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Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

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Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#501

Post by ksr_throwaway »

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…

Sometimes it's not all about money. People in the bay area may not understand that most people working at Kickstarter truly believe in the company's mission. The money is not great and we've been willing to accept that to feel like we're making a positive change in the world. Unfortunately upper management has used this (as well as Kickstarter's reputation) as a bargaining chip to treat employees poorly.

Source: I work at Kickstarter

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#502

Post by wolco »

yibg wrote: post #469
commandlinefan wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actors are unionized (or “guildized”, which is basically the same thing), but their pay varies wildly and seems to be more or less relative to their objective value.

That’s a good example. I don’t know much about it, what benefits does the union in this case provide that isn’t achievable without one?

Before the actors union stars were made by a studio and forced to work for that studio for long hours and little pay. If you spoke up you were out. Lucy Ball was smart enough to start her own studio only to see it get sold a few years later.

If they didn't have a union movies would look different. Maybe better for the customer because you get to see your favorite star in 10x more movies.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#503

Post by leto_ii »

yibg wrote: post #439
elicash wrote: post #379

1. Why do tech workers need a union? If you want to improve your workplace, you have additional leverage to fight for changes if you're in a union. There's often very little you can do alone. This might be things like pay, or it might be something else entirely. 2. But aren't tech workers elite coddled rich kids who are lucky to make what they receive? I mean, no. But even if so, high pay doesn't stop athletes from j…

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

> Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy?

I've seen that other commenters have already pointed out that the two are not incompatible.

However, with the risk of getting some downvotes, I would like to challenge the primacy of meritocracy itself.

I don't mean to say that people shouldn't do a good job at work or that they shouldn't try to continuously improve. But I think that an environment and a mentality of continuous competition between individuals is not necessarily beneficial. For one it can cause tensions, frustration, anger, alienation at an individual level, but I think in the long run it can actually harm the company itself.

I'm curious what you guys think about this point of view.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#504

Post by nelsnelson »

paulddraper wrote: post #489
yibg wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

Unions can negotiate things other than salary, like health benefits, paid leave, policy issues, etc. (Though in practice you're correct: unions rarely exist for jobs with more individualized pay.)

It is worth mentioning that if the Senate bill version of Medicare for All becomes the law of the land, then previously employer-funded healthcare becomes one less thing for union leaders to have to negotiate with employers.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#505

Post by wongarsu »

yibg wrote: post #469
commandlinefan wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actors are unionized (or “guildized”, which is basically the same thing), but their pay varies wildly and seems to be more or less relative to their objective value.

That’s a good example. I don’t know much about it, what benefits does the union in this case provide that isn’t achievable without one?

Two examples of actor union rules that come to mind are employers paying for journey to location of its more than a couple of miles, and the (very strict) rules about filming nude scenes (only essential people on set, people standing by with bathrobes etc)

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#506

Post by majormajor »

karatestomp wrote: post #425
majormajor wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For another, despite our compensation we're still much weaker at the bargaining table, individually, than our employers. See how casually so many of them reject applicants just to make sure "false positives" don't get through the hiring pipeline. I'm not saying they shouldn't do that—it's not my point—but it's definitely a sign of who's setting the terms of these interactions, and where the power is. And it'd be in…

My point is just that, despite high comp at some companies, rejecting a candidate is still considered a very "cheap" move from employers' perspective (so: their labor negotiating position is still strong, despite high comp)—I explicitly wasn't trying to get into the correctness of that sort of policy or the environment that creates it, beyond its probably not being viable if tech companies' negotiating positions were…

From (non-technical) management's perspective it isn't that cheap, though. It's more features still not getting delivered. It's less velocity.

It's only seen as cheaper than a bad hire because technical management already has a big say in setting the hiring bar.

If you had corporate management who didn't listen to engineering and didn't think they needed to, who view it as replacable cogs, you wouldn't get away with that hiring bar. (And indeed, non-tech-driven companies tend to have more "traditional" engineer hiring processes.)

Sometimes they may look similar, but there's a big difference here between processes that filter down a big mass of seen-as-interchangable-pieces to one hire and ones that often result in no hire.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#508

Post by SkyBelow »

zip1234 wrote: post #190
mason55 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There is nothing inherent in unions that make them operate like that.

I had a uncle that was a bricklayer and moved somewhere that bricklayers were in demand so that he could get paid more. He was not a union member. When the union found out he was doing the same work for slightly less, they sent some people over to threaten his life if he didn't join union or leave. He left.

There are many businesses that, if I were to try to undercut them, would send tax payer paid police to harm me. They wouldn't even give so much as a warning before I would find myself significantly harmed and likely enslaved for a number of years.

Should we do away with businesses because of these bad actors?

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#509

Post by thu2111 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #280
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…

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…

If it helps, I'll say it for you.

From the article:

But in 2018, a heated disagreement broke out between employees and management about whether to leave a project called “Always Punch Nazis” on the platform, according to reporting in Slate. When Breitbart said the project violated Kickstarter’s terms of service by inciting violence, management initially planned to remove the project, but then reversed its decision after protest from employees.

Following the controversy, employees announced their intentions to unionize with OPEIU Local 153 in March 2019.

If this story is accurate Kickstarter employees aren't unionising because of bad treatment by management but because management wanted to stop them badly treating other people. If this story isn't accurate then Kickstarter and this new union need to loudly sue Vox right now because this story makes them look like hateful extremists.

This is especially true because Kickstarter management gave in to their employees demands. Now they're unionising anyway. For what? To protect the right for the hard left to encourage violent extremism against their political opponents? What kind of union is this?

In case anyone is in any doubt what "punching Nazis" means the project is here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/282505033/always-punch-...

It says very explicitly their definition of "Nazi" includes anyone with "anti-immigrant ideologies" or really anyone who isn't woke.

Kickstarter's management look like utter fools. How did they not crush this right at the start? They have every right to fire every single one of their employees who objected to the original decision.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#510

Post by scarejunba »

yibg wrote: post #431
Balero wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience I have had with UK unions is very different from this, and the other descriptions of unions in the US. I only had a few interactions with them (in a union capacity, the rep was a normal worker as well). These were things like: Getting some new equipment for the break room (kettle and mugs), pushing some new health and safety process (developed alongside the company), and then the yearly meeting, which…

That sounds like a much better relationship. But in that case isn’t the role of the Union almost redundant? I mean what’s stopping the workers and management from just having a dialog without a union? Another thing is I don’t want the same X% increase as everyone else. What if I’m better or worse employee? Why should I get the same output for variable input?

Same reason that when you and your friends reserve dinner at Hakkasan you don't all go and call Hakkasan - it's better for everyone if the group manifests as one. Your rep is your designated guy in charge of following up on your requests.

I'm not pro-union but the use case is meaningful.

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