companies. Then it's dictatorships as the norm. Democracy is a horribly inefficient system of government. Its only redeeming quality is that it seems effective at (so far) deterring tyranny and abuse of power. However, like I said, it's horribly inefficient. Changes that are easy to make under a dictatorship can be extremely hard to make under a democracy. Not exactly a quality y…

Democracy is also a system that produces BETTER decisions. Sure tyranny can make decisions "efficiently" but that's not that great when those decisions are terrible. Democracy: Fewer macro, more micro, better decisions Command-Control: More macro, fewer micro, terrible decisions. EDIT: Another way to think of democracy is "distributed decision making" vs command-control which is "centralized decision making". When I…

Non action is a decision. In general, I don't think there is even a possibility to ever make less decisions. A situation happens, and a decision needs to be made to resolved it, non-action is also just one of the possible decision.

I don't think I have ever heard, study or read about the claim of democracy making better decision (at the least, the common refrain about tyranny of the majority comes to mind), so I will have to ask for justifications of that statement.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#172

Post by zipwitch » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #92

_sbrk wrote: post #68

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 ca…

A friend of mine worked as a developer at defense contractor with mostly union employees. One time they moved him to a different cubicle. Due to union work rules he literally had to wait two days for a union electrician to come by and plug his desktop computer into the wall socket. Just ridiculous.

Was that "union rules" or "the way the company had agreed to comply with their agreement with the union"? Because 'work to rule' can be a double-edged sword, and in my experience companies just love to blame their own chosen behavior on the union. "We have to fire you if you're late five times this quarter, because the union" really means "after we frequently and arbitrarily abused employees under the excuse of 'attendance' the union insisted we have a uniform attendance standards and this is what we came up with".

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#173

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

> "inherently adversarial"

Given that the employer-employee relationship--or indeed any vendor-customer relationship--is already inherently adversarial, and its power balance is skewed in favor of the employer for everyone but the most highly-skilled of laborers, one might naturally expect that laborers might cartelize to improve their bargaining position.

The "us versus them" binary arises as a consequence of typical corporation management structure. One of the best ways to avoid it is by giving the employees an actual stake in the success of the company as a whole. Pay them in stock, or give bonuses based on meeting the company goals. Employees with zero stake are more likely to find any lever they can use to pry more of the value that they provide to the company out of its owners.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#174

Post by brosinante » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #141

brosinante wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"forcing" != "we voted on something"

I'd imagine the 37 people who voted nay didn't even want to take a vote on the matter. If me and a friend come up to you and say "let's all take a vote to see if I can take your wallet", and you vote "no", it doesn't mean you aren't getting your wallet taken anyway.

Depends. Did you, your friend and I willingly joined a group of "wallet carriers"?

Are we all affected by wallet-carrying management?

Do our choices in wallet-carrying communally affect this wallet-carrying enterprise?

Is corporate wallet-carrying management trying to convince us to carry wallets for longer than the usual 8 hours or wallet-carrying?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#175

Post by sonofhans » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

mempko wrote: post #128

umvi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy is cool, until we look at companies. Then it's dictatorships as the norm. Democracy is a horribly inefficient system of government. Its only redeeming quality is that it seems effective at (so far) deterring tyranny and abuse of power. However, like I said, it's horribly inefficient. Changes that are easy to make under a dictatorship can be extremely hard to make under a democracy. Not exactly a quality y…

Democracy is also a system that produces BETTER decisions. Sure tyranny can make decisions "efficiently" but that's not that great when those decisions are terrible. Democracy: Fewer macro, more micro, better decisions Command-Control: More macro, fewer micro, terrible decisions. EDIT: Another way to think of democracy is "distributed decision making" vs command-control which is "centralized decision making". When I…

I expect you're being downvoted because your statement is so obviously wrong. Democracies have consistently made horrifying decisions. Take a read through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#176

Post by lexs » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

wellthisisgreat wrote: post #117

Wow this really sad, provided Kickstarter is one of the nicest places to work at and their public benefit corporation was not empty words. These people ruined a really nice NYC company for everyone around. Anyone running their company who thought of making the workplace a bit different will expect the kind of crowd from this photo to show up and implode it. One thing is if the conditions were bad, there was insane ov…

What exactly is "ruined" about Kickstarter when the employees unionize?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#177

Post by michaelt » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

Willson50 wrote: post #82

zchrykng wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is literally how democracies work.

Most democracies include, at the very least, a bunch of hand-wringing about oppression of minorities, though.

It would be unusual in the extreme for a modern western democracy that was 75% christian to force the 25% minority to convert.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#178

Post by mempko » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

kirstenbirgit wrote: post #15

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

Ask highly paid actors why they are in a union.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#179

Post by erik998 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #79

How do unions operate in organizations where voluntary turnover is relatively high? A small % of people in tech stay at one company for more than a couple of years. I guess there's nothing about a union that stops you from voluntarily quitting for something else in that case, other than paying whatever fee you pay for the time you do stay?

The model you are asking about is similar to SAG-AFTRA. This how actors work. This is the preferred model. Kickstarter employees should have used this as an opportunity to push for something like that.

The reason SAG started was because production companies made an agreement amongst themselves not to bid competitively for talent. (Remember that just ocurred in tech...)

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#180

Post by WilliamEdward » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

jdkee wrote: post #100

_sbrk wrote: post #68

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 ca…

Millions of people across the U.S. benefit from collective bargaining, such as increased wages, health benefits and retirement security, yet one anecdotal off-topic post gets upvoted.

Is there any wonder why this is the case on a site where business owners and wannabe business owners congregate? They don't benefit from unions after all, some even hate them.