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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#351

Post by naiveprogrammer »

dangus wrote: post #2

> That dynamic doesn’t reflect who we are as a company, how we interact, how we make decisions, or where we need to go. We believe that in many ways it would set us back, and that the us vs. them binary already has. What a shameful statement. Kickstarter has a so-so 3.6 on Glassdoor, and a sub-50% CEO approval rating. A lot of reviews talk about a secretive, insulated management group. You don’t see companies with 4.…

Sometimes I wonder if in some instances a low approval rating is endogenous to the company's employee makeup. I work in the HE sector and I can tell you that the lowest levels of student satisfaction comes from departments or disciplines comprising of mostly people complaining about society, yadayadyada

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#352

Post by claudiawerner »

aty268 wrote: post #302
claudiawerner wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being easy to do does not mean that it should be expected or usual to do - and even then, if it wasn't easy to do for just a single person in the company, they now have another layer of protection against that. Not every employee lives in the same personal circumstance.

Their headquarters is in New York, not some island in the middle of nowhere. Ignoring that point, if the employees really are working from somewhere there are NO other tech jobs, then that would be their fault. They took the risk in moving / raising a family in that area relying on a single company to pay them the salaries they want. The price is slightly below average industry pay. Is that a call to unionize? Nope.

>if the employees really are working from somewhere there are NO other tech jobs, then that would be their fault.

I can't see how it is their fault. Not everyone can afford to live in particular places. You talk about risk, but risk is in fact what is prized - the CEO benefits because they took the risk in starting the company. The CEO is compensated for that risk. Why aren't the employees compensated for their own risk?

>The price is slightly below average industry pay. Is that a call to unionize? Nope.

It can be. Unionization isn't only about salary, it's about maintaining that level of salary, and other benefits. There are many reasons to unionize, which apply to every worker: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22357492

The owner of the company puts as much effort as possible into increasing the duration and intensity of work for a lower wage, providing they maintain the value desired. The worker, likewise, puts as much effort as possible into reducing the duration and intensity of work, and bargaining for a higher wage. Unions make this push and pull more symmetrical.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#353

Post by frandroid »

dmix wrote: post #310
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also possible that some organizations have a high concentration of folks who have a particular viewpoint on unions, regardless of whether they're being treated poorly or not. For example, Vox's newsroom unionized, even though I would suppose that they are likely treated better than most journalists -- at least to the extent the business' economics allow. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case with Kickstart…

I get the impression a lot of tech companies aren't doing it out of particular absolute need for such a strong a hammer, but because they can and it suits their ideology for legitimately bad stuff they see happening in other industries. It always made 100x more sense to me on some factory floor in the early 20th century than it does in a tech startup like environment in 2020, plus some labour jobs in between. I can j…

> thousands of additional mandatory meetings

eyeroll

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#354

Post by carapace »

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.

Since we're all trotting out anecdotes...

I knew a guy who came to work at Google and didn't get a laptop for two weeks. No unions were involved.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#355

Post by derrick_jensen »

Barrin92 wrote: post #321
dmix wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the impression a lot of tech companies aren't doing it out of particular absolute need for such a strong a hammer, but because they can and it suits their ideology for legitimately bad stuff they see happening in other industries. It always made 100x more sense to me on some factory floor in the early 20th century than it does in a tech startup like environment in 2020, plus some labour jobs in between. I can j…

>It always made 100x more sense to me on some factory floor in the early 20th century than it does in a tech startup like environment in 2020. Why does that make more sense? The point of unionization is collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is effective whether you have 30 rockstar ninja developers or blue collar workers on a factory floor. In either case the collective action helps amplifying the workforce's…

Early 20th century predates OSHA and most federal labor regulations in general. Its not that collective bargaining in the abstract is worth less, but there are far more federal guarantees.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#356

Post by HeroOfAges »

lexs wrote: post #327
HeroOfAges wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...support and community management roles..." are less scalable? Does this mean companies are finding it more difficult to fill community management roles than developer roles? Also, what do you mean by "no less valuable"? I don't think you can have a company who's product is software without developers. You do not, however need community managers. You make an interesting point: I do wonder if those in "soft skill"…

Kickstarters product is not software though, it's a platform, so support and community management probably does play a fairly substantial role.

Hmm... If I worked as customer support at Tesla, I would not expect to be compensated, or frankly valued the same as say an electrical engineer at Tesla. And really, isn't community management just another word for customer support?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#357

Post by apexalpha »

_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…

This seems like a cartoonishly simple respresentation of what a union can do.

Why would one have no incentive to excel? Our union creates entire promotion matrixes for excelling employees.

Comparing it to a prison... Are you a worker or a shill for corporate?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#358

Post by pathseeker »

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.

>and the very wealthy often mitigate their risk by pushing it onto the government.

No they don't. Not even in the wall-street bailouts did shareholders get money from the government.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#359

Post by toasterlovin »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #338
calderarrow wrote: post #235

Coming from a public accounting background, I’ve seen a variety of businesses. Somewhat obviously, I’ve seen some be successful with unions and others be successful without, which makes sense, as unions are neither inherently good nor bad. They are a tool which can change the power dynamic and incentive structure of workers and employers throughout an organization, but there is nothing inherent about having a union t…

I would think that in well run ethical companies the relationship with unions would also be harmonious. That’s at least how it works in Germany with unions like IG Metall. Seems to me that problems mostly arise when management becomes unreasonable.

Or when the union leadership becomes unreasonable.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#360

Post by creaghpatr »

erik998 wrote: post #260
_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…

Those were my initial feelings as well. I guess the issue comes down to focusing on software development as a skill and having that skill rewarded in manner you can count on. Our industry is really similar to actors. They have SAG and their guild negotiates with the MPAA. So every studio needs to belong to MPAA. Every year they negotiate the daily/weekly minimum rates for actors with SAG. They are pretty flexible wit…

Also, several of these companies like Apple, Netflix, and Amazon already deal with those unions as content producers.
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